Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland
Henry Percy | |
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3rd Percy | |
Spouse | Eleanor Poynings (m. 1435) |
Issue Detail |
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Father | Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland |
Mother | Lady Eleanor Neville |
Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland, (25 July 1421 – 29 March 1461) was an English magnate.
The Earldom of Northumberland was then one of the greatest landholdings in northern England; Percy also became Lord Poynings on his marriage. This title would bring him into direct conflict with the Poynings family themselves, and indeed, feuds with neighbouring nobles, both lay and ecclesiastical, would be a key occupancy of his youth.
Percy married Eleanor Poynings, who outlived him; together they had four children. He was a leading Lancastrian during the Wars of the Roses, from which he managed to personally benefit, although his father died early in the war. He was not, however, to live to enjoy these gains, being killed at the Battle of Towton in 1461 on the defeated Lancastrian side.
Early life and war with Scotland
Percy was the son of
Percy was
Tensions with Scotland remained, to the extent that Poynings, his father, and other nobles were requested to stay and guard the border rather than attend Parliament, for which they were excused.
Feud with the Poynings
In the late 1440s, the Yorkshire tenants of his father, the
Feud with Nevilles
By the early 1450s, relations with a powerful neighbouring family, the
Wars of the Roses
During the Wars of the Roses, Percy followed his father in siding with the Lancastrians against the Yorkists.[20] The Earl himself died at what is generally considered to be the first battle of the wars, at St Alban's on 22 May 1455, and Poynings was elevated as third Earl of Northumberland, without having to pay relief to the Crown, because his father had died in the King's service. He in his turn "swore to uphold the Lancastrian dynasty".[4] Although a reconciliation of the leading magnates of the realm was attempted in October 1458 in London, he arrived with such a large body of men (thought to be around 1,500)[21] that the city denied him entry. The new earl and his brother Egremont were bound over £4,000 each to keep the peace.[22]
When conflict broke out again, he attended the so-called
Estates, offices and finances
The estates of the Earls of Northumberland had traditionally been in constant use as a source of manpower and wages in defence of the border since the Percy family first gained the office the previous century.[28] The wages assigned to the third Earl were substantial: £2,500 yearly in time of peace, and £5,000 during war, as well as an annual payment for the maintenance of Berwick's upkeep (£66 in peacetime and £120 in wartime). Percy often had to provide from his own resources, however, as "securing payment was not easy" from the Exchequer,[4] (for example, in 1454 he received no payments at all).[29] In July 1452 he gained a twenty-year fee-farm (£80 yearly, from Carlisle), although he subsequently lost it in favour of Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, in July 1454.[4] Throughout the 1450s, the Crown continually made efforts at paying Percy his Warden's wages and fees promptly (paying him full wartime rates for the whole of the year 1456–7, for example),[30] and since he was a loyal Lancastrian he achieved this more often than his counterpart on the west march, Salisbury, who by now had publicly aligned himself with York. The fee farm of Carlisle was returned to Percy in November 1459, following Salisbury's attainder in Coventry. He also benefited from the attainder of York, being granted an annuity of £66 from the latter's forfeited Wakefield Lordship in Yorkshire; he also received £200 from the profits of Penrith.[31]
As a reward for his role in the Lancastrian victory at Ludford Bridge, he was made Chief Forester north of the River Trent and the Constable of Scarborough Castle on 22 December 1459 for life. He was nominated to a wide-ranging commission of oyer and terminer (from the old French, literally a commission "to hear and determine")[32] on 30 May 1460, his new rank was a tactic to deal with the treasons and insurrections in Northumberland. On 3 July, he was granted Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Cambridgeshire, all belonging to Salisbury, on a twelve-year lease.[33] After the Yorkists captured Henry VI at the Battle of Northampton in 1460, they accused Percy of having looted York's northern estates during his exile in Ireland. This charge was likely to have had some truth in it, as it was his continued pillaging of those estates, with the Lords Clifford and Dacre, that led to York marching north to Wakefield in December 1460. These incomes, however collected, would have been vital to the Earl both personally and militarily as his northern estates especially had been a victim of feudal decline for most of the first half of the fifteenth century: even on the forfeit of the earldom to the Crown in 1461, his arrears have been calculated as still standing at approximately £12,000.[4]
Family
On or before 25 June 1435, by the arrangement in 1434 of his father and
- Anne Percy (1444–1522), who married Sir Thomas Hungerford in 1460.[36]
- Margaret Percy (b. c. 1447), who married Sir William Gascoigne[37]
- first Earl of Pembroke.[38]
- Eleanor Percy (1455-c. 1477), who married Thomas West, 8th Baron De La Warr; they had no children.
