Henry Percy, 1st Baron Percy

Henry de Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Alnwick (25 March 1273 –

Henry de Percy
October 1314)[3] was a medieval English magnate.
Ordinancer
He fought under King Edward I of England in Wales and Scotland
and was granted extensive estates in Scotland, which were later
retaken by the Scots under King Robert I of Scotland. He added
Alnwick to the family estates in England, founding a dynasty of
northern warlords. He rebelled against King Edward II over the issue
of Piers Gaveston and was imprisoned for a few months. After his
release, he declined to fight under Edward II at the Battle of
Bannockburn, remaining at Alnwick, where he died a few months
later, aged 41.

Seal of Henry Percy from the

Barons' Letter, 1301. On his shield
he bears the arms of Brabant
(Percy modern)
Successor Henry de Percy, 2nd
Baron Percy
Born 25 March 1273
Petworth, Sussex,
England
Died 2–10 October 1314
(aged 41)
Alnwick,
Northumberland,
England

Left: Paternal arms of Henry Percy: Azure, five fusils in fess or,[1]("Percy ancient") which he abandoned in favour
of right: Or, a lion rampant azure ("Percy modern"/Brabant:[2]
Contents
Origins
Majority & change of arms
Marriage and progeny
Seal of Henry Percy from the
Knighthood and war in Scotland
Barons' Letter, 1301, which he
Baron and Scottish landowner signed as Henricus de Percy,
A new monarch D(omi)n(u)s de Topclive (Henry
de Percy, Lord (feudal baron) of
Founding a dynasty in Northumberland Topcliffe). His seal bears the
The return of Gaveston legend: SIGILLUM HENRICI DE
PERCY /SIGILLUM HENRICI DE
Imprisonment PERCI ("seal of Henry de Percy")
The final year
References

Origins
Henry was born at Petworth in Sussex in 1273, seven months after his father's death, saving the family line
from extinction, as two older brothers had died in infancy, and all six uncles had died without leaving any
legitimate heirs. He was fortunate in having the powerful John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey as his maternal
grandfather. Henry was the son of Henry de Percy (d.1272), 7th feudal baron of Topcliffe, Yorkshire,[4] by his
wife, Eleanor de Warenne, daughter of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey by Alice de Lusignan, Countess
of Surrey, half sister of King Henry III.[5] His great-great-grandfather was Jocelin de Louvain (d.1180) who
had married Agnes de Percy (d.1203), one of the two daughters and co-heiresses of William II de Percy
(d.1174/5), 3rd feudal baron of Topcliffe, whose descendants had adopted the surname "de Percy".[4]

Majority & change of arms

In 1293, Henry came into his inheritance of estates in Sussex and
Yorkshire, including Topcliffe Castle, the ancient family seat. In 1294 he
married Eleanor, daughter of the Earl of Arundel. He then proceeded to
change the family coat of arms from Azure, five fusils in fess or[7] ("Percy
ancient") to Or, a lion rampant azure ("Percy modern"). Blue and gold
were the Earl Warenne's colours and a gold lion rampant had been the
Arundel's arms. Alternatively the arms are said to be the arms of
Brabant.[2] This emphasised his royal and noble connections and marked
his ambition. This was also the year he went to war for the first time,
summoned to fight in France, but then diverted to Wales to join Edward I
in suppressing a Welsh rebellion. There he learned the grim business of
medieval warfare, and command and supply of armies in the field.
Arms of Percy (ancient): Azure,
five fusils in fess or[6]
Marriage and progeny
Henry de Percy married Eleanor FitzAlan, daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 8th Earl of Arundel,[8] and had two
sons:

Henry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy (b.1299), who succeeded his father
 Drawing made in 1611 of seal of Henry de Percy attached to the Barons' Letter, 1301, after changing his arms to
(Percy (modern):[2] Or, a lion rampant azure.

