Richard III and the Percies

In contrast to his relationship with the Nevilles who shaped him, and the Stanleys who came to represent, in some strange, symbolic sense, the judgment of God on his kingship, Richard’s relationship with the Percies seems to have been fairly clear-cut. On one side stood Sir Robert Percy, a close personal friend since his boyhood days who fought and died with him at Bosworth; on the other, Henry Percy, an erstwhile Lancastrian foe and an arch-enemy of Richard's foster-family, the Nevilles. While the two Percies were distantly related, familial ties and connections of blood did not necessarily make for unity in fifteenth century England. Robert Percy’s father was a Yorkist taken prisoner at the disastrous battle fought at Wakefield in 1460, and Henry Percy’s father was a Lancastrian killed fighting for Henry VI at Towton in 1461. As Ralph Griffiths observes:

“The higher aristocracy was a great cousinhood, highly suspicious of one another on matters of property and local influence, and deeply divided by jealousies and resentments caused by the very fact of their blood and marital ties. Therefore, families cooperated politically only in a minority of instances.”

Not much is known about Sir Robert Percy of Scotton and he remains a rather obscure figure. Unlike his remote kinfolk, the Percies of Alnwick, he was a staunch supporter of York. His father, Robert Percy of Scotton, a follower of the Yorkist Nevilles and the Duke of York, was taken prisoner at Wakefield, where York was slain along with Warwick’s father, the Earl of Salisbury, and two of their sons. The young Robert Percy was then sent to the household of the great Yorkist, the Earl of Warwick, to receive his education. It was there he made the acquaintance of two fatherless boys who were to become his lifelong friends: Francis Lovell, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
Robert’s birth date is not clear, but it is possible he may have been born as early as 1445, which would have made him seven years older than Richard. He probably fought with Richard at Barnet, but he must not have enjoyed a military reputation, as there is no record of any service in the 1481-1482 campaign against the Scots where so many of Richard’s northern followers were knighted. There is no doubt, however, of his close friendship with Richard. He received a knighthood the day before Richard’s coronation, was prominent in the ceremonies that followed, and along with Richard’s other devoted boyhood friend, Francis Lovell, he was singled out to serve the King and Queen at their coronation banquet, a high honor perhaps akin to the modem equivalent of being chosen bridesmaid at a wedding.
During the two years of Richard’s kingship, Robert Percy was at his side much of the time, enjoyed great favor and was clearly trusted. He kept the faith to the end and died fighting for Richard at Bosworth. In 1487, his son Robert (by his first wife, Ellinor, daughter of Sir Ralph Bewley), joined the Earl of Lincoln and Francis Lovell at Stoke in their rebellion against Henry VII. After Lincoln’s defeat, this Robert was attainted, but his attainder was reversed two years later, and his posterity continued at Scotton for several generations.
Henry Percy’s relationship with Richard could not differ more dramatically from Robert Percy’s record of friendship, affection, and abiding loyalty.
The main facts of Henry Percy’s life, his actions at Bosworth and subsequent murder, are well documented, but nothing has survived to illuminate his humanity and he remains a stiff cardboard figure in history. No known great acts of kindness, valor, or accomplishment are attributed to him by any of his contemporaries, and no personal letters have survived to give us an insight into his thoughts. Only at Alnwick Castle does a stone inscription provide a faint glimpse into the psyche of the man regarded as one of history’s greatest traitors. There, above the doorway of the barbican, stands the Percy shield, the lion rampant of Louvain carved in stone, and the motto Esperance ma Comforte, which was placed there sometime between 1469-89.
Henry Percy, the fourth Earl of Northumberland, was born in 1446, and on his father’s attainder was placed in captivity for nine years.  This imprisonment appears not to have been strict, and his transfer to the Tower was of short duration, a matter of only a few months under Warwick in 1469. Nevertheless it seems to have exacted a heavy toll on the twenty-three year old Percy. His motto, In Hope is my Comfort, devised sometime during the years of his captivity, brings to mind the image of a young man reared to inherit a virtual kingdom and wield enormous power who, instead, sits in confinement, mulling the circumstances that brought about his predicament, hoping for freedom and chafing at the Yorkist yoke placed around his neck. These long years of captivity and resentment of York led to a certain grim determination. He would never let it happen again. In future, should he regain his freedom, he would commit to no one but himself, do nothing that might jeopardize his interests. From now on, the young man tells himself, Percy stands for Percy. Nothing else matters, not honor, not justice, not loyalty, oaths, or promises.
An analysis of his handwriting corroborates this assessment. According to Florence Graving, a Master Certified Graphoanalyst with extensive experience in handwriting analysis for corporations, legal firms, and in court testimony as an expert witness, handwriting cannot predict actions, but traits in evidence can be projected into a psychological personality profile.
As we would expect, Henry Percy’s psychological profile is far from flattering.
Percy was aggressive and didn’t hesitate to push past people to get what he wanted. He was also overly sensitive to criticism and imagined it where none existed. No doubt these traits surfaced when he was in Richard’s service governing the North, causing friction and straining their relationship. Richard could not have been unaware of the resentment his superior authority elicited, and to his credit, he made every effort to accommodate the prickly lord. On one occasion, the city of York discharged one of their clerks, and the man went to Percy, who reinstated him. The city appealed to Richard. He looked into the matter, and not wishing to over-rule Percy on his own authority, and doing his utmost to be fair, he had Edward’s own lawyers examine the case. The King’s lawyers found for the city and Richard had to rule against Percy. On another occasion they each backed different men for the post of prior of Tynemouth and Richard’s candidate won the position. A man like Percy would have taken this defeat as a personal affront, and Richard, as sensitive and highly intelligent as he was, could not have been ignorant of the fact.
At other times, when the city of York received conflicting commands, one from Percy, the other from Richard, they ignored Percy and did Richard’s bidding. Richard may not always have known, but given Percy’s psychological profile and his subsequent actions at Bosworth, the touchy earl must have smoldered.
These incidents led to an agreement between Richard and Henry Percy in 1474 in which Richard undertook to be the earl’s good and faithful lord and promised not to claim any office or fee granted to the earl by the king or others, and not to take into his service any men retained by the earl.
“Clearly,” writes Rosemary Horrox, regarding this indenture, “Percy had felt himself seriously threatened by Gloucester’s position in the north. The agreement was designed to protect Northumberland from direct encroachment and to defuse a potentially dangerous rivalry.”
Richard, in his pursuit of justice for the poor, established the Council of the North as a sort of court of appeals, and less than three months later, the Council dealt successfully with a riotous protest against certain enclosures of land. According to Paul Murray Kendall, “this success, however, offended the proud Henry Percy, whom the city had ignored in making its appeal to the Council.”  And proud he was, this Percy—‘a conceited peacock’, says his handwriting. And envious. He coveted material possessions and power. Mindful that his family had been all-powerful in the North for a hundred years, a man like Percy, the greedy, vain, conceited heir of Hotspur, would not have taken kindly to Richard clipping his wings, no matter how fair and diplomatic Richard tried to be.
But according to his handwriting, Percy successfully concealed the defective inner man behind a pleasant exterior. This is confirmed by the facts as we know them. Referring to the indenture agreement made between Richard and Percy, Horrox states that it seems to have succeeded, and for the rest of the reign the two nobles apparently cooperated.  In a similar vein, M.A. Hicks states that “the relationship operated on a basis of mutual respect and warmth and worked well in practice.”
Percy’s handwriting, however, reveals that behind this friendly and outgoing public demeanor lurked a self-centered and self-interested human being. No one would have guessed that inwardly he never committed to anyone or anything except his own well-being, that in a crisis he would put his own interests first and do whatever was best for him alone, with no regard to the welfare of others, no remorse, and no backward glance. There was no reason for Richard to suspect the inner man was unreliable and utterly untrustworthy, that he had a rebellious streak and would disregard laws, promises, and oaths when it suited him, and that he justified his actions to himself and reserved for himself a mental "exit door" which he could choose to take when he considered it best for him to do so, despite utterances and even feats which might appear as loyal dedication. Kendall’s summary of Henry Percy’s character is worth noting:

“His great-grandfather had lost his life fighting against Henry IV. His father had lost his life ... fighting against Edward IV... Restored to the dignity in March of 1470, Henry, Earl of Northumberland, had made up his mind that he would remain aloof from any struggles for the English crown. Henceforth the House of Percy stood only for the House of Percy. When Edward returned from Burgundy... Percy sat upon his estates, neutral, content to accept Henry or Edward for his sovereign. His long association with Richard, Richard’s courtesy and good will when Duke of Gloucester, Richard’s munificent gifts to him of estates and offices when King, did not change his attitude... Despite Richard’s generosity and favor, he nursed a resentment, grim and low-keyed—for he appears to have been a colorless, low-keyed individual—against the man who had won first place in the hearts of the North, and against the King who had established a royal council to dispense the King’s justice and keep the King’s peace in Yorkshire. He could only look backward... and he felt himself diminished in comparison with his ancestors, who had ruled the North as they pleased and dispensed their own justice as they saw fit.”

Esperance ma Comforte. Clearly, Percy never forgot those nine long years of captivity when all he had was hope. He would not go back to them. He would do nothing that might jeopardize what he had regained. On that fateful August day at Bosworth field, he sat his horse impassively, withheld his aid and, unmoved, watched Richard gallop to his death.
Henry Percy won himself another four years of life with his treason. But the man he was—had become—the man who ignored his word, cared nothing for justice or fair-play, who was vain, greedy, power-hungry, untrustworthy, and aggressive, and who lived only for his own self-interest, finally reaped the harvest of his deeds on a road in Thirsk. As he was dragged from his horse and murdered by a small band of commoners, his retinue of eight hundred men sat their horses, and watched.




i. Worth, Sandra; Richard and the Nevilles. The Ricardian Register,  Summer, 1999;  pp. 4-7
ii.  Worth, Sandra; Richard and the Stanleys, ibid; Fall, 1999;  pp.4-7
iii. Griffiths, Ralph; KINGS AND NOBLES IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES; St. Martin’s Press, 1986,  p. 37
iv. The earldom became extinct after the eleventh Percy Earl of Northumberland died without an heir in 1670. In 1750 Sir Hugh Smithson succeeded to the Alnwick estates and was created Duke of Northumberland some years later for his political services to King George III. The present duke, Ralph, is the 12th Duke of Northumberland and not a descendant of the medieval Percies
v. Horrox, Rosemary; RICHARD III: A STUDY OF SERVICE; Cambridge University Press;  p.62
vi. Horrox, Rosemary; ibid;
vii. Kendall, Paul Murray; RICHARD THE THIRD, p.378, and YORK RECORDS,  pp. 190-199
viii. Horrox, Rosemary; ibid;  p. 62
ix. Hicks, M.A.; WHO’S WHO IN LATE MEDIEVAL ENGLAND; Shepheard-Walwyn, 1991;  pp. 344
x.  Kendall, Paul Murray; ibid;  pp. 426-427

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