Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/549

 PERCY 523 Northumberland, and for five different descents after him (making altogether a period of 238 years), the head of the house invariably was a Henry. Such a remarkable con tinuance of a single Christian name would have been less surprising in later and more peaceful times, when we might reasonably have expected the eldest born to succeed his father quietly through many generations. But the first four earls of this family were all slain in battle or in civil tumult, and the heir-apparent of the first, a Henry like the rest, was cut off in the same way during his father s lifetime. Was it that the incessant activity due to Border raids and moonlight expeditions created in these men a physical vigour of constitution which protected them to a large extent against disease and infirmity 1 The first earl of Northumberland, certainly, had led a busy life enough, not only on the Borders but elsewhere. He had been in the French wars of Edward III. ; he had been at times a warden of the marches against Scotland, or a commissioner to treat for peace with that country. He had ravaged the lands of the earl of Dunbar and had won Berwick. Powerful in the south as well as in the north, he was the Lord Henry Percy who protected Wickliffe when cited before the archbishop at St Paul s. As earl of Northumberland he exhibited his independence of Richard II. in a way characteristic of a northern baron. Sent for to court, he neglected to come, was disgraced and banished, and thereupon fled to Scotland. He repaired to Henry of Lancaster .soon after his landing at Ravenspur, and helped treacherously to decoy Richard II. into his hands at Conway. Naturally he received great honour from Henry after he had become king. He was made constable of England for life, and received a gift of the Isle of Man and a number of important offices in Cheshire, Wales, and the borders of Scotland. He was even appointed one of the commissioners for the marriage of the king s daughter Blanche with Louis, duke of Bavaria ; and for the first three years of the reign both he and his family seemed faithful to the new dynasty which they had greatly helped to establish. In 1402 he and his brave son Henry, the celebrated Hotspur, won the battle of Homildon Hill and took the earl of Douglas prisoner. But immediately afterwards Harry Hotspur, whose character is so well known through Shakespeare s play of Henry the Fourth, resenting the king s injustice to his brother-in-law, Sir Edmund Mortimer, who had been taken prisoner by the Welsh, and whom Henry, for reasons of policy, declined to ransom, entered into a league with Owen Glendower, in whose custody Mortimer was, for a combined Avar against the king. The whole family of the Percies seem to have felt that their services to Henry of Lancaster were ill requited. The earl himself joined the conspiracy. His brother Thomas Percy, earl of Worcester (so created by Richard II.), stood also to all appearance in high favour with the king, who had entrusted him with the care of his son Henry, prince of Wales. But he suddenly left the court and joined his nephew in the north, both sending forth proclamations and raising the country. The rebellion was crushed in the battle of Shrewsbury (1403), in which Hotspur was slain, and the earl of Worcester was beheaded just after the fight, while Northumberland was marching southwards to join with them. Having taken no active part in the movement, the earl pretended that he had really been going to assist the king, and had wished to avert hostilities. He after wards went peaceably to the king at York, and was placed in custody ; but such was his power and influence that next year he was acquitted of treason in full parliament, and had all his honours and possessions restored to him. All confidence, however, between him and the king was at an end, and in 1405 he joined the insurrection of Arch bishop Scrope, who, after being beheaded as a rebel, was venerated as a martyr over the whole north of England. Then he fled to Scotland, afterwards to Wales, amd in the end, returning to his own country, perished in a new rebellion at Bramham Moor. The title and estates were thus forfeited. But, by an act no less gracious than politic, Henry V. restored them to this earl s grandson, then a prisoner with the Scots, whose liberation he had no difficulty in procuring from the duke of Albany during the time of James I. s captivity. From that day the loyalty of the family to the house of Lancaster was steadfast and undeviating. The second earl died fighting for Henry VI. at the first battle of St Albans in 1455 ; the third was slain in the bloody field of Towton (1461) ; the fourth Avas killed in quelling an insurrection in the time of Henry VII. So strong was the Lancastrian feeling of the family that even Sir Ralph Percy, a brother of the earl Avho fell at Towton, though he had actually submitted once to EdAvard IV., turned again, and Avhen he fell at Hedgiey Moor consoled himself Avith the thought that he had, as he phrased it, &quot;saved the bird in his bosom.&quot; No Avonder, then, that in EdAvard IV. s days the title and estates of the family Avere for a time taken aAA ay and given to Lord Montagu, brother of Wanvick the king maker. But the north was so accustomed to the rule of the Percies that in a feAv years EdA r ard saAv the necessity of restoring them, and did so even at the cost of alienating still further the poAverful family of the Nevilles, who Avere then already on the point of rebellion. A crisis occurred in the fortunes of the family in the reign of Henry VIII. on the death of the sixth earl, AA^hose tAvo brothers, much against his Avill, had taken part in the great insurrection called the &quot; Pilgrimage of Grace.&quot; A thriftless man, of whom it is recorded that in his youth he Avas smitten Avith the charms of Anne Boleyn, but was forced to give her up and marry a Avoman he did not love, he died childless, after selling many of the family estates and granting the others to the king. The title was forfeited, and was granted by EdAvard VI. to the ambitious Dudley, earl of Wanvick, who AA T as attainted in the succeeding reign. It Avas restored in the days of Queen Elizabeth to Thomas Percy, who, being a staunch Catholic, Avas one of the three earls Avho took the lead in the celebrated &quot; Rising in the North,&quot; and AA r as beheaded at York. His brother Henry, AA r ho succeeded him, Avas no less unhappy. Involved in Throgmorton s conspiracy, he Avas committed to the ToAver, and AA T as supposed to have shot himself in bed with a pistol found beside him ; but there were grave suspicions that it had been discharged by another hand. His son, the next earl, suffered like his two predecessors for his attachment to the religion of his forefathers. The crown laAvyers sought in vain to implicate him in the Gunpowder Plot ; but he AA r as imprisoned for fifteen years in the ToAver and compelled to pay a fine of ,30,000. The son Avho next succeeded Avas a Parliamentary general in the Civil War. At length, in 1670, the male line of this illustrious family became extinct, just five hundred years after the marriage of Agnes de Percy Avith Josceline of Louvain. Not one of the English noble houses is so distinguished as the Percies throughout the Avhole range of English history. It is remarkable alike for its long unbroken line, its high achievements, its general culture of arts and of letters. Pre-eminent also, as remarked by Sir Harris Nicolas, for its alliances among the peerage, it continues to this day, though represented once more by a female branch. The present dukedom of Northumberland Avas created in 1766 in the family of Smithson, AA T ho assumed the name of Percy and have borne it ever since. Sir Hugh Smithson, AA T !IO became the first duke, married a granddaughter of a daughter of the last earl. (.T. GA.)