Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Percy, William de
PERCY, WILLIAM de, first Baron Percy (1030?–1096), surnamed Algernon or ‘als gernons’ (with the moustaches), belonged to a Norman family which traced its descent to Mainfred, a Danish chief who settled in Normandy before the time of Rollo. The family had its chief seat at Perci, near Villedieu in the present department of La Manche, arrondissement of Saint-Lô. It is probable, though scarcely certain, that William was a younger son. His name appears as one of the barons accompanying William I in 1066 in the Dives Roll, in two lists printed in the ‘Historiæ Normanniæ Scriptores’ of Duchesne (pp. 1023, 1125), and in a sixteenth-century Cotton MS. (Julius B 12, f. 36). But none of these documents are sufficiently authentic, and the register of Whitby Abbey says he came over with William in 1067 (i.e. on William's return with his wife from Normandy). Family tradition makes William de Percy an intimate friend of the Conqueror (Metrical Chronicle of the Percy Family by William Peeris [q. v.]). An anonymous paper in the Harleian MSS. speaks of him as ‘magnus constabularius’ (No. 293, f. 35), but to neither statement can much authority be attached. Mr. E. B. de Fonblanque (Annals of the House of Percy, i. 11) infers from very slender evidence that William was one of the Norman settlers in the time of Edward the Confessor who were driven out by King Harold. William de Percy appears in Doomsday as holding eighty lordships in Yorkshire and thirty-two in Lincolnshire, and other lands in Essex and Hampshire (Doomsday Book, Record Comm. i. 46 b, 321 b, 291 b, 353 b).
On the suppression of the rebellion of Gospatric [q. v.] in 1069, Percy interceded for him with the king, and obtained his pardon and the restoration of a portion of his estates. The greater part of them, including Whitby, were, however, granted to Hugh, earl of Chester, who gave them to William de Percy. William resided on his Yorkshire estates, and built on them the four castles of Topcliffe, Spofforth, Sneaton, and Hackness.
At the request of a monk named Reinfrid, who had previously served under him in the north in 1069, William repaired the monastery of Whitby, which had been destroyed during the Danish invasion, and both he and the Earl of Chester granted lands to the new house. After Reinfrid had ceased to be abbot, and Stephen, who entered the abbey in 1078, had taken his place, William, according to an autobiography of Stephen (now among the Bodleian MSS., and printed in Dugdale's ‘Monasticon,’ 1846 edit., iii. 544–6), repented of his gifts, and sought to drive away the monks by violence. Percy's hostilities, combined with troubles from pirates, led the monks to complain to the king, who gave them the manor of Lastingham as a refuge from Percy. The persecution of the monks continued in spite of a temporary agreement which Stephen followed Percy to Normandy to secure, and Stephen and his friends by the king's command abandoned Whitby for Lastingham. Thereupon Percy was reconciled to Reinfrid, and on Reinfrid's death Percy's brother Serlo, who assumed the Benedictine habit, succeeded to the office of prior. But the peace was not permanent. Percy soon gave Everley and Staxby, which the monastery claimed, to his armour-bearer, Ralph de Everley, and subsequently deprived the monastery of the other lands which he had given it. Serlo applied to William Rufus, now king (1088), whose familiar companion he had been in youth. Rufus bade both disputants keep the peace, and gave Serlo some lands at Northfield and Hackness. There Serlo and his monks stayed until the quarrel was healed. William ultimately yielded to the monks; Ralph de Everley agreed to hold Everley jointly with the abbey, and surrendered Staxby to Percy, who regranted it to the monks. In 1095 he took the cross, and he died at Montjoie, near Jerusalem, in 1096. His body was interred there and his heart brought to the abbey of Whitby. He married a Saxon lady, Emma de Port, Lady of Semer, near Scarborough, and of other lands (‘Ex Registro Monasterii de Whitebye,’ Harl. MS. No. 692 (26) f. 235). By her he had three sons: Alan (fl. 1116), who succeeded him as second Baron Percy; Walter, and William. Alan's son William (fl. 1168), third baron, left no male issue, and the line was continued through his daughter and ultimately sole heiress Agnes, who married Josceline de Louvain. The latter was known as fourth Baron Percy.
[De Fonblanque's Annals of the House of Percy, i. 6 et seq.; Dugdale's Baronage of England, i. 269; Monasticon, 1655 edit., i. 72 et seq.; Charlton's Hist. of Whitby, i. 6 et seq.]