Hotspur E-Book

A.W. Boardman

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 475

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

'This book should be in your hands!' – Medieval History Magazine 'A detailed and readable account of Hotspur's life that conveys a sense of the endemic violence of the Border Marches.' – Northern History 'Boardman has studied the battlefields of Otterburn, Homildon Hill and Shrewsbury and combines knowledge of terrain, weapons, and tactics with contemporary narratives to produce feasible reconstructions and explanations of what actually occurred.' – Michael Hicks Immortalised by Shakespeare in Henry IV, Part I, Henry Percy, nicknamed 'Hotspur', is among the best known of all his warlike characters. As the young, honourablebut impatient rebel soldier whose chivalrous exploits on the battlefield end in disaster at Shrewsbury in 1403, Hotspur is the archetypal anti-hero: a character of such tragic and dramatic significance that even his well-known nickname has passed from history into legend. But who was the historical Henry Percy, and why did his rise to fame bring him into direct confrontation with his king? This fully updated book tells the story of the real Henry Percy and his overbearing family, and how the survival of a great northern dynasty led to open rebellion and ultimately military failure.

Leseprobe

HOTSPUR

For all the hyperactive amongst us.

First published 2003 by Sutton Publishing Limited

This paperback edition first published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© A.W. Boardman, 2003, 2022

The right of A.W. Boardman to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 243 3

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

After him came a man spurring hard

A gentleman almost forspent with speed,

That stopped by me to breathe his bloodied horse.

He asked the way to Chester; and of him

I did demand, what news from Shrewsbury.

He told me that rebellion had ill luck,

And that young Harry Percy’s spur was cold.

Henry IV Part 2, Act 1, Scene 1,

William Shakespeare

CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

1 Spofforth: 1364

2 Berwick: 1378

3 Windsor: 1388

4 Otterburn: 19 August 1388

5 France & England: 1391–1398

6 Doncaster: 1399

7 Scotland & Wales: 1400–1401

8 Homildon Hill: 14 September 1402

9 Westminster: 1402

10 Shrewsbury: 1403

11 Bull Field: 21 July 1403

12 Yorkshire: 1403–1408

Notes

Select Bibliography

About the Author

FOREWORD

This military biography began life in 2003 as a re-appraisal of three important medieval battles – Otterburn, Homildon Hill and Shrewsbury – but it quickly developed into a more personal search for one of the most enigmatic and elusive knightly figures of British history – Henry Percy, nicknamed Hotspur. The book was also prompted by a fascination with Shakespeare’s history plays, an affinity with the northeast of England, and a more immediate and long-lasting passion for the varied historical tapestry of my home county of Yorkshire. However, what I found out about the man labelled Hotspur by his enemies was entirely unexpected. His character was not as I first imagined. He was not a typical hot-headed rebel, and instead the real Henry Percy was an idealist consumed by his own celebrity, and destined, because of his chivalric impulsiveness, to become tarnished by a host of historical and dramatic untruths.

Standing under the rugged walls of Bamburgh and Alnwick castles or walking and exploring battlefields where men fought for power or in the pursuit of the throne, is to catch the faded glimpse of an England largely forgotten in the modern consciousness. Hotspur, Shakespeare’s most beloved anti-hero and rebel, knew this bygone age intimately, but even he shares the fate of most larger-than-life characters who were part of this historic landscape. Hotspur was a man at the mercy of his commentators and his actions were wholly mistaken by contemporary writers. And since Hotspur rode across the pages of recorded history at breakneck speed, it is even more surprising that his name has stood the test of time and memory. However, in much the same way as other legendary characters, Hotspur’s exploits have survived many ages and interpretations mainly through theatre and the media, where the persistence of fame owes more to allegory rather than fact.

That Henry Percy’s historical sobriquet conjures up a man of speed and daring is perhaps self-evident, and we may wonder how he earned such a lucid and fiery description in a world of similar men of action. That he was badly misinterpreted and much maligned by many writers after his death is chiefly due to his failed rebellion; that he was remembered as something of an unstable loose cannon is mainly down to how Shakespeare portrayed Hotspur in his plays. However, the historical Hotspur may not have been a quick-tempered and impatient man at all. Indeed, unlike many of his peers who followed the codes of chivalry, he may have had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or a similar neurological problem that in no way prevented him from leading a normal life but was accentuated by the kind of chivalric and violent world he lived in.

As the high-spirited, impetuous, and outspoken youth of Shakespearian drama, Hotspur unfolds before us like a breath of fresh air in an altogether more homogeneous cast. However, the evidence for the real Hotspur, the one his enemies chose to immortalise in a name, is far removed from a performance of Henry IV. Moreover, Henry Percy’s many rash actions may have been fuelled by principle, honesty and virtue. His rebellious character must also be measured against a more sobering will to survive amid increasing personal pressure at court and within the confines of his own family. To summarise, the reader must synthesise all these deeper meanings about Hotspur’s character from the evidence presented here.

Battles of any era continue to fascinate military history enthusiasts, and the battle of Shrewsbury, fought on 21 July 1403, is no exception. The battle heralded a new era of warfare that saw Englishmen fighting their kinsmen at home using similar weapons and military technologies. Therefore, this military biography of Hotspur completes a circle for me with a re-assessment of a conflict that has much in common with the Wars of the Roses. My lifelong interest in the wars between York and Lancaster was certainly tested on several occasions in the quiet meadows surrounding Battlefield Church and resulted in a healthy scepticism about what occurred there in 1403. My findings presented here are controversial and remain so. However, the real uniqueness of the area known today as Battlefield is nothing short of astonishing. In short, all the evidence surrounding Hotspur’s last fight points to an exact acreage of land where the two contending armies fought hand to hand; a fascinating prospect to the battlefield historian considering that most medieval battles have alternative sites attributed to them and some elude us almost entirely.

