Earl Percy

“ The representation of the earlier Percys had passed away through the daughters of Earl Thomas, beheaded in 1572, but his earldom of Northumberland (created anew for him in 1557) had passed to his brother Henry, under a special remainder, and appears to have become extinct in 1670, though persistently claimed by James Percy, “the trunk-maker.” The last earl's daughter Elizabeth, a great heiress, was mother by Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset, of Algernon, 7th duke, who was summoned (in error) as Lord Percy in 1722 and created earl of Northumberland in 1749. ”

“ A deep and deadly blow:
Who never spoke more words than these,
“Fight on my merry men all;
For why, my life is at an end,
Lord Percy sees my fall.” [133]
Then leaving life, earl Percy took
The dead man by the hand,
And said, “Earl Douglas, for thy life
Would I had lost my land!
O Christ! my very heart doth bleed,
With sorrow for thy sake;
For sure a more renowned knight
Mischance did never take.”
A knight amongst the Scots there was,
Which saw earl Douglas die,
Who straight in wrath did vow revenge
Upon the earl Percy:
Sir Hugh Montgomery was he call’d ”

“ The Percys rose in revolt. Henry Percy had special grievances against the king, in which his father had some share. Northumberland was thwarted by the king's inability to supply him with the money that he needed for the war with the Scots, he had been treated somewhat shabbily with respect to the Scottish prisoners, he had good reason to suspect the king of endeavouring to represent him and his family as the cause of the poverty of the realm, and he was probably also jealous of the Earl of Westmorland, the earl's nephew by his first wife and the head of the rival house of the Nevilles of Raby. ”

“ Percy, Earl of Northumberland, is the lover and destined husband of Elwina, daughter of Earl Raby. For some offence Raby breaks off all relations with Percy, who subsequently joins a crusade. During his absence Raby compels his daughter to marry Earl Douglas, an inveterate foe of Percy, and shortly after that the hero returns to England. ”

“ In 1380 Percy took part in the great expedition of Thomas of Woodstock, earl of Buckingham, for which he was retained with two hundred men-at-arms and two hundred archers (Froissart, vol. ix. p. c n., ed. Reynaud) . The English landed at Calais in July, and marched through northern France to Brittany. Percy was sent from Rennes with Sir Robert Knolles to bring the Duke of Brittany to the English camp. ”

“ XXXII
‘Yield thee, Percy,’ said the Douglas,
‘And i’ faith I shall thee bring
Where thou shalt have an Earl’s wages
Of Jamie our Scottish king.
XXXIII
‘Thou shaltè have thy ransom free,
—I hight [1109] thee here this thing;
For the manfullest man thou art that e’er
I conquer’d in field fighting.’
XXXIV
But ‘Nay’, then said the lord Percye,
‘I told it thee beforn
That I would never yielded be
To man of a woman born.’
[Pg 670] XXXV
With that an arrow came hastily
Forth of a mighty wane [1110] ”

“ PERCY, HENRY, eighth Earl of Northumberland (1532?–1585) , born at Newburn Manor about 1532, was second of the two sons of Sir Thomas Percy who was executed in 1527 as a chief actor in the northern rebellion known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Brought up with his elder brother Thomas, seventh earl [q. v.] , he took part as a youth in border warfare, and on Queen Mary's accession was appointed governor of Tynemouth Castle. He was returned to the House of Commons in 1554 as M.P. for Morpeth, was knighted in 1557, and became deputy warden of the east and middle marches. ”

“ After a long parley, in which a truce of two days was even said to have been agreed on, the Scottish earl of March, fighting on the royal side, forced on the battle in the afternoon, the royal right being commanded by the prince of Wales. Hotspur was killed, the earls of Douglas and Worcester, Sir Richard Venables of Kinderton, and Sir Richard Vernon were captured, and the rebel army dispersed. Worcester, Venables and Vernon were executed the next day. Percy's body was buried at Whitchurch, but was disinterred two days later to be exhibited in Shrewsbury. ”