William de Percy (c.1303-1355)

Knighthood and war in Scotland

By the summer of 1295, Henry was in the north with his grandfather
Earl Warenne. Edward I's deliberately humiliating treatment of King
John I of Scotland and his nobles was making war inevitable.
Warenne was King John's father in law, used as an intermediary by
Edward. In 1294 Philip IV of France had taken back Aquitaine from
the English crown and now negotiated a treaty with the Scots to wage
war on Edward on two fronts. During March 1296 Edward I's army
surrounded Berwick on Tweed, then the largest town in Scotland and
an important seaport. It was here on 30 March that Henry Percy was
knighted by the King.[9] Later on the same day the town was taken The view from Stirling Castle with the
and the ruthless king, apparently provoked by the inhabitants present Stirling Bridge in the
previously baring their buttocks at him, ordered the city put to the foreground and the Wallace
sword "whatever the age or sex" and according to the Scotichronicon Monument in the middle distance
7,500 were executed.[10]

Percy, under Warenne's command, was sent north to Dunbar where the castle was held by the Earls of Mar,
Menteith and Ross, together with many lesser nobles. After they had beaten a Scottish force outside the castle
the king joined them, and the castle soon surrendered. The rest of Scotland was occupied in the space of a few
weeks and English administrators installed. King John Balliol was forced to abdicate and Warenne appointed
to govern Scotland as a province. Having proved his ability Henry Percy was given the task of governing Ayr,
Galloway and Cumberland, based at Carlisle Castle. With King Edward now turning his attention to affairs in
France there was only a year or so of peace before the situation in Scotland began to unravel. In the summer of
1297 William Wallace murdered the English sheriff of Lanark and was joined by Robert Bruce, Bishop
Lockhart, James Stewart and Sir William Douglas in the Scottish lowlands while Andrew Murray started a
Highland uprising.
Working closely with Robert Clifford from Westmorland, Percy confronted the other rebels at Irvine while
Wallace was in central Scotland, and negotiated their submission, subduing southern Scotland for a while.
Warenne then began an expedition to hunt down Wallace and Murray, finding them waiting north of the River
Forth near Stirling Castle. The ensuing Battle of Stirling Bridge was a disaster for the English army. Percy and
his fellow commanders could only watch helplessly from the castle as their infantry, caught on the far side of
the one narrow bridge were slaughtered. Murray, however, was mortally wounded in the battle and died
sometime later. The English were temporarily expelled from Scotland and on the defensive, with the Scots
raiding northern England. In the following spring of 1298 King Edward returned from France and assembled a
large army, including many Welsh longbow archers, to begin a new and determined assault on Scotland. They
caught up with Wallace at Falkirk on 22 July where Henry Percy was part of the fourth reserve division of
experienced and highly mobile cavalry.[11]

Baron and Scottish landowner

Early in 1299 the King granted the estates of Ingram Balliol, who had been involved in the Scottish rebellions,
to Henry Percy, including land in England and south west Scotland. This not only gave him greater income
and status, but also a vested interest in the continuing conquest of Scotland. The king also summoned Percy to
attend parliament as a peer of the realm, making him a baron by writ. His family had previously had the
courtesy title of baron because of their land holdings. Percy had proved himself an able soldier and
administrator and found royal favour. The rest of the year was spent skirmishing with Scottish guerilla groups,
and the following summer campaigning with the king although little was achieved other than the capture of
Caerlaverock Castle after a long siege, at which he was present with his elderly grandfather Earl Warenne. The
Caerlaverock Poem or Roll of Arms made at the siege by the heralds records the armorials of Warenne and
Percy in a single verse, translated from Norman French into modern English thus:[12]

"John the good Earl of Warenne

Of the other squadron held the reins
To regulate and govern,
As he who well knew how to lead,
Noble and honourable men.
His banner with gold and azure
Was nobly chequered.
And he had in his company
Henry de Percy, his nephew (son nevou) (sic)
Arms of Warenne:
Who seemed to have made a vow
Chequy or and azure
To rout the Scots.
A blue lion rampant on yellow
Was his banner very conspicuous"

Correspondence in late 1301 shows Percy at his estate at Leconfield in Yorkshire, where his wife probably
lived, at a safe distance from Scottish raiding parties. In February 1303 Percy was sent north in a cavalry force
led by Johannes de Seagrave which was defeated at Roslin. He then joined King Edward's summer offensive,
reaching Dunfermline in early November. Robert Bruce had already changed sides to support Edward and in
February 1304 most of the Scots negotiated a settlement with the English king. Henry Percy is known to have
played a prominent role in the negotiations.[13] Only Stirling Castle now remained to be subdued, and was
battered by catapults during the spring of 1304, while King Edward's militant queen, Marguerite of France,
watched from a specially built wooden shelter.
The siege culminated in the commissioning of Warwolf, a giant trebuchet which flattened the curtain walls.
The defenders had tried to surrender four days earlier, but had been made to wait by the king while he tried out
his new toy. In September 1305 the first joint English and Scottish parliament met at Westminster to agree a
constitution for the unified state, with Percy playing a leading role in the negotiations, but Robert Bruce, a
leading representative of the Scots, was already conspiring to rebel. On 25 March 1306 Robert Bruce was
crowned King of Scotland at Scone Abbey, upon which Edward confiscated his lands and gave them to
Henry Percy. The King now appointed Percy to command northwest England and southwest Scotland, with
orders to suppress the rebellion without mercy. Bruce's army was soon defeated in battle, but Bruce escaped to
wage a guerilla campaign against the English from the wild countryside of Galloway. For several years
afterwards the English Barons held the castles of southern and central Scotland, but were ambushed and
harried in the countryside.

