Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/410

Percy number of those addressed are said to have sent assurances of support (, p. 361). The king heard of these letters, and, seeking to remove the impression they had made, denied that he had left the Percys to bear the whole burden of the border warfare, but promised them vaguely further sums (for the state of the account between the Percys and the crown see, i. 57). A demand from the earl for an immediate advance as late as 26 June possibly hastened Henry's departure for the north (Ord. Privy Council, i. 204–7).

But this more or less open disaffection concealed a conspiracy against his throne. Secretly encouraged by Archbishop Scrope, the Duke of York, and others, the Percies had come to an understanding with Glendower and Sir Edmund Mortimer, who since the previous November had definitely gone over to Owen and married his daughter. Henry was to be deposed in favour of the young Earl of March, the nephew of Hotspur's wife, and Wales was to be left independent under Owen. Shortly after his father's last letter to the king, Hotspur threw off the mask, and hastened, with 160 horse, through Lancashire to Chester, where he arrived on Monday, 9 July, and took up his residence in the house of one Petronilla Clark (, i. 357). He was accompanied by the Earl of Douglas and other Scottish prisoners, whom he had set free. A proclamation that King Richard was with them, and could be seen either in Chester Castle or at Sandiway, between Chester and Northwich, on 17 July, caused the Cheshire adherents of the late king to flock to his standard. Among them were Richard Venables, baron of Kinderton; Richard Vernon, baron of Shipbrook, and a number of the Cheshire clergy. Many mounted Richard's badge of the white hart. But when Hotspur had been joined by his uncle Thomas Percy, earl of Worcester, and was moving southwards with a view to a junction on the Severn with Glendower, the pretence that Richard still lived was dropped, Edmund of March was declared the rightful king, and letters of defiance were sent forth, in which, as ‘Protectors of the Commonwealth,’ they accused ‘Henry of Lancaster’ of breaking an oath made to them at Doncaster in 1399 that he came not to claim the kingdom but only his inheritance, of starving King Richard to death, and of tyrannical government (, p. 352). The statement of more than one chronicler that they advanced as far eastwards as Lichfield seems most improbable, if only from the fact that the king was there from 17 July (Cont. Eulog. Hist. iii. 396; Fœdera, viii. 313).

Early in the morning of Saturday, 21 July, they appeared, by the Oswestry road, at the Castle Foregate of Shrewsbury. But to their astonishment the banner of Henry was displayed from the walls. Henry had learnt of their treason by 16 July, and had been collecting troops; on the advice of the Scottish Earl of March he had made a forced march of forty-five miles to Shrewsbury on the Friday, though his musters were not yet complete, in order to cut off the Percies from Glendower, who was in south Wales. Drawing back along the Whitchurch road for some three and a half miles, Hotspur took up an advantageous position on the slope of the Hayteley field, a little to the left of the road in the parish of Albright Hussey (, i. 60, with map; cf., i. 360). His front was protected by a tangled crop of peas and, according to Sir James Ramsay, three small ponds; but it has been questioned whether these were permanent features of the site. The king, following, drew up his forces at the foot of the slope. Hotspur called for his favourite sword, and on being told that it had been left behind at the village of Berwick, where he had spent the previous night without hearing its name, he turned pale and said, ‘Then has my plough reached its last furrow!’ He had been warned by a soothsayer that he should die at Berwick, but had never doubted that Berwick-on-Tweed was meant. The omen possibly made him listen more readily to the offer to treat which Henry sent by the abbot of Shrewsbury; and his uncle went down to the royal camp. But nothing came of the negotiations; and shortly after midday the king set forward his banners. ‘St. George!’ was the cry on one side, ‘Espérance Percy!’ on the other. The deadly fire of the Cheshire archers broke part of the royal line, but the Prince of Wales carried the slope, and the battle soon resolved itself into a desperate hand-to-hand fight. Hotspur and Douglas, with a chosen band of thirty, cut their way to the royal standard, beat it down, and, as they supposed, slew the king. But the prudent March had removed him to a place of greater safety; and it was only one clad in his armour that had fallen. At last Percy, pressing on ahead of his men, was brought down by an unknown hand. His followers, doubtful whether he had taken the king or had himself perished, falteringly raised the cry ‘Henry Percy King.’ But the king lifted his voice and shouted to them, ‘Henry Percy is dead’ (Annales Henrici IV, p. 368). After the ‘sory bataill,’ the forerunner of sorrows for England, was finished, his body, over which the king is said to have shed