HENRY PERCY, second Earl of Northumberland, son and heir of Sir Henry Percy, called Hotspur, was born on 3 Feb. 1394. His father fell at Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403, and Henry was presented to Henry IV by his grandfather, Henry de Percy, first Earl of Northumberland, at York in the following August. When the earl fled to Scotland in 1405, young Percy also took shelter there, arriving shortly before his grandfather,¹ and after the earl's death was detained by the Scots as though a prisoner of war, but was treated with honour by them.²

Henry V pitying him, and being solicited on his behalf by Joan, countess of Westmorland, the king's aunt, whose daughter Eleanor Percy married at Berwick in that year, restored him in blood, and on 11 Nov. 1414 assented to a petition from him, presented in parliament, for the restoration of his dignities and estates.³ The king desired that he should be exchanged for Murdoch Stewart, eldest son of the Duke of Albany. Some delay took place, and the Earl of Cambridge, who made a conspiracy against the king, plotted to bring Percy into England with an army of Scots.⁴ It is evident that Percy had nothing to do with this scheme, and his exchange, which was arranged for on 1 July 1415, took place soon after.⁵ His hereditary possessions were restored, and on 16 March 1416 he did homage in parliament for his earldom, receiving a new patent of creation.⁶

In April 1417 he was appointed warden of the east marches towards Scotland, and captain of Berwick. He commanded a contingent of the army mustered in July for the king's second invasion of France, but, if he actually sailed, must have shortly afterwards returned, for the Scots under Archibald, fourth earl of Douglas, and the Duke of Albany, having invaded England in October, and made attempts on Berwick and Roxburgh, he, with other lords and with Henry Bowet, archbishop of York, raised a force which mustered on Barmoor, near Wooler in Northumberland. The Scots retreated, and the English ravaged the southern border of Scotland.⁷ The earl did some service in the French war, and on 24 Feb. 1421 officiated as a steward at the coronation of Queen Catherine. In June he was reappointed warden of the east marches with a salary of £5,000 in time of war and £2,500 in peace.⁸

On the death of Henry V Northumberland attended the council that met on 16 Nov. 1422 to decide on Gloucester's claim to be regent, and was appointed a member of the council of regency.⁹ He was appointed ambassador to the council of Pavia on 22 Feb. 1423 with a salary of 66s. 8d. a day,¹⁰ and on 6 July was appointed joint ambassador to Scotland, his commission being renewed on 14 Feb. following. He constantly attended the meetings of the council, and on 24 Nov. 1426 assisted in drawing up ordinances for its government.¹¹ In 1429 and 1430 he was a joint ambassador to Scotland, and on 18 Feb. 1434 the council decided that he should be paid £50 in consideration of his labour and expenses in attending courts for the settlement of disputes between the English and the Scots. Part of the town of Alnwick having lately been burnt by the Scots, he obtained license in June that he and the burgesses might wall it round.

As the five years' truce with Scotland was to expire in May 1436, he made great preparations for war, dubbed many new knights, and probably crossed the border in connection with the raid of Sir Robert Ogle, who was defeated in September at Piperden, but did not effect anything. On his return King James laid siege to Roxburgh in October. The earl promptly advanced to meet him at the head of the local forces, and the king broke up the siege and departed.¹² In return for his services he received a grant of £100 a year for life. He was reappointed a member of the council on 12 Nov. 1437, and the next year was a joint commissioner to treat with the Scots.

In common with the other lords of the council, he was appointed in 1441 to inquire into all treason and sorcery against the king's person in connection with the accusation brought against the Duchess of Gloucester.¹³ In 1442-3 he had a quarrel with John Kemp, Archbishop of York, and his men did injury to the property of the see at Ripon and Bishopthorpe. The dispute was finally settled in the council, the king deciding that the earl was to repair the damage.¹⁴ He is said to have had a personal share in his son's campaign against the Scots in October 1448, to have been unhorsed at the battle by the river Sark in Annandale, and to have been saved by his son, who remounted him; but this seems untrue.¹⁵ In the summer his two castles of Alnwick and Warkworth had been set on fire by the Earl of Douglas. On 25 May 1450 Northumberland was made Constable of England, but resigned on 11 Sept. in favour of the Duke of Somerset.

