slain in the battle, though not, as is stated by Walsingham, by Percy’s hand: Henry Percy was captured by Sir John Montgomery, and his brother Ralph by Sir John Maxwell. Hotspur was released on the payment of a heavy ransom, to which Richard II. contributed £3000, and in the autumn his term as warden of Carlisle and the West March was extended to five years. In 1399 together with his father he joined Henry of Lancaster. Henry IV. gave the charge of the West March to Northumberland, while Henry Percy received the castles of Bamburgh, Roxburgh and Berwick, and the wardenship of the East March, with a salary of £3000 in peace time and £12,000 in war. During the first year of Henry’s reign Hotspur further was appointed justiciar of North Wales and constable of the castles of Chester, Flint, Conway, Denbigh and Carnarvon. Henry also gave him a grant of the island of Anglesey, with the castle of Beaumaris. William and Rees ap Tudor captured Conway Castle on the 1st of April 1401, and Percy in company with the prince of Wales set out to recover the place, providing the funds. In May he reported to the king the pacification of Merioneth and Carnarvon, and before the end of the month Conway was surrendered to him. Meanwhile he wrote demanding arrears of pay, with the threat of resignation if the money were not forthcoming, but the king intimated that the loss of Conway had been due to his negligence, and only sent part of the money. He had the same difficulty in obtaining money for his northern charge that he had experienced in Wales.[1] Anglesey was taken from him, and he was deprived of Roxburgh Castle in favour of his rival, the earl of Westmorland. The Scots again invaded England in the autumn of 1402, headed by the earl of Douglas and Murdoch Stewart, son of the duke of Albany. Northumberland and Hotspur barred their way at Millfield, near Wooler, and the Scots were compelled to fight at Humbledon, or Homildon Hill, on the 14th of September. The English archers were provided with a good target in the masses of the Scottish spearmen, and Hotspur was restrained from charging by his ally, George Dunbar, earl of March. The Scottish army was almost destroyed, while the English loss is said to have been five men. Disputes with the king arose over the disposal of the Scottish prisoners, Percy insisting on his right to hold Douglas as his personal prisoner, and he was summoned to court to explain. It is related that when he arrived Henry asked for Douglas, and Hotspur demanded in return that his brother-in-law, Edmund Mortimer, should be allowed to ransom himself from Owen Glendower, with whom he was a prisoner. High words followed, in the course of which Henry called Percy a traitor, struck him on the face, and drew his sword on him Percy is said to have answered this defiance with the words, “Not here, but on the field.” This was late in 1402, and in 1403 Hotspur issued a proclamation in Cheshire stating that Richard II. was alive, and summoning the inhabitants to his standard. He made common cause with his prisoner Douglas, and marched south to join forces with Glendower, who was now reconciled with Mortimer. He was reinforced by his uncle Thomas, earl of Worcester, who, although steward to the household of the prince of Wales, joined his family in rebellion. The mythical Richard II. was heard of no more, and Percy made himself the champion of the young earl of March. When he arrived at the Castle Foregate, Shrewsbury, early on the 21st of July, and demanded provisions, he found the king’s forces had arrived before him. He retired in the direction of Whitchurch, and awaited the enemy about 312 m. from Shrewsbury. After a long parley, in which a truce of two days was even said to have been agreed on, the Scottish earl of March, fighting on the royal side, forced on the battle in the afternoon, the royal right being commanded by the prince of Wales. Hotspur was killed, the earls of Douglas and Worcester, Sir Richard Venables of Kinderton, and Sir Richard Vernon were captured, and the rebel army dispersed. Worcester, Venables and Vernon were executed the next day. Percy’s body was buried at Whitchurch, but was disinterred two days later to be exhibited in Shrewsbury. The head was cut off, and fixed on one of the gates of York.
