One by one they are taking the towns of the North, raising their troops and manning each for a siege. The kingdom of the North is unrolling before them like a welcome mat; they would seem to be unstoppable. This is not a campaign, it is a triumphal progress. The army of the North is cheered everywhere that they march. The wet weather does not delay them; they are greeted as if they were spring itself. A brief note from Cecil to Hastings (for it seems that I am not to be trusted with news) warns us that they have taken the great city of Durham, without a shot being fired. They ordered Mass to be said in the cathedral; they threw down the Protestant prayer book and returned the altar to the right place. People flocked to be blessed and the priests blazed out in their vestments. The statues are reappearing in the shrines; the candles are lit; the good times have come again; the country will be free. They have restored the old faith in the land of the prince bishops and once again the cathedral arches have rung to the true word of God in Latin. Hundreds came to hear Mass, thousands more were told of it and are filled with joy, flocking to their own parish churches to ring the bells backwards to show that the new order is turned upside down again, running to fetch their sickles and their pitchforks, desperate to fight a war on the side of the angels. The priests who were forced on pain of death to put out the Bible where anyone could see it, as if it were a common book, but hide the holy bread, can now follow the church’s orders once again and take back the Bible into their keeping but show the holy bread to all who come to worship it. The stone altars are back; the stoups are filled once more with holy water; the churches are warm again, murmuring with prayers. Once again you can buy a Mass for the soul of a beloved; once again you can claim sanctuary. The old religion has returned and the people can have its comfort. Elizabeth’s peace and Elizabeth’s religion are tumbling about her ears together and Bess and I will fall over and over in the ruins.