That the dead remain buried near the church built to commemorate the battle of Shrewsbury is a measured certainty and a testament to what brutal events took place there in 1403. Hotspur brought about those events, although, as will be seen, the story of his life and death was fraught with betrayal and ruthless family ambition. Some readers may feel that Hotspur was ‘used’ by his peers for private gain, and I hope to prove otherwise in this book. There is also an opinion that the Wars of the Roses began at the battle of Shrewsbury, and this reasoning will be fully explored from a political and military standpoint, as will Hotspur’s preoccupation with chivalry – the single most important characteristic that spurred him on throughout his short life.

Andrew Boardman

2022

PREFACE

In a field near Shrewsbury there had been a battle. A battle fought by Englishmen against Englishmen for the prize of the crown of England. Countless dead bodies lay in scattered heaps at the base of a gently rising slope. Flattened crops, which had suddenly yielded to a rushing tide of men and horses, now tangled with thousands of arrow shafts angled obliquely into anything that had halted their deadly path. It was as if a wooden harvest had been spirited out of the ground to greet the knots of men-at-arms and shire levies that had tried to stand firm against some of the best archers in the land. Volley upon volley had rained down from the heavens in dreadful repetition. Needle-sharp and deadly thick, the relentless arrow storm had hit partially armoured bodies several times over. Like lifeless porcupines, shocked and bloody faces now frozen in mute agony stared blindly skyward, while countless severed limbs and shattered body parts denoted the place where the two armies had finally closed in bloody hand-to-hand combat. The kingdom had not seen a battle like it since Simon de Montfort had rebelled in 1265. And never had bow been used against bow to such deadly effect on English soil.

A famous northern hero had died in battle that day. Opposing his king to the very last, he had been cut down somewhere amid the metallic, manic disorder glorified as the epitome of medieval chivalry. Littering the once-quiet meadows flanking the Whitchurch road, the conflict could literally be traced by the human wreckage he had caused, but as yet, no one could remember where the rebel leader had fallen; such had been the ferocity and uncertainty of the final moments of battle.

Flocks of scavengers from nearby Shropshire villages were already picking greedily at the dead. Wounded men cried out for mercy as victorious royalist soldiers in search of loot finished them off with whatever weapons they had to hand. Riderless horses, darting back and forth between the ghastly heaps of dead, reared and bucked savagely, eager to be free of arrow wounds and of the carnage that had stained the battlefield copper-red with their masters’ blood. Their frantic whinnying and the constant lament of dying men were sounds to send a man mad, that is if a man was not mad already from witnessing the many horrors of war.

Confusion and uncertainty reigned supreme in every living soldier’s scarred mind. Only the gaudily attired heralds and their pursuivants, nervously roaming the field in search of the noble and highborn, showed any kind of order and restraint amid the terrible slaughter. Their place was to record the glorious dead and to supervise the teams of gravediggers that would later clear the field of its human refuse as soon as it was safe to do so. Having lost their lives for king and country, those men fortunate enough to have fought and died on the winning side would be noted by their heraldic devices and buried with full battle honours, their dependants cared for with generous annuities paid by the crown. As for the rebel leaders, their heads and what remained of their battered bodies would soon adorn the gates of many an English town and city as a warning to others who might dare rebel against the king’s high estate.

Those soldiers who had survived the terrible ordeal without injury were fortunate to be alive. Some of the wounded would be scarred for life, while others who had been lacerated by soiled weapons would die slowly from infected wounds some weeks later. Yet others would be affected mentally for years to come by the trauma of medieval combat. Both winners and losers would venerate the battle in old age, while those predestined to remain on the field would soon be heaped into communal grave pits near the patch of ground they had so gallantly defended with their lives on St Mary Magdalene’s Eve.

In later years a chantry chapel and secular college would be built on the exact site where the rebellion had been crushed and where its ambitious young leader had met his fateful end. Some of his faithful supporters had failed him at the last, but a select few had followed him blindly into the pages of medieval legend without a second thought. Those unfortunate enough to have fallen into enemy hands were already branded traitors by their king. Bound to their horses and with heads bent low in captive despair, they too would soon meet their deaths in the nearby town of Shrewsbury or be attainted for high treason, their lands and titles forfeited to the crown.

But Hotspur had died a death worthy of his illustrious ancestors’ warlike reputation.

His blue lion rampant banner of Louvain, Fitzalan and Lucy, now ripped to shreds in a last desperate attempt to slay the king, was spattered with the blood of his enemies. Covering his armoured body like a death shroud, the heraldic symbolism of his forebears briefly concealed his identity from his adversaries, while the arrow wound that had suddenly pierced his brain masked his famous features in a welter of blood.

The king’s men were still looking for him in the jaded half-light of the moon’s total eclipse. Soon wild dogs would be roaming the battlefield in search of meat, and then no one would believe that the rebellion had been crushed and that the famous Harry Percy, known as ‘Hotspur’, was dead.

1

SPOFFORTH: 1364

Henry Percy, better known to history as ‘Hotspur’, has acquired almost legendary status, and like many other historical characters, little is known of his early life. He may have been born on 13 June 1364 at the ruined but still impressive Spofforth Castle, a manor house situated between Wetherby and Harrogate in what is now North Yorkshire. According to a document recording a famous heraldic lawsuit in 1386, Hotspur could also have been born at Alnwick Castle on 20 May 1366. Other writers claim he was born at Warkworth on 20 May 1364, or as early as 1360, which perhaps tells us more about the Percy family’s habitual movements around England rather than the date of Hotspur’s birth.1 However, built on the foundations of a much earlier fortification that stood on the same site in the eleventh century, Spofforth Castle is a good place to start Hotspur’s story as it was here in Yorkshire that the Percy inheritance first blossomed after the Norman conquest.

