Percy, a noble northern family, famous in the history of England for five hundred years. Its founder, William de Percy, came with the Conqueror to England, and was rewarded with lands in Hampshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire—among the last being Topcliffe and Spofforth, long the chief seats of the house. The male descendants became extinct with the death of the third baron, and the representation of the house devolved upon his daughter Agnes, who married Josceline of Louvain, brother-in-law of King Henry I., on the condition that he assumed the name of Percy. Their youngest son, Richard de Percy, then head of the family, was one of the chief barons who extorted Magna Charta from King John, and the ninth feudal lord, Henry de Percy, gave much aid to Edward I. in the subjugation of Scotland, and was made governor of Galloway. The latter was driven out of Turnberry Castle by Robert Bruce, and was rewarded by Edward II. with the empty honour of Bruce's forfeited earldom of Carrick, and the governorship of the castles of Bamborough and Scarborough. In 1309 he obtained by purchase from Bishop Antony Bek the barony of Alnwick, the chief seat of the family ever since. His son, Henry de Percy, defeated and captured King David II. of Scotland at the battle of Neville's Cross (1346); his grandson fought at Crécy; his great-grandson, the fourth Lord Percy of Alnwick, was marshal of England at the coronation of Richard II., and was created the same day Earl of Northumberland. Henry, eldest son of the last, was the famous Hotspur whom the dead Douglas defeated at Otterburn (1388), and who himself fell at Shrewsbury (1403) fighting against King Henry IV. His brother, Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, was executed immediately after the battle. Their father, who had turned against Richard II., and helped Henry of Lancaster to the throne, was dissatisfied with Henry's gratitude, and with his sons plotted the insurrection which ended in Shrewsbury fight. Later he joined Archbishop Scroope's plot, and fell at Bramham Moor (1408), when his honours were forfeited on attainder, but restored in 1414 to his grandson Henry, the second earl, from which day the Lancastrian loyalty of the family never wavered. Henry became High Constable of England, and fell in the first battle of St Albans (1455). His son Henry, the third earl, fell at Towton (1461), and it was his brother, Sir Ralph Percy, who comforted himself as he lay bleeding to death on Hedgley Moor (1464), that he had 'saved the bird in his bosom.' The title and estates were now given to Lord Montagu, a brother of Warwick, the king-maker, but in 1469 Henry, the son of the third earl, subscribed an oath of allegiance to Edward IV., and was restored. He was murdered at his Yorkshire house of Cocklodge, in 1489, in an outburst of popular fury against an extortionate subsidy of Henry VII. The sixth earl, Henry-Algermon, in youth had been the lover of Anne Boleyn, and was forced against his will to marry a daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. He died childless in 1537, and, as his brother Sir Thomas Percy had been attainted and executed for his share in the Pilgrimage of Grace, the title and honours were forfeited, and the title of Duke of Northumberland was conferred by Edward VI. upon John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who in turn was attainted and executed under Mary in 1553. That queen in 1557 granted the earldom to Thomas
Percy, son of the attainted Sir Thomas Percy. A devoted Catholic, he took part in the Rising of the North, and was beheaded at York in 1572. His brother Henry succeeded as eighth earl. He became involved in Throgmorton's conspiracy in favour of Mary Stuart, and was committed to the Tower, where he was found dead in bed, with a pistol beside him, whether through suicide or murder, 21st June 1585. His son, the ninth earl, was imprisoned for fifteen years in the Tower, and fined £30,000 on a baseless suspicion of being privy to the Gunpowder Plot. He was followed by his son, the tenth earl, who fought on the parliamentary side in the Civil War, and was succeeded by his son Josceline, the eleventh earl, with whose death in 1670 the male line of the family became extinct. Charles II. created in 1674 his third bastard by the Duchess of Cleveland, Earl, and afterwards Duke, of Northumberland, but the titles expired on his dying childless in 1716. The eleventh earl's only surviving child and heiress, in her own right Baroness Percy, married Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and became the mother of Algernon, Duke of Somerset, who was created in 1749 Baron Warkworth and Earl of Northumberland, with remainder to his son-in-law, Sir Hugh Smithson, fourth Baronet, of Stanwick in Yorkshire. Sir Hugh succeeded to the earldom in 1750, assuming the surname and arms of Percy, and was created in 1766 Earl Percy and Duke of Northumberland. The sixth duke succeeded in 1867.
See books cited under NORTHUMBERLAND, and E. Barrington de Fonblanque's Annals of the House of Percy (privately printed, 2 vols. 1887).