Henry Percy, Third Earl of Northumberland (1421-1461) [Wars of the Roses]

Arms of Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland

Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland, (1421-1461)

HENRY PERCY, third Earl of Northumberland, son of Henry, second earl, was born at Leconfield, Yorkshire, on 25 July 1421, and was knighted by Henry VI on 19 May 1426, being the day on which the little king was himself knighted.¹ In July 1439 he was appointed warden of the east marches and Berwick. By his marriage with Eleanor, granddaughter and heiress of Robert, Lord Poynings, he in 1446 acquired the baronies of Poynings, Fitzpaine, and Bryan, with estates in Kent, Sussex, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Somerset, and was in December summoned to parliament as Baron de Poynings.

In May 1448 he invaded Scotland in company with Sir Robert Ogle, afterwards first Baron Ogle, and burnt Dunbar. The Scots retaliated by setting fire to his father's castles, at Alnwick in June and at Warkworth in July, and doing other damage. Accordingly, in October the king, having advanced into the north, sent him to invade Scotland. He was met by Hugh Douglas, earl of Ormond, forced to retreat, and defeated and taken prisoner near the river Sark.² He regained his freedom, and was recompensed by the king with the grant of half the goods of Sir Robert Ogle, then outlawed.

In April 1451 he was a joint commissioner to treat with the ambassadors of James II of Scotland, and was one of the conservators of the truce made at Newcastle in August.³ On the death of his father on 23 May 1455 he succeeded him as Earl of Northumberland, the king allowing him relief of his lands without payment, the new earl having on 3 July foiled by his careful preparations an attack of Scots on Berwick, for which he received the king's thanks. This attack on Berwick was probably connected with the war between King James and James, ninth earl of Douglas, in alliance with whom Percy seems to have acted against Scotland about this time.

The feud between the Percys and the Nevilles still disturbed the north, and in January 1458 a great council was held at London to pacify that and other quarrels. To this council the earl came up at the head of a large armed force, and the Londoners, who admitted the Yorkists within their city, refused to admit him and the other Lancastrian lords, 'because they came against the peace,' so they lodged outside the walls. After much debate a general reconciliation, in which the earl was included, was effected on 25 March.⁴ Northumberland attended the parliament at Coventry in November 1459, when the Duke of York was accused of the death of the old earl, and the Yorkist leaders were attainted, and he took the oath to maintain the succession in the king's line. He was appointed chief justice of the forests north of Trent, and constable of Scarborough Castle,⁵ and the king is said to have committed the government of the north to him and Lord Clifford as 'his trusty and most faithful friends.'⁶

In November 1460 he held a meeting at York with Lords Clifford, Dacres, and others, and plundered the tenants of the Yorkist lords. York went north against them, and on 29 Dec. they defeated him at Wakefield, in which battle Northumberland was engaged.⁷ After helping to raise an army for the queen, he marched southwards with her and the forces of the north, their army plundering and destroying as it marched, and on 17 Feb. 1461 defeated Warwick at St. Albans. The earl then marched to York with the king and queen, and was, in conjunction with Somerset and Clifford, in command of the royal army which marched to oppose the advance of the new king, Edward IV. At the battle of Towton on 29 March the earl commanded the van of the Lancastrian army. Seeing that his archers, who were blinded by a snowstorm, were unable to stand against the arrows of the Yorkists, he hastened to come to close quarters, and was slain.

By his wife Eleanor, who survived him, he left a son Henry, afterwards fourth Earl of Northumberland, and three daughters: Eleanor, married Lord De la Warr; Margaret, married Sir William Gascoigne of Gawthorp, Yorkshire; and Elizabeth, married Henry, lord Scrope of Bolton. He was, it is believed, buried in the church of St. Dionys at York, the church of the parish in which stood Percy's Inn, the York town house of his family. In this church there was a painted window presenting several effigies of the Percys; it was taken down in 1590.⁸

1. Rymer's Foedera, x. 356.
2. Auchinleck Chronicle, p. 18.
3. Foedera, xi. 299.
4. Political Poems, ed. Wright, ii. 254.
5. Doyle's Baronage, ii. 648.
6. Hall's Chronicle, ed. Ellis, p. 242.
7. William Worcester, Annals; Gregory, Chronicle, ed. Gairdner, p. 210; Lancaster and York, ii. 236.
8. Drake, Eboracum, p. 306, where it is figured.

Source:

Hunt, William. "Henry Percy, Third Earl of Northumberland."
The Dictionary of National Biography. Vol XLIV. Sidney Lee, Ed.
New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895. 407-408.

Other Local Resources:

Books for further study: Brenan, Gerald. A History of the House of Percy.
            Fremantle & Co., 1902.

Collins, Arthur. An History of the Ancient and Illustrious Family of the Percys.
           Gale ECCO, 2010. (Reprint from 1750)

De Fonblanque, E. Barrington. Annals of the House of Percy.
           London: Richard Clay & Sons, 1887.

Lomas, Richard. A Power in the Land: The Percys.
           East Linton: Tuckwell Press, Ltd., 1999.

Rose, Alexander. Kings in the North: The House of Percy in British History.
            Phoenix Press, 2003.

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