Henry Percy
3rdEarl of Northumberland
Arms of Percy (modern),[a] as seen on seal of Henry Percy:Or, a lion rampant azure (1&4);Gules, three lucies hauriant argent (2&3)[1]
Born	25 July 1421 Leconfield,Yorkshire, England
Died	29 March 1461 (aged 39) Battle of Towton, Yorkshire
Buried	St Denys's Church, York
Family	Percy
Spouse	Eleanor Poynings (m. 1435)
Issue Detail	Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland Eleanor Percy Margaret Percy Elizabeth Percy Anne Percy
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.

TheEarldom of Northumberland was then one of the greatest landholdings innorthern England; Percy also becameLord 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 five children. He was a leadingLancastrian during theWars 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 theBattle of Towton in 1461 on the defeated Lancastrian side.

Percy was the son ofHenry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, andLady Eleanor Neville, daughter ofRalph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, and his second wife,Joan Beaufort.^[b]

Percy wasknighted in 1426 together withHenry VI.^[4] He was appointedWarden of the Eastern March on theScottish border on 1 April 1440, originally for four years, and subsequent extensions in 1444, and 1445, for the next seven years.^[5] This came as well with the custody ofBerwick Castle and responsibility for its defence^[6] He was to hold this post until March 1461.^[7] In May 1448, Percy, with his father andSir Robert Ogle, invaded Scotland and burntDunbar andDumfries, for which, in revenge, the Scots attacked his father's castles ofAlnwick andWarkworth.^[8] King Henry made his way north, and whilst atDurham sent Percy – now Lord Poynings – toraidDumfrieshire; the sortie – "only to return with some 500 cattle" – of around 5,000 men failed, and he was captured whilst caught in a marsh following his father'sdefeat at the River Sark on 23 October.^[9] Sir Robert Ogle was now outlawed and the king used half of his estates to compensate Poynings for theransom he had expended arranging his release from captivity.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[9] In summer 1451, with an Anglo-Scottishtruce pending, Poynings was commissioned to treat with Scottish embassies.^[4] In July 1455, he successfully prevented an assault onBerwick by theScottish King,James II, and was congratulated by the English King as a result.^[10]

In the late 1440s, the Yorkshire tenants of his father, theEarl of Northumberland, were in almost constant conflict with their neighbours, those of theArchbishop of York, involving armed skirmishes which Percy's brothers led.^[11] These events were deemed so severe that in 1448 they led to the only progress north for the King during his reign.^[8] The same year, because of a dispute over the inheritance his family received as a result of Henry Percy's marriage, the Earl of Northumberland's retainers had ejected the earl's relative, Robert Poynings, from his Sussex manors. A year later, Henry Percy – now Lord Poynings by right of his wife – took direct part, with his father, in raiding the manor of Newington Bertram in Kent, which was alsoenfeoffed by Robert. This attack also apparently involved cattle rustling and theft, and Robert later claimed it to be so brutal that he was "deterred from seeking a remedy at law for three years".^[12]

By the early 1450s, relations with a powerful neighbouring family, theNevilles, became increasingly tense, and Poynings' brotherThomas, Lord Egremont, had finally ambushed a Neville force, returning from a wedding, nearSheriff Hutton,^[13] with a force of between 1,000^[14] and 5,000 men.^[15] Although this was a bloodless confrontation, a precedent for the use of force in this particular dispute had already been laid in the previous violence in the region.^[16] By October 1453, Poynings was directly involved, with his father, brothers Egremont andRichard, and joined by Lord Clifford, in forcing a battle withJohn andRichard Neville atTopcliffe.^[17] The feud continued into the next year, when Poynings reportedly planned on attendingparliament accompanied by a large force of men in February, and three months later both he and the earl were summoned by the king to attend council in an attempt to impose a peace;^[4] a second letter was "written but not despatched".^[18] Neither, along with John Neville or Salisbury, did as requested.^[19]

During theWars of the Roses, Percy followed his father in siding with theLancastrians against theYorkists.^[20] The Earl himself died at what is generally considered to be the first battle of the wars, atSt 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-calledParliament of Devils in October 1459, which condemned as traitors those Yorkists accused of, among other offences, causing the death of his father four years before.^[4] On 30 December 1460, Percy led the central "battle" or section of the victorious Lancastrian army at theBattle of Wakefield,^[23] following which, the army marched south, pillaging on the road to London.^[24] He fought against Warwick at thesecond Battle of St. Albans on 17 February 1461, and he commanded the Lancastrian van at theBattle of Towton on 29 March 1461,^[25] however, "his archers were blinded by snowstorms", and he was either slain in close fighting or died of his wounds soon after.^[26] He was buried atSt Denys's Church, York. He was posthumouslyattainted by the first parliament of the victoriousEdward IV in November 1461, and his son and namesake was committed to theTower.^[4][27]

