Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/440

Percy  [Statement of Services in the Public Record Office; Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. v. (suppl. pt. i.) 184; O'Byrne's Nav. Biogr. Dict.; Gent. Mag. 1856, ii. 782; Burke's Peerage, s.n. Northumberland.]  PERCY, PETER (fl. 1486), alchemist, was a priest and canon of the collegiate church of Maidstone. He wrote a treatise on the philosopher's stone which was twice copied, in 1595 and 1600, and exists in the Ashmolean MSS. 1406, iv. 79, and 1423, iii. 10. It contains sixty-two alchemical recipes and experiments, and begins ‘Solidatura ad Y (i.e. ☾) R′ij partes Y,’ and ends ‘De isto pulvere mitte unam partem super 1000 ✣ (i.e. ☿) ut supra. Finis.’

[Tanner's Bibliotheca; Cat. of Ashmolean MSS.]  PERCY, RALPH (1425–1464), soldier, was seventh son of Henry Percy, second earl of Northumberland [q. v.], by Eleanor, daughter of Ralph, first earl of Westmorland, and widow of Ralph, lord Spencer. He took the Lancastrian side throughout the wars of the roses, and was the leader of the Percys in their inter-tribal warfare with the Nevilles during the latter part of Henry VI's reign. He was with Queen Margaret in her march south after the battle of Wakefield; and when Edward IV had been proclaimed king, he occupied Bamborough Castle for her, but he surrendered it on 24 Dec. 1462, and swore fealty to Edward. Early in 1463 he changed sides again, and allowed the Scots to retake Bamborough; he held to the Lancastrian cause for the rest of his life, even though the queen sailed that summer to the Low Countries. He very nearly captured Edward as he marched north to Newcastle early in 1464, and was the captain in the battle of Hedgely Moor on 25 April 1464. Here he was killed fighting, and just before his death was heard to say, ‘I have saved the bird in my bosom,’ meaning his loyalty to Henry (, Warwick, p. 154). A rudely carved column, called ‘Percy's Cross,’ marks the spot where he fell. He was unmarried.

[Ramsay's Lancaster and York, ii. 302 &c.; De Fonblanque's Annals of the House of Percy, i. 283–6; Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, pp. 156, 158, 176, 178.]  PERCY, REUBEN and SHOLTO (pseudonyms). [See, d. 1826.]

PERCY, RICHARD, fifth (1170?–1244), born about 1170, was second son of Agnes, heiress of the original Percy family, and Josceline de Louvain, a younger son of Godfrey, duke of Brabant, who took his wife's name on his marriage. Richard is said to have taken a prominent part in the vehement opposition of the northern barons to the proposed sale of Northumberland to William the Lion in 1194. In 1196 Percy's elder brother Henry died, leaving a son William (1183?–1245) [q. v.], in his fifteenth year. Percy assumed administration of his nephew's lands and the baronial rights as fifth baron Percy, though the officially appointed guardian of the minor was William Brewer (d. 1226) [q. v.] In the same year his mother Agnes died, and he seized her lands, while he received the lands of his aunt the Countess of Warwick by bequest. After his nephew had attained his majority, Richard retained his property. A long litigation between the two was not concluded till 1234, when it was decided that Richard should hold the moiety of the Percy estates bequeathed to him by the Countess of Warwick, but at his death the whole property was to revert to William.

Percy was one of the northern barons who began the struggle which ended in the signing of Magna Charta by refusing to accompany the king to France in 1213 (, i. 580; Rolls Ser. ii. 114). On 7 May 1215 he and some others made an attempt to treat with the king (Patent Rolls, 17 John, Record Comm. p. 180); he was one of the twenty-five executors of Magna Charta (, i. 582), and he was excommunicated by Innocent III by name on 26 Dec. In 1216 he and other northern barons reduced Yorkshire to the obedience of Louis of France ( ii. 169, 190). On 11 May 1217 Henry III granted Percy's lands to his nephew William. But they were restored by the king on Percy's submission on 2 Nov. (Close Rolls, Record Comm. i. 308, 339).

Percy helped to besiege Ralph de Gaugi in Newark Castle in 1218 (ib. i. 379 b), and he was one of three barons charged with the destruction of Skipton Castle in 1221 (ib. p. 474). In 1236 he appears among the witnesses of the confirmation of the charters (Annals of Tewkesbury, i. 104). The year after, when in the parliament the barons prepared to deliberate apart on the king's demands, Gilbert Basset suggested to the king that he should send some of his friends to attend the conference. The words caught the ear of Richard de Percy, and he indignantly cried, ‘What did you say, friend Gilbert? Are we foreigners then, and not friends of the king?’ (, Hist. Maj. iii. 381–2). He died before 18 Aug. 1244 (Excerpta e Rotulis Finium, Record