Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/408

Percy captured Percy's pennon in a skirmish before Newcastle, and declared he would plant it on the towers of Dalkeith, but would not deny its owner an opportunity of recovering it (cf., p. 332). Be this as it may, on the still summer's evening of a Wednesday in August (the 5th according to Hardyng and Knighton; a fortnight later according to Froissart, whose date agrees better with the royal proclamation of 13 Aug.) (Fœdera, vii. 594), Hotspur suddenly fell upon their camp at Otterburn in Redesdale, some thirty miles north-west of Newcastle (, p. 342;, col. 2728; Scotichronicon, ii. 406). The Scottish leaders were roused from their supper and did not have time to completely arm themselves, but the growing dusk and the general character of the ground served them well, and any advantage their assailants may have had in numbers (the estimates are conflicting) was neutralised by the fatigue of the long forced march from Newcastle (, iii. 35). They fought desperately all night by the light of the moon (the moon was full on 20 Aug.), until Douglas fell, whether by unknown hands or, as the English doubtfully boasted, by the sword of Hotspur, and Hotspur himself was surrounded and captured with his brother Ralph.

Both sides claimed the victory, the English, however, very faintly. ‘It was,’ says Froissart, ‘the best fought and severest of all the battles I have related in my history’ [see under, second ]. The popular imagination was kindled by its romantic features, and made it the subject of the well-known ballad which exists in both Scottish and English versions (, Reliques, i. 21–34;, iii. 302, 315; , Minstrelsy of the Border, i. 354). The even more famous ballad of ‘Chevy Chase, or the Hunting of the Cheviot,’ mingles it with incidents which, if they have any historical basis at all, belong to a later time. Thomas Barry [q. v.] wrote a Latin poem upon it in the sixteenth century. A cross marking the spot where Douglas is supposed to have fallen is locally known as Percy's Cross. Hotspur was captured, according to the English chroniclers, by the Earl of March and taken to his castle of Dunbar; but the Scottish accounts represent his captor as Sir John Montgomerie [q. v.], who is said to have built with his ransom the castle of Polnoon at Eaglesham in Ayrshire.

Percy was free again and in command on the borders before July 1389. In October his term of office as warden of Carlisle and the west march was prospectively prolonged for five years (Ord. Privy Council, i. 12 d). The east march was afterwards added. But the truce of 1389 made his constant presence there unnecessary. In March 1391 he went to Calais in the train of Henry of Derby to take up the challenge of three French knights who were fighting all comers at Saint Inglevert. The Frenchmen confessed them their most dangerous opponents (, i. 680). From 1393 to 1395, perhaps longer, Percy was governor of Bordeaux. The citizens at first refused to admit him because he came in the name of John of Gaunt as Duke of Aquitaine. They would only be ruled, they said, by the king or his son, if one was born to him, and Hotspur had to declare that he came by the king's authority (Annales Ricardi II, p. 158;, Documents Français qui se trouvent en Angleterre, p. 210).

By the autumn of 1398 he was again acting as warden of the east march against Scotland, and with his father joined Henry of Lancaster at Doncaster immediately after his landing in the following July. The French writer Creton is the only authority for the statement that Hotspur had been accused to Richard of holding treasonable language and his father banished for disobeying a summons to court (Archæologia, xx. 157). Percy accompanied Henry into the west, where Richard was taken, beat off the half-hearted attacks of the Cheshiremen, and returned to London with Richard's conqueror (Annales, pp. 246, 250–1). Late in the year poison was thought to have been administered to him as well as to the new king (ib. p. 323). The subsequent boast of the Percys that they had placed Henry on the throne was not without foundation, and neither Hotspur's nor his father's services went unrewarded. One of Henry's first acts was to confirm him as warden of the east march and governor of Berwick and Roxburgh, Carlisle and the west march being given to his father.

The disaffection of Wales and Cheshire calling for a strong hand, he was appointed, before the first year of the reign was out, justiciary of Cheshire, North Wales, and Flintshire, and constable of the castles of Chester, Flint, Conway, and Carnarvon, with a grant for life of the Isle of Anglesey and the castle of Beaumaris, along with the castle and lordship of Bamborough in Northumberland. He was also sheriff of the latter county and of Flintshire. But these border commands were no beds of roses, and King Henry took little pains to humour his hot-tempered and formidable follower. Conway Castle was betrayed to the Welsh on Good Friday 1401,