The old feud between the Percys and the Nevilles again broke out, was heightened by political dissension, and caused serious disorder in the north. In July 1453 the king in council wrote to the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, charging them to see that the peace was kept.¹⁶ A battle was fought between two of Northumberland's sons, Lord Egremont and Sir Richard Percy, and Westmorland's son, the Earl of Salisbury, and on 8 Oct. another letter was sent to Northumberland urging him to do his duty by preserving order.¹⁷ The north remained disturbed, and on 10 May 1454 both the earls were specially bidden to attend the council on 12 June to provide means for preventing the continuance of disorder.¹⁸ The Duke of York having taken up arms in May 1455, the earl marched with the royal army against him, and was slain in the Battle of St. Albans on the 23rd; his body was buried in the lady-chapel of the abbey.

The earl was a benefactor to University College, Oxford,¹⁹ and to Eton College. By his wife Eleanor, daughter of Ralph, first earl of Westmorland, previously married, or contracted, to Richard le Despenser, son of Thomas, Earl of Gloucester, who died in 1414 at the age of fourteen, he had twelve children: Henry, who succeeded him; Thomas, lord Egremont; George, a prebendary of Beverley, born 1424; Sir Ralph; Sir Richard, slain at Towton on 29 March 1461; William, who was born in 1428, graduated D.D. from Cambridge, where he was chancellor 1451-5, was provided to the see of Carlisle in 1452, called to the privy council,²⁰ and died in 1462 (three other sons died in infancy). Northumberland's three daughters were: Joan, a nun, buried at Whitby Abbey; Catherine, born in 1423, married Edmund Grey, lord Grey of Ruthin, created earl of Kent; and Anne, married (1) Sir Thomas Hungerford, (2) Sir Laurence Rainsford, (3) Sir Hugh Vaughan, and died in 1522.²¹



1. Fordun's Scotichronicon, ed. Hearne, p. 1166.
2. ib. p. 1184.
3. Rolls of Parliament, iv. 36-7; Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, ii. 300; Collins, Peerage, iii. 273; this marriage is celebrated in Bishop Percy's ballad 'The Hermit of Warkworth'.
4. Rymer, Foedera, ix. 260.
5. Proceedings of the Privy Council, ii. 162-4, 188-90.
6. Rotulae Parliamentariae, iv. 71-2.
7. Henrici Quinti, Angliae regis, gesta, pp. 121, 272; Otterbourne, Chronicle, p. 279; Scotichronicon, p. 1186.
8. Foedera, x. 126.
9. Proceedings of the Privy Council, iii. 6, 157.
10. ib. pp. 42, 61.
11. ib. p. 213.
12. Hardyng, Chronicle, p. 397; Chronicle of Henry VI, p. 16, ed. Giles; Three Chronicles, p. 166; Gregory, Chronicle, ed. Gairdner, p. 179.
13. Devon Issues, p. 444.
14. Proceedings, v. 269-70, 309; Plumpton Correspondence, Introd. pp. liv-lxxii.
15. Holinshed, Chronicle, ed. Hooker, i. 273; comp. Auchinleck Chronicle, Auchinleck Chronicle, p. 18.
16. Proceedings, vi. 147.
17. ib. pp. 159-64.
18. ib. p. 178.
19. Wood, Colleges and Halls, p. 47.
20. cf. Nicholas, Proceedings, vi. 185 et seq.
21. Collins, Peerage, iii. 291.

Source:

Hunt, William. "Henry Percy, Third Earl of Northumberland."
The Dictionary of National Biography. Vol XLIV. Sidney Lee, Ed.
New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895. 405-407.

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Other Local Resources:

• The Wars of the Roses
  
• King Edward IV
  
• King Henry VII
  
• Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland
  
• Sir Henry Percy, "Harry Hotspur"
  
• Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester
  
• Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland
  
• Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland
  
• Henry Algernon Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland
  
• Henry Algernon Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland
  
• Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland
  
• Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland
  
• Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland
  
• Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland
  

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Books for further study: Brenan, Gerald. A History of the House of Percy.
            Fremantle & Co., 1902.

Collins, Arthur. An History of the Ancient and Illustrious Family of the Percys.
           Gale ECCO, 2010. (Reprint from 1750)

De Fonblanque, E. Barrington. Annals of the House of Percy.
           London: Richard Clay & Sons, 1887.

Lomas, Richard. A Power in the Land: The Percys.
           East Linton: Tuckwell Press, Ltd., 1999.

Rose, Alexander. Kings in the North: The House of Percy in British History.
            Phoenix Press, 2003.

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Web Links:

• Genealogy - ThePeerage.com
  

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