- Elizabeth Percy (1460–1512), who married Henry Scrope, 6th Baron Scrope of Bolton.[35]
Ancestry
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Notes
- ^ The ancient arms of Percy were: Azure, five fusils in fess or, both versions still quartered by the Percy Duke of Northumberland today
- George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard III of England were all first cousins.[3]
- ^ Burke's Landed Gentry, 1937, p.1792 [full citation needed]
- ^ Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.849 [full citation needed]
- ^ Pollard 2007, pp. viii–ix.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Griffiths 2008.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, pp. 404–5.
- ^ Storey 1957, pp. 600, 604 note 2.
- ^ Storey 1957, p. [page needed].
- ^ a b Griffiths 1981, p. 409.
- ^ a b Griffiths 1981, p. 410.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, pp. 770, n. 203.
- ^ Wilcock 2004, p. 56.
- ^ Jeffs 1961, pp. 155–6.
- ^ Griffiths 1968, p. 597.
- ^ Gillingham 1981, p. 76.
- ^ Storey 1999, p. 130.
- ^ Sadler & Speirs 2007, p. 74.
- ^ Griffiths 1968, p. 605.
- ^ Nicolas 1837, p. 179.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, p. 737.
- ^ Pollard 2007, p. 108.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, p. 805.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, p. 806.
- ^ Haigh 1996, p. 41.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, p. 882.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, p. 874.
- ^ Weiss 1976, p. 504.
- ^ Ellis 2006.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, p. 845 n. 244.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, p. 764, n. 114.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, p. 840 n. 162.
- ^ Booth 1997.
- ^ "Oyer And Terminer". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
- ^ Griffiths 1981, p. p. 851 n. 330.
- ^ "BERKELEY, Sir John I (1352-1428), of Beverstone castle, Glos". History of Parliament Online.
- ^ a b c Richardson III 2011, p. 345.
- ^ Lee 1891, Volume 28, p. 257
- ^ Richardson I 2011, p. [1].
- ^ Richardson III 2011, pp. 345–7.
References
- Bean, J. M. W. (2004). "Percy, Henry, first earl of Northumberland (1341–1408)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21932. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.), older version available at . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
- Booth, Peter W. N. (1997). Landed society in Cumberland and Westmorland, c. 1440–1485: The politics of the Wars of the Roses (PhD). Department of History, hdl:2381/9677.
- Ellis, Steven G. (May 2006) [2004]. "Percy, Henry, fourth earl of Northumberland (c.1449–1489)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21935. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 978-0-297-77630-7.
- S2CID 155012397.
- Griffiths, R.A. (1981). The Reign of King Henry VI. ISBN 978-0-520-04372-5.
- Griffiths, R.A. (May 2010) [2004]. "Percy, Henry, second earl of Northumberland (1394–1455)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21933. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.). The first edition of this text is available at Wikisource: Hunt, W. (1895). . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 44. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- Griffiths, R.A. (January 2008) [2004]. "Percy, Henry, third earl of Northumberland (1421–1461)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21934. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISBN 978-0-7509-1342-3.
- Jeffs, R. (1961). "The Poynings-Percy Dispute: an example of the interplay of open strife and legal action in the fifteenth century". .
- Ormrod, W. M. (January 2008) [2004]. "Lionel, duke of Clarence (1338–1368)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16750. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Lee, Sidney (1891). Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 28. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 257–258. . In
- Nicolas, H., ed. (1837). Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England. Vol. VI. London.
- ISBN 978-1-84725-182-4.
- ISBN 978-1-4499-6637-9.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - Richardson, D. (2011). Kimball G. Everingham (ed.). Magna Carta Ancestry. Vol. III (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 978-1-4499-6639-3.)
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ISBN 978-0-9552758-7-6.)
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: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - JSTOR 557957.
- Storey, R.L. (1999). The End of the House of Lancaster (repr. ed.). ISBN 978-0-7509-2007-0.
- Tate, G. (1866). The History of the Borough, Castle, and Barony of Alnwick. Vol. 1. Alnwick: Henry Hunter Blair.
- Tout, T. F. (1894). Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 39. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 119–121. . In
- Tuck, Anthony (2004). "Neville, Ralph, first earl of Westmorland (c.1364–1425)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/19951. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Walker, Simon (January 2008a) [2004]. "Katherine , duchess of Lancaster (1350?–1403)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26858. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Walker, Simon (May 2008b) [2004]. "John, duke of Aquitaine and duke of Lancaster, styled king of Castile and León (1340–1399)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/14843. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- Weiss, M. (1976). "A Power in the North? The Percies in the Fifteenth Century". S2CID 159692696.
- Wilcock, R. (2004). "Local Disorder in the Honour of Knaresborough, c. 1438–1461 and The National Context". S2CID 162413599.
Further reading
- Bean, J.M.W. (1958), The Estates of the Percy Family, 1416–1537, Oxford Historical Series, London: Oxford University Press
- Hunt, William (1895). Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 44. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 407. – a section of the last page of the 2nd earl's biography. . In
- Rose, Alexander (2002). Kings in the North – The House of Percy in British History. Phoenix/Orion Books. ISBN 1-84212-485-4.