Spofforth Castle in the 1360s was refashioned by Hotspur’s grandfather, another Henry Percy, who obtained a licence to crenellate the building in 1308.2 But battlements were not to be added to Spofforth’s imposing walls. Being situated a relatively safe distance away from the Scottish border and protected by the great defensive chain of northern castles that extended from the Pennines at Richmond to the royal castle at Scarborough on the east coast, it was thought that Spofforth could be afforded a little luxury compared to the Percy’s other northern strongholds that were built to defend the border with Scotland.

Today the great hall at Spofforth is a quiet ruin, but with imagination, it is easy to visualise ‘Spawford’s’3 grandeur, with its hanging tapestries, sumptuous apartments and roaring log fires providing every possible luxury to so great a northern family. However, when Hotspur was born, the castle and its large estate were only a small part of the Percy inheritance, an inheritance that at first commanded only a portion of Yorkshire and then later spread over several other English counties to become one of the most formidable concerns in the land.

In 1364, the Percy family held substantial manors in what was then the old West Riding of Yorkshire, most notably at Healaugh, Leathley, Linton and Tadcaster. In the north of the county, the Percys were lords of Asenby, Gristhwaite, Kirk Leavington, Seamer, Throxenby and Topcliffe, and in East Yorkshire their possessions comprised Arras, Catton, Gembling, Leconfield, Nafferton, Pocklington, Scorborough, Wansford, Wasplington and Wressle. In addition to this impressive list of Yorkshire lowland manors, Percy influence also extended further north, into parts of Craven, Ribblesdale and Langstrothdale, south to their manor at Petworth in West Sussex, east into Lincolnshire, and across the River Tyne to their strongholds of Alnwick and Warkworth, from which the Percy earldom of Northumberland later originated. In short, by 1364, the Percy family were the major landowners in the north after the Duchy of Lancaster and John of Gaunt. And by the end of the century, due to their successive appointments as the king’s ‘seigneurs marchers del north’4 or northern marcher lords, it was perhaps inevitable that the family had also become one of the leading noble families in England.

Fourteenth-century Yorkshire was a vastly different county in importance and character than might at first be imagined. Contrary to popular belief, its actual geographical location was partly responsible for moulding its inhabitants into extremely resourceful individuals who possessed an in-built ability to survive against great adversity. Some fifteenth-century writers who sought to distinguish the military aptitude of the north over the south noted this resilience in their chronicles during the Wars of the Roses. However, the substance of their philosophy undoubtedly stemmed from an earlier age and centred on the vital role played by Yorkshire in Anglo-Scottish border warfare.

The distinction between life in fourteenth-century York-shire and the border region cannot be clearly defined with any degree of accuracy, other than to say that the lowland areas of Yorkshire had much in common with southern England. York was a booming city and a centre for international trade, while Berwick-upon-Tweed was primarily a garrisoned outpost threatened by sporadic Scottish invasion. Newcastle, situated between the two, was a walled town, a port, and a blend of both places, populated by a highly sophisticated merchant class that was occasionally disturbed by the intrusion of raiding parties from Scotland.

When men aged between sixteen and sixty were called upon by commissions of array to help defend northern England against the threat of invasion, it was crucial that the king could rely upon his northern lords to spring into action at any given moment with as many men as possible to protect the border. However, the population of the six northern shires posed inherent military problems for the king and his official (or officials) responsible for defending the marches towards Scotland. The historian R.L. Storey aptly demonstrated the fact that:

The influence of the north was disproportionate to its wealth and population. The six northern counties occupy a quarter of the total area of England, but their adult population was only 15 per cent of the total recorded in the poll tax of 1377. The particulars for Yorkshire distinguish it from the five other counties. Its size is not quite equal to the total area of the others, but it accounted for two-thirds of the northern population. In other words, one-tenth of the English population in 1377 were Yorkshiremen.5

Strong personal ties had been forged between Yorkshire and the lands bordering Scotland during the fourteenth century, and Storey’s ‘disproportionate northern population’ meant that English armies had to be gathered in depth. Taking the above statistics as proof of population, this gives us ample reason to believe that invasion and raiding was therefore not only a northern border problem but also a Yorkshire problem in late medieval England.

Also, the character of Hotspur’s Yorkshire, or more precisely that of its people, differed from the rest of England to such an extent that from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, some of the most dangerous rebellions had their origins in the north. Several complicated political and social events caused these rebellions to reoccur in England during the late medieval period. However, underlying any such short-term causes were more basic long-term traditions. It was these ‘hidden factors’ that helped distinguish northerners from the rest of the population of England by assigning them a dual reputation for being hardy warriors on the one hand and belligerent and rebellious individuals on the other.

To understand this northern duality, it is important to remember that the six northern shires were extremely isolated from central medieval government. Being 200 to 300 miles from London, this was one reason why Yorkshire and the border counties came under the jurisdiction of an independent, trusted and powerful officer of the king. A journey of several days to possibly two weeks on poorly maintained medieval roads made southern control of northern England virtually impossible on a day-to-day basis – so much so that English kings had to delegate command and responsibility for these highly militarised areas to their most powerful lords, some of whose ancestors had held sway over the north since the Norman Conquest.

What the medieval northerner experienced of border life also explains why he was such a difficult subject to control. Constant exposure to the likelihood of invasion and indiscriminate raiding, coupled with the everyday medieval hazards of robbery, arson and manslaughter, made each borderer skilful in the use of arms, a vital prerequisite for every landowner and tenant farmer who had to defend his property to survive. In short, to recover what was rightfully his from an invader, there was only one option open to him – he had to fight back.

