Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/407

Percy of Lancaster [q. v.], by whom he had two sons, Henry, first earl of Northumberland, and Thomas (d. 1403), earl of Worcester, both of whom are separately noticed; and (2) Joan (d. 1369), daughter of John de Orby, by whom he had a daughter Mary (1367–1395), who married John, lord Ros of Hamlake.

The fifth son, (1333–1369), was apparently at Rome when William Bateman [q. v.], bishop of Norwich, died in 1355, and was, at the request of Henry, duke of Lancaster, provided to that see by the pope, though only twenty-two years of age. He was consecrated at Waverley on 3 Jan. 1356. He had some dispute with the monks of his cathedral about the appropriation of certain tithes, and undertook extensive repairs in his church, to the cost of which he contributed four hundred marks. He was trier of petitions from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland in the parliaments of 1363, 1364–5, 1366, and 1369, in which year he died on 8 Aug. His will, dated 25 March 1368 and proved 15 Nov. 1369, is preserved at Lambeth (, Reg. Sacr.; ;, Anglia Sacra, i. 415; , i. 341; Rolls of Parl. ii. 275 et seq.; , Hist. Angl. i. 309; , Collect. i. 182).

[Chronicles of Edward I and Edward II, Chronicon de Melsa, Murimuth's and Avesbury's Chronicles (all these in Rolls Ser.); Gray's Scalachronica (Maitland Club); Lanercost Chronicle (Bannatyne Club); G. le Baker's Chron. ed. Thompson; Bain's Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland; Rymer's Fœdera (Record edit.); Palgrave's Parliamentary Writs; Rolls of Parliament; Calendars of Close Rolls, Edward II, and Patent Rolls, Edward III; Dugdale's Baronage, i. 273–6; Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, ii. 241–9; De Fonblanque's Annals of the House of Percy, i. 71–96; Longman's Life and Times of Edward III.]  PERCY, HENRY, called  (1364–1403), born on 20 May 1364, was eldest son of Henry Percy, first earl of Northumberland [q. v.], by his first wife, Margaret, daughter of Ralph, fourth baron Neville of Raby [q. v.] (, Complete Peerage; Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, p. 199;, Baronage, i. 276). His active life began early. Knighted by the aged Edward III at Windsor in April 1377, along with the future Richard II and Henry IV, who were almost exactly of his own age, Percy had his first taste of war in the following year, accompanying his father when he recovered Berwick Castle from the Scots after a siege of nine days (, i. 388;, pp. 12, 314). He was soon employed in border affairs, and in 1384 associated with his father as warden of the marches, becoming in the next year governor of Berwick. The sleepless activity which he showed in repressing the restless hostility of the Scottish borderers won him among them the sobriquet of Hatspore, that is Hotspur (, ii. 144).

His military reputation was already beyond his years, and in the summer of 1386 he was sent over to Calais, where an attack was expected. But no attack came, and the fiery Hotspur, weary of inaction, made plundering raids into the enemy's country, and then, learning that the French meditated an invasion of England, returned home to repel it (ib.) He and his younger brother Ralph are said by Froissart to have been stationed at Yarmouth for that purpose. In the autumn he gave evidence in the famous Scrope and Grosvenor controversy. Next year the king's favourites entrusted him with a squadron to prevent French retaliation for the Earl of Arundel's recent naval exploits. The chroniclers assert that, being envious of Percy, they sent him to sea ill-found, and even sought to inform the French of his movements (ib. ii. 156;, p. 79). But he executed his commission in safety, and in the following spring he was given the Garter vacated by the king's favourite, the Duke of Ireland, on his condemnation by the Merciless parliament.

The Scottish truce drawing to a close, Percy was once more sent into the north as warden of the marches. He seems hardly to have been fully prepared for the great Scottish invasion in the summer of 1388, but it was nevertheless the occasion of perhaps his most famous exploit—the battle of Otterburn. There are some discrepancies between the English and Scottish accounts of the battle, while the much more circumstantial narrative of Froissart, which he had, he tells us, from combatants on both sides, is, as usual, not without its difficulties. Both marches were simultaneously invaded, the Earls of Douglas, March, and Moray harrying Northumberland. After penetrating, so, at least, says Froissart (ed. Buchon, xi. 362 sqq.), to the gates of Durham, they offered battle before Newcastle, into which Percy and his brother Ralph had thrown themselves. This he did not feel himself in sufficient strength to accept, but promised to fight them within three days, and they drew off northwards along the road into Scotland through Redesdale (, ii. 176). It is rather implied that the Scots on their part had undertaken to wait for the time he mentioned. Froissart says that Douglas had