“ The fire of the field-pieces checked the Americans; Earl Percy formed his brigade into a square, with the exhausted flank companies in the centre, and after the men had rested a short time, commenced his march for Boston. The Americans hung upon his rear in crowds, and kept up a constant fire; but the troops continued their march in excellent order to Charlestown, from whence they crossed the river in boats to Boston, under the cover of the guns of a man-of-war stationed near the ferry. The loss of the King's Own on this occasion was Lieutenant Knight and seven private men killed ”

“ After they had rebuilt Alnwick Castle and settled down there, the Percies soon established their power in the North. At the coronation of Richard II., in 1377, a Henry Percy was Marshal of England, and he was then made Earl of Northumberland. His son, "Hotspur," was the most famous of all the Percies. In their time, the battles of Otterbourne and Homildon Hill were fought. ”

“ I have my doubts, after all, about the first marriage. There are the certificate and all the papers safe in my desk. Earls may die, and worms may eat them,—and so with their sons and daughters. It isn't among the impossibilities that my little Percy may be a countess yet! Any way, if an advertisement should appear calling for heirs to the Earl of Blank, somebody besides me and my little woman would know all about it."
Mrs. Lunt insisted on my stopping to tea with them, and I had a strange curiosity to look at Percy Lunt again, surrounded with this new halo, thrice circled, of mystery. ”

“ Then we sort of “took stock”—stock of all our opinions and beliefs and judgments. Percy looked scared and limp and dripping and, altogether, very funny. We might have laughed, but we didn't—for we remembered that the impulse to do what Percy had done had come to neither of us until he was very nearly back to the launch—with the boy in tow.
We delivered the kid, singed, soaked, terrified still, to a waiting ambulance further down the shore, and Billy continued solemnly his collecting of data on the blaze. As we chugged swiftly about the harbor Percy sat in the stern-sheets and shivered. ”

“ Thomas Percy, a native of Beverley, an ancient and historic town in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was therefore a Yorkshireman by birth. He was the son of Edward22 Percy and Elizabeth his wife. Though not the ringleader of the band of conspirators, Thomas Percy must have cut the greatest figure in the eyes of the public at large. For he was a “kinsman” of Henry, ninth Earl of Northumberland, according to the testimony of the Earl himself, [16] and through this nobleman Thomas Percy had been made Captain of the Pensioners-in-Ordinary — Gentlemen of Honour — in attendance at Court. ”

“ After he had left us and dodged into the darkness we discussed his heaven as it really must be. Ibsen and welsh rarebits, emotion and hairpins, scattered all about, we wagered. Red curtains on the windows and framed verses from the Rubaiyat, decorating the walls. We shuddered, and told one another that Percy had been always lost, for so it seemed to us—lost at the outset in the allurements of rainbow liqueurs; lost even more hopelessly, now, in the clutches of his frowsy priestess of purple emotion. ”

“ In 1670 Jocelyn Percy, the eleventh Earl of Northumberland, died without male issue. Up to his time, throughout the six hundred years, the noble family of Percy had never been without a male representative, and the successive earls had almost invariably been soldiers, and had added to the lustre of their descent by their own valiant deeds. ”

“ The Duke of Northumberland, aided by his son, the persevering Percy, surnamed Hotspur, with the indignant March, had got an army in the rear, when Douglas, seeing a good position between the two forces, called Homildon Hill, was the first to take possession of it. Harry Percy was about to charge up the hill, when the Earl of March, seizing his bridle, backed him cleverly into the ranks, and advised him to begin the battle with his archers. The advice was taken; they shot up the hill, and success was the upshot. ”

“ Lord Percy distinguished himself by his enmity to Piers de Gaveston, and it is perhaps just to consider that his hostility arose from patriotic303 motives; but there is a suspicion attached to his behaviour towards the unhappy favourite, which the biassed historian of the house of Percy has rather increased than lessened, by his laboured attempt to remove. It appears that Gaveston was besieged in Scarborough Castle by the Earl of Pembroke; that he surrendered upon condition that his life and person should be secured; and that both the Earl and Percy solemnly pledged themselves to that effect. ”