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 ofoyer 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 theBattle 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]

On or before 25 June 1435, by the arrangement in 1434 of his father andCardinal Beaufort,^[4] he married Eleanor Poynings (c.1422-11 February 1484),suo jure Baroness Poynings, daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Poynings ofPoynings inSussex, by his second wife Eleanor Berkeley, a daughter ofSir John Berkeley ofBeverston Castle inGloucestershire.^[34] In 1446 she became heir general to her grandfatherRobert Poynings, 4th Baron Poynings (1380–1446),^[35] inherited his title of Baron Poynings (which having been created by writ was able to descend to females) and his large estates across the south of England.^[4] He was summoned toParliament from 14 December 1446 to 26 May 1455, by writs directedHenrico de Percy, chivaler, domino de Ponynges ("Henry de Percy, Knight,lord of the manor of Poynings"). His wife was a legatee in the 1455 will of her mother, Eleanor, Countess of Arundel (widow ofJohn FitzAlan, 13th Earl of Arundel). They had at least one son and four daughters:^[35]

• Anne Percy (1444–1522), who marriedSir Thomas Hungerford in 1460.^[36]
• Margaret Percy (b. c. 1447), who married Sir William Gascoigne^[37]
• Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland (c. 1449 – 28 April 1489), who married Maud Herbert, daughter of thefirst Earl of Pembroke.^[38]
• Eleanor Percy (1455-c. 1477), who marriedThomas West, 8th Baron De La Warr; they had no children.
• Elizabeth Percy (1460–1512), who marriedHenry Scrope, 6th Baron Scrope of Bolton.^[35]

• Bean, J. M. W. (2004). "Percy, Henry, first earl of Northumberland (1341–1408)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21932. (Subscription,Wikipedia Library access orUK public library membership required.), older version available at"Percy, Henry (1342-1408)" .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,University of Leicester.hdl:2381/9677.
• Ellis, Steven G. (May 2006) [2004]. "Percy, Henry, fourth earl of Northumberland (c.1449–1489)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21935. (Subscription,Wikipedia Library access orUK public library membership required.)
• Gillingham, J. (1981).The Wars of the Roses. London: Phoenix Press.ISBN 978-0-297-77630-7.
• Griffiths, R.A. (1968). "Local Rivalries and National Politics: The Percies, the Nevilles, and the Duke of Exeter, 1452–55".Speculum.43 (4):589–632.doi:10.2307/2855323.JSTOR 2855323.S2CID 155012397.
• Griffiths, R.A. (1981).The Reign of King Henry VI.Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN 978-0-520-04372-5.
• Griffiths, R.A. (May 2010) [2004]. "Percy, Henry, second earl of Northumberland (1394–1455)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21933. (Subscription,Wikipedia Library access orUK public library membership required.). The first edition of this text is available at Wikisource: Hunt, W. (1895)."Percy, Henry, second Earl of Northumberland (1394–1455)" . InLee, 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)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21934. (Subscription,Wikipedia Library access orUK public library membership required.)
• Haigh, P.A. (1996).The Battle of Wakefield.Stroud: Sutton.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".Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research.34 (90):148–164.doi:10.1111/j.1468-2281.1961.tb02091.x.
• Ormrod, W. M. (January 2008) [2004]. "Lionel, duke of Clarence (1338–1368)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16750. (Subscription,Wikipedia Library access orUK public library membership required.)
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• Richardson, D. (2011). Kimball G. Everingham (ed.).Magna Carta Ancestry. Vol. I (2nd ed.).Salt Lake City.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.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Sadler, J. & Speirs, S. (2007).Battle of Hexham in its Place. Hexham.ISBN 978-0-9552758-7-6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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• Walker, Simon (January 2008a) [2004]. "Katherine , duchess of Lancaster (1350?–1403)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26858. (Subscription,Wikipedia Library access orUK public library membership required.)
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• Bean, J.M.W. (1958),The Estates of the Percy Family, 1416–1537, Oxford Historical Series, London: Oxford University Press
• Hunt, William (1895)."Percy, Henry (1394-1455)" . InLee, 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.
• Rose, Alexander (2002).Kings in the North – The House of Percy in British History. Phoenix/Orion Books.ISBN 1-84212-485-4.

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