Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/399

Percy open alliance with the opposition party in the House of Lords. Northumberland signed the protests against the appointment of Lunsford to the command of the Tower, against the refusal of the House of Lords to join the commons in demanding the militia, and against their similar refusal to punish the Duke of Richmond's dangerous words. The popular party showed their confidence in Northumberland by nominating him lord lieutenant of the four counties of Sussex, Northumberland, Pembroke, and Anglesey (28 Feb. 1642). His possession of the post of lord high admiral secured the parliamentary leaders the control of the navy. When the king refused to appoint the Earl of Warwick to command the fleet, the two houses ordered Northumberland to make him vice-admiral, and Northumberland obeyed. On 28 June 1642 the king dismissed Northumberland from his office, but too late to prevent the sailors from accepting Warwick as their commander (, Rebellion, iv. 330, v. 376; Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. p. 85;, History of England, x. 176, 185, 208).

Charles felt Northumberland's defection very severely. He had raised him to office after office, and, as he complained, ‘courted him as his mistress, and conversed with him as his friend, without the least interruption or intermission of all possible favour and kindness’ (, Rebellion, iii. 228; Memoirs of Sir Philip Warwick, p. 117). In three letters to Sir John Bankes, Northumberland explained his position. ‘We believe that those persons who are most powerful with the king do endeavour to bring parliaments to such a condition that they shall only be made instruments to execute the commands of the king, who were established for his greatest and most supreme council. … It is far from our thoughts to change the form of government, to invade upon the king's just prerogative, or to leave him unprovided of as plentiful a revenue as either he or any of his predecessors ever enjoyed.’ He protested that the armaments of the parliament were purely defensive in their aim. ‘Let us but have our laws, liberties, and privileges secured unto us, and let him perish that seeks to deprive the king of any part of his prerogative, or that authority which is due unto him. If our fortunes be to fall into troubles, I am sure few (excepting the king himself) will suffer more than I shall do; therefore for my own private considerations, as well as for the public good, no man shall more earnestly endeavour an agreement between the king and his people’ (, Story of Corfe Castle, pp. 122, 129, 139).

True to these professions, Northumberland, though he accepted a place in the parliamentary committee of safety (4 July 1642), was throughout counted among the heads of the peace party (, Great Civil War, i. 53, 80). On 10 Nov. 1642 he was sent to present a message of peace to the king at Colebrook, and in the following March he was at the head of the parliamentary commissioners sent to treat with the king at Oxford. Whitelocke praises his ‘sober and stout carriage to the king,’ his civility to his brother commissioners, and the ‘state and nobleness’ with which he lived while at Oxford (Memorials, edit. 1853, i. 195–201; Old Parliamentary History, xii. 29, 201). His zeal for peace made him suspected by the violent party. Harry Marten took upon himself to open one of Northumberland's letters to his wife, and, as he refused to apologise, Northumberland struck him with his cane. This took place on 18 April 1643 in the painted chamber, as Marten was returning from a conference between the two houses, and was complained of by the commons as a breach of privilege (Lords' Journals, vi. 11;, Rebellion, vii. 20). In June Northumberland was accused of complicity in Waller's plot, but indignantly repudiated the charge, and Waller's statements against him are too vague to be credited (, Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion, pp. 543, 562). He was one of the originators of the peace propositions agreed to by the House of Lords on 4 Aug. 1643, and appealed to Essex for support against the mob violence which procured their rejection by the commons (ib. p. 576;, Great Civil War, i. 185; , Rebellion, vii. 166–75). Finding Essex disinclined to support the peace movement, Northumberland retired to Petworth, and for a time absented himself altogether from the parliamentary councils. Clarendon, who held that the king might have won back Northumberland by returning him to his office of lord admiral, asserts that if the other peers who deserted the parliament at the same time had been well received by the king, Northumberland would have followed their example (Rebellion, vii. 21, 188, 244, 248).

A few months later Northumberland returned to his place in parliament, and the two houses showed their confidence by appointing him one of the committee of both kingdoms (16 Feb. 1644). In the treaty at Uxbridge in January 1645 Northumberland again acted as one of the parliamentary commissioners, and was their usual spokesman (, i. 377, 385;, Rebellion, viii. 218). But he was hardly as