“ He became high sheriff of Yorkshire in 1738, and represented Middlesex in parliament from 15 May 1740 till his elevation to the peerage ten years later. In 1740 he proposed marriage to Elizabeth, only daughter of Algernon Seymour, who had been created Baron Percy in 1722. The lady's father was eldest son of Charles Seymour, sixth duke of Somerset [q. v.] , by his first wife, Lady Elizabeth, only daughter and heiress of Josceline Percy, eleventh earl of Northumberland (d. 1670) . The duchess died in 1722, and transmitted to her husband all the estates of the Percy family. ”

“ At the office, where Percy would appear in the morning, red-eyed and weary, anywhere from an hour to four hours late, he was regarded as a harmless idiot who might do something unexpectedly good if nothing good was expected of him. Sent out to get facts, Percy often got them. Not always, but often. However, the management in those days was genial and bibulous, itself, and Percy stayed on in a glow of good fellowship. Nobody trusted him—his chin was warning enough—and when the big stories broke he was pushed into a corner ”

“ The 1st earl of Northumberland, father of the famous Hotspur, Sir Henry Percy (q. v.) , was killed at Bramham Moor in 1408, while in arms against the king, and his title and estates were forfeited. But, by an act no less gracious than politic, Henry V. restored them in 1414 to this earl's grandson, Henry (1394-1455) , then a prisoner with the Scots, whose l1berat1on he had no difficulty in procuring from the duke of Albany during the time of James I.'s captivity. ”

“ In a half hour we ran across Burkett, got all the stuff he had not sent in by telephone, and received from him Hayes' telephoned order to come in and write what we had.
And then, as we turned our backs on that blazing string of water-front sheds, Percy crawled down to us and told us why he had done it. Anyone could have guessed.
She adored heroes. With all the red fervor of her shallow soul she worshipped “big, strong men,” who thought nothing of leaping into danger for others. ”

“ Earl Douglas was buried at the bracken bush,
And the Percy led captive away.
LXXVI
Now let us all for the Percy pray
To Jesu most of might,
To bring his soul to the bliss of heaven,
For he was a gentle knight.
FOOTNOTES:
[1036] husbands = husbandmen.
[1037] Styrande = stirring, rousing.
[1038] brent = burned.
[1039] hale = whole.
[1040] berne = fighting-man.
[1041] bent = coarse grass. ”

“ Percy was sitting thoughtfully at his typewriter, hammering out a story.
“Say, Billy,” he inquired suddenly, “how is it you spell 'equilibrium?'”
“Well,” began Ranson, “my own private way of—”
He was interrupted by the city editor, a brisk, sprightly gentleman who had an abrupt manner and a biting tongue.
“See here, Myers,” said that dignitary, coming up suddenly, “you needn't finish that story.”
“But why not?” Percy protested. “It's a good—”
“Because,” said the city editor, “there is no longer any Star to write for. The paper suspended an hour ago.” ”

“ EARL OF CLARENDON 1609-1674 DEATH OF FALKLAND In this unhappy battle was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland, a person of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity. ”

“ Imagine, if you can, a worse hell for a man than his—surrounded by primroses and poppies, reading the book of his wife's sticky soul-sobs, as she had penned them for the great public to gloat over.
We looked at Percy; in wonder that he did not scream out in rebellion—but he gazed back at us with the placid expression of a calf. Actually, he seemed 1appy. Minnavieve ranted on about Nietzsche—neither of us had ever heard of the gentleman before—and read us passages from his work. ”

“ Billy was right. That dark morning Minnavieve actually took the bewildered Percy by the hand and led him over to the City Hall, where he spent his borrowed dollar to be united to her in the holy bonds of matrimony. The next evening Percy came drifting into the Press office and told us about it. Minnavieve was sitting not far away, and she glanced at him occasionally with an air of proud proprietorship.
“She's a good little woman,” he told us over and over. “She'll make me a good wife.” ”

“ I said coolly, for her words nettled me, “the man is not seriously hurt, and my duty must be my excuse.”
“Your duty!” she cried with intense scorn. “You had not dared this outrage had my brother, the earl, been present!”
“But he is not, madam,” I answered with a faint sneer. “I believe I am correct in saying that he is not even in England!”
“He is where every true and loyal gentleman should be,” she cried boldly—“in Ireland, fighting for his rightful sovereign, King James!”
I heard a low gasp escape the troopers behind me. [43] It might have been astonishment or of admiration at her boldness. ”