A great northern lord faced with such difficulties might call upon his local tenantry to help him recover his property by force of arms, even at the expense of breaking formal treaties imposed by the all-powerful wardens of the marches. If influential enough, the noble in question might petition his king to advance his claim on Scottish-held land that he felt was lawfully his. However, there was no such political alternative for a simple smallholder living on the absolute margin of subsistence. Existing on a constant knife-edge of adversity was an age-old and inherent fact of life in the marchlands, and isolated raiding had accounted for the lives of many men, women and children on both sides of the border by the end of the fourteenth century. Thus, for the common people of Yorkshire, but more particularly for all those who lived within striking distance of Scotland, respect for law and order was a hard pill to swallow compared with a life of poverty and slavery.

For great magnates like the Percys, who held most of the northern power in the fourteenth century, it was much the same story; they too had lands to defend, some of which had been acquired over many generations of hardship, cost and great personal risk. But what better individuals could a noble wish to recruit into his following against a familiar foe than those smallholders on the receiving end of Scottish raiding? As paid guardians of the north, here was the strength in numbers referred to earlier that ensured a noble’s survival, reinforced his garrisons and bolstered his esteem. As for the retained borderer, the lucrative aspects of such northern employment are self-evident, the structure of man and master extending from the lowliest vassal to his supreme master, the King of England. With this kind of military structure in place, it was not only possible for the Percys to raise armies to defend the border, but also it was far easier for men like Hotspur and his father to achieve independent control of the northern marches as almost a petty kingdom.

There were, however, inherent problems for such all-powerful guardians of the north in peacetime. Faced with such a volatile northern population bent on avenging the last pillaging raid into England, treaties were difficult to maintain for long periods. The proximity of farmland and estates to ever-shifting borders made it virtually impossible for northern marcher lords to control their subjects. Therefore, unpredictable factors were introduced into the equation, creating a formidable barrier against any lasting peace settlement with the ‘old enemy’. Violence, in the form of cross-border raiding and feuding, meant that wardens like the Percys were often forced into turning a blind eye to private warring. And as a result, sympathetic royal efforts to improve relations with Scotland came as unwelcome news not only to their long-suffering tenants but also to nobles who were determined to control a significant share of the northern defences.

Ever since Edward I, the redoubtable Hammer of the Scots, had tried to impose his will on Scotland at the beginning of the thirteenth century, northern England had known no peace. It was a legacy of unfinished business and a quarrel that had never been fully settled. Full-scale wars were infrequent, but raids and the indiscriminate burning and pillaging of crops, border towns and farmland were commonplace activities on both sides of the divide. Add to this the violent aspects of everyday medieval northern life, and it was no accident that borderers made good soldiers, violence being a deeply seated living memory that demanded immediate retaliation by those who suffered the direct results of it.

J.A. Tuck shared this view in his War and Society in the Medieval North. Giving credence to the unseen mental effect that sporadic border raiding had on northern populations, he reiterates that ‘it was easier for inhabitants to recover from the damage done by raiders than for them to come to believe that it would not happen again’.6 In fact, the fear of Scottish invasion was more compelling than the actuality, and it was for this reason that fortified houses and ‘peel’ towers were built, not just along the border with Scotland but also in parts of Richmondshire, Craven and North Yorkshire, to combat the lingering threat of invasion.

Hotspur’s family, and a host of other northern lords who shared control of this volatile and militarised area, habitually closed ranks against royal authority when their interests were threatened. By protecting their tenantry from both the fear and actuality of invasion and raiding, they ensured their survival. But they had to be careful not to upset the northern equilibrium or disturb the ties between other northern nobles and the ruling monarch, as both evils could spell disaster if another monopolised the same favours they enjoyed. Therefore, a balance of power had to be maintained by the king, and men like the Percys were acutely aware of this when governing the north with their own private forces.

At the time of Hotspur’s birth, the Percy family’s ambitions were, like any other English noble household, fixed on protecting their territorial interests by mediation and tolerance. However, in the next century, when the Neville family finally quashed Percy ambitions in the north, personal greed opened the political and military floodgates of private warring and blood-feuding to such an extent that civil war was the result. It perhaps is no surprise that the nobility’s ever-loyal northern ‘subjects’ followed both families into battle in what later became known as the Wars of the Roses – in essence, they had little choice. The devotion of these unruly northerners was unbounded and selfish. They helped the Percys and their kind win power in the north for as long as the threat of invasion existed. Consequently, their loyalties rested chiefly with their northern masters and not with their king. As the biased Percy chronicler, John Hardyng informs us of his first patron Henry Percy:

For trust it true there is no lorde in Englande that may defende you agayn Scotlande so well as he, for they [the Percys] have the hertes of the people by North, and ever had: and doute it not, the North parte bee your trewe legemen.7

Hotspur’s father, Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, was the leading player in this remarkable show of northern dominance. In local and national politics, by the end of the fourteenth century, his territorial power in Yorkshire, Northumberland and Cumberland was almost complete. In short, for a brief period, he was the only true northern magnate who could claim to ‘strut the northern shires like a king’.8

How is it then that Hotspur’s name is better known to history than the man who made all this possible? The simple answer is that Northumberland’s impetuous offspring was a larger-than-life historical character whose renown provided a fascinating subject for later writers. Thus Shakespeare, by creating a highly dramatic anti-hero out of an extremely complex historical character, was responsible for giving ‘Harry Hotspur’ legendary status; Percy’s enigmatic nickname, even in Shakespeare’s England, became synonymous with the sublime and eccentric charms of youthful impetuosity that, even today, make him so appealing to audiences throughout the world. In his famous play Henry IV Part 1, Shakespeare succeeds admirably in portraying the extremely ‘juvenile’ Hotspur as the impetuous northern knight, outspoken to the point of foolishness, who dares to rebel against authority in a moment of classic madness. Much like his counterpart Prince Hal, although not as successful, it could be said that Hotspur, like most noble sons of his age, was deprived of real power most of his life. Shakespeare goes on to cast Hotspur as the quintessential medieval rebel seeking glory on the field of battle at the expense of his safety.