A new monarch
Edward I, on his way to launch a new campaign against the Scots, died on 7 July 1307 before crossing the
border. The dying Edward I, asked his assembled barons to give the succession to his only surviving son
Edward. He also asked them to maintain the banishment Piers Gaveston from England. Henry Percy was not
present, being left in charge of southern Scotland. The death of Edward I, with the conquest of Scotland
incomplete, was a personal disaster for Percy. After years of hard fighting he now had extensive land holdings
in southern Scotland, but this was of less interest to Edward II who promptly recalled Gaveston and made him
Earl of Cornwall, an office of great wealth. Gaveston, a formidable tournament fighter in the melee, openly
despised and insulted the old king's stalwart warriors.

Edward II left Scotland in August 1307 after replacing his father's loyal and experienced commanders,
Clifford, Valence and Percy who were sent home, only to be recalled to Scotland in October. By then,
however, Robert Bruce had escaped from Galloway to the Highlands, and had raised new forces and taken
eastern Scotland by the end of the year. In August 1308 Bruce captured Argyll, previously loyal to King
Edward and then raided Northumberland. Percy and Clifford were again summoned to defend Galloway, at
their own expense, against an onslaught by Robert Bruce's surviving brother Edward. They were able to hold
the castles, but not the countryside. Percy had travelled south to Westminster in February that year for the
king's coronation, where he would have seen Gaveston's arrogance.

The ceremony was delayed for a week while the French delegation, alarmed that the king preferred Gaveston's
company to that of Isabella, his 12-year-old French bride, threatened to boycott the coronation. In the event
Gaveston was given precedence over the other Earls. At the following feast Gaveston dressed in an outfit of
royal purple and pearls, and called the king over to sit with him, instead of with Queen Isabella. The French
delegation walked out and one earl drew his sword and had to be restrained from attacking Gaveston. During
the spring of 1308 the barons in parliament pressed the king to exile Gaveston, developing the Doctrine of
Capacities, distinguishing between loyalty to the king and loyalty to the crown. On 16 June 1308, Gaveston
was appointed Lieutenant of Ireland, to get him out of the country, with Henry de Percy as a witness.

Founding a dynasty in Northumberland

In 1309, Henry was able to buy Alnwick Castle from Anthony Bek, the Prince Bishop of Durham, giving him
a base near to the action in Scotland and a substantial annual income of about £475 from the associated lands.
To make the purchase price of £4666 he borrowed £2666 from Italian merchant bankers, the Lombard
Society.[14] When William Vesci had died in 1297 without a legitimate heir, Bek had been entrusted with the
estates of the Vesci family on behalf of his son, the illegitimate William Vesci of Kildare. Vesci of Kildare did
receive the other family lands in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire and it is unclear whether he was defrauded by the
greedy bishop over the sale of Alnwick. In the same year of 1297 Henry obtained a royal licence to fortify his
mansion at Petworth and two mansions in Yorkshire.[15]
The return of Gaveston
By the summer of 1309 Edward II had managed to cajole most of his
earls into allowing Piers Gaveston to return to England, although the
most powerful earl, Lancaster, was implacably opposed. On 27 June
1309 Gaveston, restored to the Earldom of Cornwall, returned to
England and soon proved as obnoxious as before, calling Lancaster
"Churl" and Warwick "Black Cur".[16] Henry Percy would have
been preoccupied with the purchase of Alnwick at that time and
generally tried to stay out of the trouble with Gaveston.
Alnwick Castle by Canaletto
At the parliament of February and March 1310 the King was forced
to accept the election of twenty one Lords Ordainers to govern the
country. In June the king began a campaign in Scotland in which Percy fought, although many barons senior
to Percy declined to take part. Robert Bruce continued to fight a guerilla war, refusing to give battle, so little
was achieved, while relations between the king and his earls further deteriorated. In May 1311 Gaveston
ordered Percy to hold Perth for the summer with two hundred knights and no infantry, a dangerous task at a
time when the king's army was withdrawing to England. Surviving this Percy was back in London in
October.[17]