See Northumberland, Earls and Dukes of; and Percy: (Family). Also Chronique de la traison et mort de Richard II., ed. B. Williams (Eng Hist. Soc, 1846), J. Creton, Histoire du roy Richard II., ed. John Webb, in Archaeologia (xx., 1824); and Adam of Usk’s Chronicon, 1377–1404, ed. E. M. Thompson (1876); the authorities are cited in detail in J. H. Wylie’s England under Henry IV. (1884–1898), and Sir J. H. Ramsay’s Lancaster and York (Oxford, 1892). Holinshed’s Chronicle was the chief source of Shakespeare’s account of Hotspur in Henry IV.
PERCY, THOMAS (c. 1560–1605), one of the Gunpowder
Plot conspirators, was a son of Edward Percy of Beverley, who was grandson of Henry Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland. Though brought up a Protestant, he early became well-affected to the Roman Catholics and finally an adherent. He entered the service of his cousin, Henry Percy, 9th earl of Northumberland, and was appointed by him constable of Alnwick Castle and agent for his northern estates, in which capacity he showed
himself tyrannical and extortionate. In 1602 he was sent by Northumberland to James in Scotland to secure toleration for the Roman Catholics and returned announcing favourable promises from the king, the extent of which he probably greatly exaggerated; and when James, after his succession to the English throne, did not immediately abrogate the penal laws, Percy,
although he had accepted the court appointment of gentleman pensioner, professed himself highly indignant and indulged
himself in thoughts of revenge. Some time in May 1603 Percy
angrily declared his intention to Catesby of killing the king,
and in April 1604 he met Catesby with John Wright, Thomas
Winter and Guy Fawkes, and was then initiated into Catesby’s
gunpowder plot, which met with his zealous approval and
support. To Percy was allotted the special duty after the
explosion of seizing the infant prince Charles and riding off
with him on his saddle to Warwickshire. All the preparations
being complete, Percy went to Alnwick in October and collected
£3000 of the earl of Northumberland’s rents which he intended
using in furtherance of the plot, returning to London on the 1st
of November. Meanwhile the plot had been revealed through the
letter to Lord Monteagle on the 26th of October, and it was Percy’s
insistence at the last meeting of the conspirators on the 3rd that
decided them not to fly but to hazard the attempt. On the
news of Guy Fawkes’s arrest, Percy with the rest of the conspirators,
except Tresham, fled on horseback, taking refuge ultimately
at Holbeche, near Stourbridge, in Staffordshire, where on
the 8th of November, during the attack of the sheriff’s men upon
the house, he was struck down by a bullet, fighting back to back
with Catesby, and died two days later. Percy married a sister
of the conspirator John Wright and left a son Robert and two
daughters, one of whom is said to have married Robert, the son
of Catesby.
PERCY, THOMAS (1729–1811), bishop of Dromore, editor of the Percy Reliques, was born at Bridgnorth on the 13th of April 1729. His father, Arthur Lowe Percy, a grocer, was of sufficient means to send his son to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1746. He graduated in 1750 and proceeded M.A. in 1753. In the latter year he was appointed to the vicarage of Easton Maudit, Northamptonshire, and three years later was instituted to the rectory of Wilby in the same county, benefices which he retained until 1782. In 1759 he married Anne, daughter of Barton Gutterridge. At Easton Maudit most of the literary work for which he is now remembered—including the Reliques—was completed. When his name became famous he was made domestic chaplain to the duke and duchess of Northumberland, and was tempted into the belief that he belonged to the illustrious house of Percy. Through his patron’s influence he became dean of Carlisle in 1778 and bishop of Dromore in Ireland in 1782. His wife died before him in 1806, the good bishop, blind but otherwise in
- ↑ The dissatisfaction of the Percys seems to have been chiefly due to the money question. Sir J. H. Ramsay (Lancaster and York) estimates that in the four years from 1399 to 1403 they had received from the king the sum of £41,750, which represented a very large capital in the 14th century, and they had also received considerable grants of land. King Henry IV. was about to march north himself to look into the real relations between the Percys and the Scots, when on the 6th of July 1403 Henry Percy was in open rebellion.