However, contrary to popular belief, contemporary chroniclers such as Thomas Walsingham tell of a different kind of Hotspur, who gained fame as easily as others of his age gained land or titles. He describes a knight who constantly sought to fulfil the chivalric ideal, but ultimately of a man who was a victim of others’ greed for power. Focusing on his chivalric notoriety rather than his impulsiveness, the legendary status of Hotspur is therefore cast aside by Walsingham for a more honourable and chivalric one. The reality is difficult to trace, and the appeal of Shakespeare’s ‘Mars in swaddling clothes’ is difficult to exorcise. But herein lies the appeal for this rather complex individual whose famous exploits have stood the test of time and whose death would later ensure that his nickname would become a byword for anyone with the same rebellious, outspoken and hyperactive behaviour.

As stated, of Hotspur’s very early life, little is known. Still, it is highly likely that from an early age, like most of his contemporaries, the young Percy must have been aware of his own lineage and of the prestigious inheritance that might one day be his. John Leland, the great Tudor traveller and antiquary who wrote in the early sixteenth century, recalled in his Itinerary that one of the Percy manor houses had a special room for studying genealogy. And it was probably here Hotspur read of his forbears and how they carved out a name for themselves after the Norman conquest:

[Leconfield] is a large house and stondith withyn a great mote yn one very spatius court. Three partes of the house, saving the meane gate that is made of brike, is al of tymbre. The fourth parte is fair made of stone and sum brike. I saw in a litle studiying chaumber ther called Paradice the genealogie of the Percys.’9

In such a place as ‘Paradice’, Hotspur would likely have learned about his illustrious ancestor William de Percy, the first baron, nicknamed ‘als gernons’ (with the whiskers), who probably arrived in England from Normandy sometime after 1067. However, lacking first-hand knowledge of Leconfield’s more ancient genealogical roll, the prime source for any serious modern research into the Percy family derives chiefly from the pen of E.B. de Fonblanque in his rare book, Annals of the House of Percy. First published in 1887, this important work, along with some other more recent studies of the Percy family, tells of a rather less hospitable north than even young Hotspur might have been used to, and to an England where Saxon resistance against Norman incursion had been systematically reduced to ashes in its beloved capital of York.

A supposed intimate friend of the Conqueror, Hotspur’s great ancestor, William de Percy, is recorded in the Domesday Book as holding in capite eighty-six lordships in Yorkshire, thirty-two in Lincolnshire and several other manors in Essex and Hampshire. The Percy family had no connection with Northumberland until two centuries after their settlement in England, but their principal residences were built on sound and highly prized foundations ‘in the cradle of their race – Yorkshire’.10 Of William de Percy’s Norman estates, such as the family seat of Perci in the valley of the River Dives, twenty-five miles south-east of Caen in France, there is little mention after William’s arrival north of the Humber, and it is highly likely that he was from a younger branch of the family not destined to inherit a major share of Percy lands in upper Normandy. Fonblanque, our guide to this rather complex history of the Percy family, describes William as Comte de Caux and de Poitiers and asserts that the family owned the Chateau de Perci near Villedieu in the Department of La Manche. However, it is certain that with lands to be acquired in England William was not slow in capitalising on the Conqueror’s recent acquisitions in Yorkshire. Soon after the Saxon rebellion of Gospatric in 1069, and the desolation of the north by Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, Percy obtained substantial parcels of land all over Yorkshire. Here he built several fortified manor houses, including the Percys’ four most influential seats of power at this time: Topcliffe, Spofforth, Sneaton and Hackness. William de Percy also gained a cluster of lands around the coastal port of Whitby, where he began to rebuild the monastery that Danish invaders had previously destroyed.

Although probably never the subject of much debate in Hotspur’s day, it seems that William de Percy was a particularly headstrong and obstinate individual when it came to parting with any of his hard-won lands. Indeed, it seems that he even rebelled against the current Norman fashion of appearing clean-shaven, hence his ‘hairy’ nickname. This stubbornness and determination to be different can be best illustrated by briefly describing the events surrounding the famous ongoing feud to control the Whitby Abbey estate, which raged on and off for almost twenty years.

After William’s friend and cousin, Reinfeld, ceased to be abbot of Whitby in 1078, a monk named Stephen sought to question the charter under which the monastery held its lands from the Percys. Refusing to make the charter absolute in favour of the abbey, William de Percy drove Stephen and his monks away, and they, in turn, petitioned the king to resolve the dispute. The resulting attempts at mediation ended in deadlock, and the monks sought refuge at nearby Lastingham, Abbot Reinfeld being reinstated at Whitby in Stephen’s place in the interim. However, the dispute was far from over, and it now found new roots in a quarrel much closer to home when Reinfeld suddenly died, apparently while he was supervising the repair of a nearby bridge. After deciding to appoint his brother Serlo to the see of Whitby, William de Percy gifted a portion of its land to his armour-bearer, Ralph de Eversley, for services rendered. Inevitably, this opened old wounds, and Serlo rebelled against his brother by petitioning the king (then William Rufus), who threatened Percy with excommunication. Both Percys were ordered to keep the peace, and in harmony with this edict, Serlo and his monks were also ordered to move away until William came to his senses and agreed that the abbey lands should be held jointly.

Like so many of his contemporaries, Percy was insanely jealous of other men’s territorial influence, and this stubborn trait seems to have so plagued Hotspur’s family in later years that it is perhaps worth remembering that its origins had an early precedent. However, in the harsh realities of the medieval north, it is perhaps also useful to note that there could be no compromise for a man like William de Percy when landed power was at stake. As discussed previously, Yorkshire had witnessed a degree of Norman devastation and rebirth, and leading nobles naturally became highly protective of their hard-won estates, defending them to the last acre in some cases to survive. William de Percy was not unique in this stubbornness, nor was he exceptional in his decision to pay good service with land in the time-honoured fashion of feudalism.