The barons now forced the king to send Gaveston into exile in Flanders, but he was soon recalled and was in
York with his heavily pregnant wife in January 1312, with his lands restored. Percy was ordered out of
Scarborough Castle and Gaveston took it over. Violence was now inevitable. In April the king and Gaveston
were chased out of Newcastle by the sudden arrival of an army under Lancaster, Percy and Clifford, fleeing to
Scarborough. In their haste they left behind Gaveston's wife and baby daughter and a great hoard of treasure,
which it took Lancaster, Percy and Clifford four days to catalogue. Lancaster held onto this for future
bargaining with the king.[18] Gaveston was soon besieged at Scarborough Castle by Percy, Clifford, and the
earls of Warenne and Pembroke, surrendering after a month. Percy remained in York when Gaveston was
taken south to Warwick and then executed.

Imprisonment
The king, seeking revenge for the death of his friend, stopped short of civil war with the rebel earls but made
an example of the less powerful Baron Percy by confiscating his lands on 28 July 1312, and having him
imprisoned by the Sheriff of Yorkshire. The earls made Percy's release a priority in their difficult negotiations
with the king and he was freed in January 1313.[19] and was formally pardoned in October. Gaveston's
treasure was returned to the king soon after.

The final year

King Edward now prepared for a campaign in Scotland in 1314, culminating in his total defeat at the Battle of
Bannockburn. Percy, along with five of the earls and many other nobles refused summonses to this campaign
because it had not been sanctioned by parliament, as required by the Ordinances. There are no contemporary
records of Percy being at Bannockburn[20] and it seems that he remained at Alnwick, defending his land
against Scottish raiders. His friend and comrade Robert Clifford did go, and was killed in the battle. Within
days of the battle Percy was summoned to Newcastle to prepare an emergency defence of northern England
against an invasion. Instead of an all-out invasion, Robert Bruce sent raiding parties to extort money from the
northern counties. Only a few months later in the first half of October 1314 Henry Percy died, aged 41, of
unknown causes.
References
1. Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.849, Duke of Northumberland
2. Howard de Walden, Lord, Some Feudal Lords and their Seals 1301, published 1904, p.43
3. "Percy, Henry (1272?-1315)" (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Percy,_Henry_(1272%3F-1315)_
(DNB00)). Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
4. Sanders, I.J., English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, p.148
5. Peter Jerrome, Petworth, from the beginnings to 1660 2002 The Window Press
6. Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.849, Duke of Northumberland
7. Debrett's Peerage, 1968, p.849, Duke of Northumberland
8. Gee, Loveday Lewes, Women, art, and patronage from Henry III to Edward III: 1216-1377, (The
Boydell Press, 2002), 147.
9. Alexander Rose, Kings in the North The House of Percy in British History 2002 ISBN 1-84212-
485-4 p145
10. Bower, Walter, Scotichronicon, ed. D. E. R. Watt and others, 1998
11. Gerard Brault, Rolls of Arms of Edward I (1272-1307) 1997 pp404-417
12. Howard de Walden, Lord, Some Feudal Lords and their Seals 1301, published 1904, pp.4,43
13. J Brain, The Percies in Scotlandp 337
14. Alexander Rose, Kings in the North The House of Percy in British History 2002 ISBN 1-84212-
485-4 p184
15. Peter Jerrome, Petworth, from the beginnings to 1660 2002 The Window Press p29
16. Alexander Rose, Kings in the North The House of Percy in British History 2002 ISBN 1-84212-
485-4 p180
17. Alexander Rose, Kings in the North The House of Percy in British History 2002 ISBN 1-84212-
485-4 p187
18. Denholm-Young (Ed) Vita Edwardi Secundi, Monachi Cuiusdam Malmesberiensis. London
1957. p33-36
19. Alexander Rose, Kings in the North The House of Percy in British History 2002 ISBN 1-84212-
485-4 p194
20. Alexander Rose, Kings in the North The House of Percy in British History 2002 ISBN 1-84212-
485-4 p196

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