HENRY DE PERCY (c. 1272-1315) , William's grandson, was one of Edward I.'s most active agents in the subjugation of Scotland till the success of Robert Bruce drove him out of Turnberry Castle, and made him withdraw into England. Percy strengthened his position in the north of England by purchasing lands from Anthony Bek, bishop of Durham, among which was the honour of Alnwick, the principal seat of the family ever since.
Henry's son, another HENRY (c. 1299-1352) , did splendid serv ice to his sovereign by defeating and taking prisoner David II., king of Scotland, at the battle of Neville's Cross (1346).
To him succeeded another HENRY PERCY (1322-1368), a feudal baron like his predecessors, who fought at Crecy during his father's lifetime and whose brother THOMAS PERCY (1333-1369) was bishop of Norwich from 1356 to 1369. HENRY PERCY, 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 liberation he procured from the duke of Albany during the time of James I.'s captivity. From that day the loyalty of the family to the house of Lancaster was steadfast and undeviating. The 2nd earl died fighting for Henry VI. at the first battle of St. Albans in 1455; the 3rd, HENRY (1421-1461), was slain on the bloody field of Towton; the 4th, HENRY (1446 1489), was killed in quelling an insurrection in the time of Henry VII. So strong was the Lancastrian feeling of the family that even Sir Ralph Percy (1425-1464), a brother of the earl who fell at Towton, though he had actually submitted once to Edward IV., turned again, and when he fell at Hedgley Moor in April 1464 consoled himself with the thought that he had, as he phrased it, "saved the bird in his bosom." No wonder, then, that in Edward IV.'s days the title and estates of the family were for a time taken away and given to John Neville Lord Montagu, brother of Warwick the king-maker. But the north of England was so accustomed to the rule of the Percys that in a few years Edward saw the necessity of restoring them, and did so even at the cost of alienating still further the powerful family of the Nevilles, who were then already on the point of rebellion.
A crisis occurred in the fortunes of the family in the reign of Henry VIII. on the death of Henry, the 6th earl (c. 1502-1537),
whose brothers Sir Thomas and Sir Ingelram Percy, much against his will, had taken part in the great insurrection called the Pil grimage of Grace. The title was forfeited on his death, and was granted by Edward VI. to the ambitious John Dudley, earl of Warwick, who was attainted in the succeeding reign.
It was restored under Queen Mary to THOMAS PERCY (1528— 1572) , a nephew of the 6th earl, who was one of the three earls who took the lead in the celebrated rising of 1572, and was be headed at York. His brother HENRY (c. 1532-1585), who suc ceeded him, was no less unhappy. Involved in Throgmorton's conspiracy, he was committed to the Tower of London, and was found shot in bed there. His son, HENRY (1567-1632), the next earl, suffered like his two predecessors for his Catholicism. The Crown lawyers sought in vain to implicate him in the Gunpowder Plot, but he was imprisoned for fifteen years in the Tower and compelled to pay a fine of L30,000. ALGERNON (1602-1668) , the son who next succeeded, was a parliamentary general in the Civil War. The male line of this illustrious family became extinct, at least in the direct line, in 1670 about five hundred years after the marriage of Agnes de Perci with Josceline of Louvain..
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. On the duke's death in 1750 his earldom of Northumberland passed under a special remainder, with the main inheritance of the Percys, to Sir Hugh Smithson, bart. (1715-1786), who had married his daughter and eventual heiress in 1740, and was created duke of Northumberland and Earl Percy in 1766. From this marriage descends the present ducal house, which bears the name of Percy in lieu of Smithson.
See E. B. De Fonblanque, Annals of the House of Percy (1887), and G. Brenan, History of the House of Percy (edited by W. A. Lindsay, 1902), both somewhat adulatory and needing critical revision; Tate, History of Alnwick (1866) ; Hartshorne's paper on the Percys and their Castles in the Newcastle volume of the Archaeological Institute (1852) ; E. A. Freeman, "The Percy Castles" (1875) in English Towns and Districts; G. T. Clark, Medieval Military Archi tecture (1884) ; G. E. C(okayne), Complete Peerage (1895), vol. vi.; Bishop Percy, Northumberland Household Book. See also the article Northumberland, Earls and Dukes of.