Men like Ralph de Eversley took advantage of ‘good lordship’ to carve out their own power, which was inevitably paid for in return, usually by military service. In the latter years of the eleventh century, this service took Eversley overseas, and in about 1095, he followed his master to Palestine, where Percy joined Robert of Normandy on crusade. However, two years later, it was here that Percy died, his body being buried at either Antioch or Montjoie in sight of Jerusalem. William’s heart was removed from his body and brought back to England at his own request, and it is said that this task was performed by none other than Percy’s faithful retainer, Eversley, who survived the crusade and dutifully returned to England to bury als gernons heart in the abbey that had caused William so much trouble.

Hotspur’s famous ancestor left three sons by his Saxon wife, Emma de Port, and thereafter the eldest, Alan, succeeded to the Percy barony as the second of that name. In comparison to his father’s notable landed achievements in the north, the career of ‘Magnus Alanus’, despite his grand title, was undistinguished. However, when he died in 1120, Percy dominions in the north had multiplied tenfold and had not only spread into parts of Cravenshire but had also undergone a significant change of ownership. By the time Alan’s son, a second William de Percy, succeeded to the title, most of the Percy lands acquired originally by his grandfather als gernons from the Earl of Chester were now held directly from the crown.

After the death of Alan’s son, another William succeeded to the family title, becoming the fourth baron. This William de Percy fought for King Stephen and Thurstan, Archbishop of York, against the Scots at the battle of the Standard in 1138, the irony being that William’s uncle (an illegitimate son of Alan de Percy) fought on the losing side. Conflicting loyalties often caused many northern lords with lands in Scotland to side with the ‘old enemy’; however, despite this fact, the Percys seem to have followed what appears to have been a family tradition of allegiance to English kings, never knowingly threatened until Hotspur rebelled against Henry IV in 1403. Later given the manor of Petworth and 10,000 acres of land in Sussex by Henry II for his devoted service to the crown, William, the fourth baron, left two daughters and four sons to succeed to a vast inheritance. Unfortunately, all four of these Percys left no male issue, and the barony passed equally to William’s daughters, Maud and Agnes Percy, who had each married into the nobility.

That young Hotspur’s family historian would have likely glossed over the events relating to the next period of uncertainty faced by his family is perhaps understandable. With the male line extinguished in one generation, not only was the actual name of ‘Percy’ in danger of disappearing but also two of its family members found that they were plunged into a desperate quarrel to determine who would hold the moiety of the barony. The ensuing battle for power was not finally won without a great deal of family upheaval. However, the truth is perhaps a perpetual reminder of how influential and powerful wealthy landed women could be in the fourteenth century, especially when it came to the survival of a dynasty.

Maud Percy, the chief instigator of the resulting family litigation, was probably a very resourceful and single-minded woman. Nevertheless, when she married William de Newburgh, Earl of Warwick, she could hardly have foreseen that he, like her illustrious forebear als gernons, would also die on crusade, leaving no male issue to inherit the Percy title. With the harrowing prospect of her lands being contested by others less worthy to inherit, she promised that her youngest nephew Richard de Percy, second son of her sister Agnes and Jocelyne, Count of Louvain, should inherit her half of the Percy estates at her death. And it was this legacy that was to later cause a major family rift, and not for the last time in their ancestry.

The marriage of Maud’s sister into the family of Louvain was made on the condition that Count Jocelyne should adopt the Percy name. Claiming noble descent from none other than Emperor Charlemagne, Louvain appears to have consented to this proviso despite his noble breeding, which at face value seems to have been a wholly inappropriate thing to do under the circumstances. However, it seems that the impoverished count held slender estates at the time, and although he adopted the name of Percy as his own, he refused to forsake his own arms (a field or a lion rampant azure) in fear that he would be unable to inherit his father’s estates when he died. Thereafter, the arms of Louvain became quartered with that of Percy (azure, five fusils in a fess argent), and the name of Percy, and the famous blue lion, lived on through two sons, Henry and Richard.

Despite the obvious problems facing the Percy family name at this time, Maud’s bequest to her nephew Richard seems natural enough, given that a strong, adult male heir was clearly the best chance of family survival in such uncertain times. However, there was a major stumbling block. Richard’s elder brother, Henry de Percy, who had died in 1198, had left a son to succeed him, bringing about another fierce family quarrel when this son, William, came of age.

Richard was not unlike most of his medieval contemporaries when it came to coveting landed power. Quickly seizing his inheritance on the death of his mother Agnes in 1205, Richard found no difficulty usurping the entire administration of the Percys in addition to his own. William’s remonstrations changed nothing regarding the baronial title, and a long period of litigation ensued, which finally concluded that Richard de Percy should hold the moiety of the estates bequeathed to him by his aunt Maud, but that on his death, the whole property was to revert to his nephew William.

Richard, technically 5th Baron Percy, was now lawfully secured in his inheritance, albeit a usurped one. However, there can hardly have been a day that passed when his nephew’s diminutive shadow did not haunt him. After joining the twenty-five barons who forced King John to sign Magna Carta in 1215, Richard de Percy must have been contemplating what might happen if the king ever took revenge on those responsible for his subjugation. The reprisals were not long in coming. Less than a year later, when Richard and other northern barons reduced Yorkshire to the obedience of Louis of France against King John, Percy’s worst fears came to pass. Excommunicated by the pope for his treasonable actions, all his lands were immediately confiscated and declared forfeit to the crown. A change of monarchy in 1216 resolved nothing, and in 1217 Henry III added insult to injury by threatening to grant all this power to William, Richard’s nephew if he did not submit to the crown. However, Richard managed to maintain his independence and a slender control of the barony, despite several brushes with adversity, right up to his death in 1244, when William finally got what he wanted.

It is highly likely that William de Percy heaved a huge sigh of relief when he received news of his uncle’s demise. But the postscript to this story ends on a less happy note for William. Less than a year after his uncle was buried at Whitby Abbey, William de Percy, then aged fifty-two, also died, leaving several children by his first wife Eleanor Baliol, of whom the eldest, Henry, became 7th Baron Percy.

During the Barons’ War of 1264, this Henry de Percy fought under the royal standard at the battle of Lewes, where he was taken prisoner by Simon de Montfort, the founder of the first medieval parliament. However, the following year he was free again and negotiating a treaty between Henry III and the barons, after which he had the good fortune to ally himself with the royal family by marrying Eleanor Plantagenet, the king’s niece. When he died in 1272, Henry left a son, another Henry Percy, to succeed to the barony, a man with whom no doubt Hotspur would have identified with wholeheartedly, judging by his ancestor’s varied military career.

Henry de Percy, 8th Baron, was summoned to parliament as Lord Percy in 1298, and at the age of twenty-six, he fought in Gascony under Edward I. Earlier, in 1296, the Percy battle cry of Esperance! was doubtless heard in the marches and in what was soon to become the Percys’ more usual haunt of Northumberland. Here, before the gates of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Henry Percy was knighted by his cousin Edward I, after which he shared in the glowing English victory over the Scots at the battle of Dunbar. In 1297 Percy made Carlisle his headquarters, and here he and Robert de Clifford set about mustering a large force to invade Scotland. After capturing the Bishop of Glasgow, Robert de Bruce and several other Scottish notaries, Percy tried to reinforce Sir Hugh Cressingham at Stirling, but he was ordered to withdraw his troops, fortunately escaping the famous English defeat there by the forces of William Wallace.

For the remainder of his life, Henry Percy served both Edward I and Edward II in Scotland on many occasions, most notably against Robert de Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, when the English were utterly defeated. Before this, however, Percy had been allowed to purchase Alnwick Castle from Anthony Bek, the Bishop of Durham, and from then on, this famous fortress was to become one of the most notable seats of the Percy family. In fact, Henry Percy, now created 1st Baron Percy of Alnwick, was chiefly responsible for transplanting the family name from Yorkshire into the Northumbrian heartland. Captured after Bannockburn by his arch-rival Bruce, Percy was speedily ransomed but died in 1315, allegedly of a broken heart because of the English defeat. He was buried at Alnwick, leaving two sons to succeed him by his wife, Eleanor Fitzalan.

Hotspur’s great-grandfather, a third Henry de Percy, was born in 1299 and continued where his father’s exploits in Scotland had left off. Knighted in 1322, he accompanied Edward II into Scotland, but when Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer formed an open league against their sovereign in 1326, his decision to join their ranks and then oppose them probably gives some indication of how fickle the notion of strong kingship had become in England at this time. Summoned to the parliament of 1327, Henry de Percy was among those who deposed Edward II and acclaimed his fourteen-year-old son King of England. Later passing a sentence of death on Mortimer, who had recently, along with Queen Isabella, relinquished all English claims on Scotland for the princely sum of £20,000, Percy played a prominent role in the border war that followed. He took part in the siege of Berwick in 1333 and was probably present at the battle of Halidon Hill, where the English warbow caused great slaughter against the forces of Archibald Douglas.

The feud between the rival houses of Percy and Douglas forms a significant part of our story, and its origins can be traced to about this time. Indeed, by 1345 the two families had become pitted against each other in a fierce dispute over land rights, and this was to remain so for some time to come, especially along the border where Hotspur was later to gain his fame as a guerrilla fighter. Sir William Douglas had recovered vast territorial gains from the English by the middle of the fourteenth century, and David Bruce, the son of Robert, strove to push his conquests even further while Edward III was otherwise occupied in France. In the absence of his king, Henry de Percy was made one of the Guardians of the Kingdom and, along with other northern barons, was chiefly responsible for halting the Scottish advance into England at Neville’s Cross in 1346. The Lanercost Chronicle has a stirring account of the battle, not to mention a rare physical description of Hotspur’s famous ancestor:

They [the English] arranged themselves into three columns, of which Sir Henry de Percy commanded the first … Sir Henry Percy like another Judas Maccabeus, the son of Mattathias, was a fine fighter. This knight, small of stature but sagacious, encouraged all his men to take the field by putting himself in the forefront of the battle … then with trumpets blaring, shields clashing, arrows flying, lances thrusting, wounded men yelling, and troops shouting, the conflict ended about the hour of vespers, amid sundered armour, broken heads, and, sad to tell, many laid low in the field.11

After a fight which saved the north and probably the whole kingdom from invasion, it is said that Henry Percy received huge ransoms from those who were captured. Subsequently, he was able to rebuild parts of Bamburgh Castle and start work on a new tower at Alnwick, although he probably did not live long enough to see either completed. After campaigning with his kinsman Edward Baliol in Scotland, Percy suddenly died and was subsequently buried at Alnwick in 1352, leaving his son and namesake to succeed to the title.

Henry, 3rd Lord Percy of Alnwick, was Hotspur’s grandfather, and while his father was busy fighting the Scots at Neville’s Cross, this Henry Percy was serving his king in France, most notably at the battle of Crécy, where the huge army of Phillip VI came to grief against the deadly effects of the English warbow. Henry Percy continued to fight for Edward III in France but was on several occasions also employed in the north of England against the Scots, most notoriously in Edward’s disastrous campaign known as ‘Burnt Candlemas’ because of the devastation caused by English troops north of the border. However, Percy was recalled to France in 1359, where he took part in the exhaustive campaign that led to the Treaty of Bretigny, an agreement and temporary accord that ended the war and his military career overseas in a flurry of uncertain rhetoric that echoed well into the next century. During his life, Hotspur’s grandfather married twice, leaving two sons by Mary Plantagenet, the daughter of Henry, Earl of Lancaster, and one daughter by his second wife, Joan Orby. Henry’s two sons by the Lancastrian heiress were Hotspur’s father, another Henry Percy (later Earl of Northumberland), and his famous uncle, Thomas Percy (later Earl of Worcester). Born in 1364, Hotspur was only four years old when his grandfather died in 1368 and it is perhaps inevitable that his character was moulded by the glowing exploits of his ancestors.

A rich tapestry of men and women had preceded him, and each one, in turn, had cultivated and helped protect the fragile branches of his family tree against great political and military adversity. Moulded by the harsh realities of the north, both male and female had earned their place, first in Yorkshire and then in Northumberland, as one of its most prolific protectors. Many Englishmen must have felt the Percys’ rough northern presence at court, their abrupt speech in parliament, as well as appreciating their uncompromising courage on the battlefield. Casting all thoughts of personal safety aside in favour of direct action was a family characteristic that was to help and hinder their survival, and this was to become Hotspur’s way when he came of age. Indeed, Hotspur was to become a living testament to his family’s impetuous need to prove themselves in a world of political and chivalric extremes.

Today, this cavalier image may be seen as a kind of abstract foolishness, a Baroque masterpiece perhaps, faded at the edges by time and memory – in short, the brightly burnished image of medieval chivalry illuminated in all the great chronicles of the period. It may also be observed that great skill in arms was an unnecessary evil aimed at perpetuating pointless violence in an age when peace and courtly love walked hand in hand with double-dealing and treachery. However, some aspects of the chivalrous life may be condoned when measured against the violent backdrop of Hotspur’s world: a world in which the darker side of medieval chivalry is well documented for all to see in the many acts of blind stupidity, war crimes and barbarism that one might construe today as verging on the criminally insane.

Yet contrary to what we in the modern world may think abhorrent, to men like Hotspur, the pursuit of a chivalrous life was never questioned for a moment. To the son of a great and illustrious fighting family, chivalry was the embodiment of all that was noble in life. It was a clear-cut case of what was expected of a knight and how he must conduct himself in time of war. It was also the surest route to fame and fortune, even to the point of individuals accepting death as a kind of living immortality. This was Hotspur’s world. Even before his birth, the north of England was a battleground, a place that had to be defended with both political and military might. Defeat in such an unpredictable environment could spell political and personal disaster for those responsible for its safety. And in an age when power reigned supreme, such an unnatural and lowly existence was unthinkable by those whose landed interest was built on firm ancestral foundations.

If nothing else, this brief chronology of Hotspur’s family illustrates two crucial aspects of what it meant to be the son of a famous northern household. Firstly, that geographically the position of Percy dominance dictated the family’s political and martial involvement in English affairs; and second, that while Scotland warred with England, there could be no other choice for a king than to maintain his military leader (or leaders) in the north – primarily those who had everything to lose and gain from involvement on the border.

Landed power and royal favouritism ensured the survival of the Percys and all their retainers and tenants who lived in England. It was much the same story for all other households that held land on the border and in Scotland. Rival claimants and cross-border feuding were necessary evils that had to be endured to survive, and it was in both kingdoms’ interests that all forms of competition were pursued at every opportunity. National politics, and even the fate of kings, could be determined by such territorial advantages, just as the appointment of a supreme military commander in the north could spawn local dissent among other nobles who craved ultimate power in the marches.

Like the sons of all noble families before him, the young Hotspur was undoubtedly influenced and shaped by all these factors governing his northern upbringing. The responsibilities were great, the training ground hard, but as far as we know, Henry Percy took to his charges naturally, knowing that one day these great duties would rest upon his shoulders. When he was young, he could hardly have imagined where such responsibilities might lead or to what extent the sacred mantle of kingship might influence his short life. But he did not have to wait long to experience his first acidic taste of medieval warfare.

2

BERWICK: 1378

The English chronicler John Hardyng was descended from a respectable northern family. He was born in 1378, and at the age of twelve was admitted into the Percy household to be instructed in religion, learning and the exercise of arms. It was the same in all gentry families throughout England, although as will be seen from Hardyng’s own evidence there was nothing ‘gentle’ about a medieval upbringing if a candidate was aiming at military fame and fortune:

And as lordes sonnes bene sette, at foure yere age,

To scole at lerne the doctryne of lettrure,

And after at sex to have thayme in language,

And sitte at mete semely in alle nurture.

At ten and twelve to revelle is their cure,

To daunse and synge, and speke of gentlenesse:

At fourtene yere they shalle to felde I sure,

At hunte the dere and catch an hardynesse.

For dere to hunte and slea, and see them blede,

Ane hardyment gyffith to his corage,

And also, in his wytte he takyth hede

Ymagynynge to take thaym at avauntage.

At sextene yere, to werray and to wage,

To juste and ryde, and castels to assayle,

To scarmyse also, and make sykyr scurage,

And sette his wache for perile nocturnayle.

And every day his armure to assay

In fete of armes with some of his meyne,

His might to prove, and what that he do may

If that he were in suche jupertee

Of werre by falle, that by neccessitie

He might algates with wapyns hym defende:

Thus, shuld he lerne his priorite

His wapyns alle in armes to dispende.12

That Hotspur, like Hardyng, underwent this kind of tuition and military training is certain, although, unlike Hardyng, Hotspur probably first tasted military life earlier than most. In fact, according to de Fonblanque, it was thrust upon him when he was only nine years of age.13