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Birth:          25 Jul 1412 Leconfield, Yorkshire, England
Death:          29 Mar 1461 Towton, Yorkshire, England
Cause of Death: killed in battle
Burial:         St. Deny Church, York, Yorkshire, England

Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Percy,_3rd_Earl_of_Northumberland
Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland, (25 July 1421 – 29 March 1461) was an 
English magnate.

The Earldom of Northumberland was then one of the greatest landholdings in northern 
England; Percy also became Lord Poynings on his marriage. This title would bring him 
into direct conflict with the Poynings family themselves, and indeed, feuds with 
neighbouring nobles, both lay and ecclesiastical, would be a key occupancy of his 
youth.

Percy married Eleanor Poynings, who outlived him; together they had four children. He 
was a leading Lancastrian during the Wars of the Roses, from which he managed to 
personally benefit, although his father died early in the war. He was not, however, to 
live to enjoy these gains, being killed at the Battle of Towton in 1461 on the defeated 
Lancastrian side.
Early life and war with Scotland[edit]

Percy was the son of Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland, and Lady Eleanor 
Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, and his second wife, Joan 
Beaufort.[a]

Percy was knighted in 1426 together with Henry VI.[5] He was appointed Warden of 
the Eastern March on the Scottish border on 1 April 1440, originally for four years, and 
subsequent extensions in 1444, and 1445, for the next seven years.[6] This came as 
well with the custody of Berwick Castle and responsibility for its defence[7] He was to 
hold this post until March 1461.[8] In May 1448, Percy, with his father and Sir Robert 
Ogle, invaded Scotland in a pre-emptive defence of the border, and burnt Dunbar and 
Dumfries, for which, in revenge, the Scots attacked his father's castles of Alnwick and 
Warkworth.[9] King Henry made his way north, and whilst at Durham sent Percy – now 
Lord Poynings – to raid Dumfrieshire; the sortie – "only to return with some 500 cattle" – 
of around 5,000 men failed, and he was captured whilst caught in a marsh following 
his father's defeat at the River Sark on 23 October.[10] Sir Robert Ogle was now 
outlawed and the king used half of his estates to compensate Poynings for the ransom 
he had expended arranging his release from captivity. Tensions with Scotland 
remained, to the extent that Poynings, his father, and other nobles were requested to 
stay and guard the border rather than attend Parliament, for which they were 
excused.[10] In summer 1451, with an Anglo-Scottish truce pending, Poynings was 
commissioned to treat with Scottish embassies.[5] In July 1455, he successfully 
prevented an assault on Berwick by the Scottish King, James II, and was 
congratulated by the English King as a result.[11]

Feud with the Poynings[edit]

In the late 1440s, the Yorkshire tenants of his father, the Earl of Northumberland, 
were in almost constant conflict with their neighbours, those of the Archbishop of 
York, involving armed skirmishes which Percy's brothers led.[12] These events were 
deemed so severe that in 1448 they led to the only progress north for the King during 
his reign.[9] The same year, because of a dispute over the inheritance his family 
received as a result of Henry Percy's marriage, the Earl of Northumberland's retainers 
had ejected the earl's relative, Robert Poynings, from his Sussex manors. A year later, 
Henry Percy – now Lord Poynings by right of his wife – took direct part, with his father, 
in raiding the manor of Newington Bertram in Kent, which was also enfeoffed by 
Robert. This attack also apparently involved cattle rustling and theft, and Robert later 
claimed it to be so brutal that he was "deterred from seeking a remedy at law for three 
years".[13]

Feud with Nevilles[edit]

Main article: Percy-Neville feud

By the early 1450s, relations with a powerful neighbouring family, the Nevilles became 
increasingly tense, and Poyning's brother Thomas, Lord Egremont, had finally 
ambushed a Neville force, returning from a wedding, near Sheriff Hutton.[14] with a 
force of between 1,000[15] and 5,000 men.[16] Although this was a bloodless 
confrontation, a precedent for the use of force in this particular dispute had already 
been laid in the previous violence in the region.[17] By October 1453, Poynings was 
directly involved, with his father, brothers Egremont and Richard, and joined by Lord 
Clifford, in forcing a battle with John and Richard Neville at Topcliffe.[18] The feud 
continued into the next year, when Poyning reportedly planned on attending 
parliament accompanied by a large force of men in February, and three months later 
both he and the earl were summoned by the king to attend council in attempt to 
impose a peace;[5] a second letter was "written but not despatched".[19] Neither, 
along with John Neville or Salisbury, did as requested.[20]

Wars of the Roses[edit]

Main article: Wars of the Roses

During the Wars of the Roses, Percy followed his father in siding with the 
Lancastrians against the Yorkists.[21] The Earl himself died at what is generally 
considered to be the first battle of the wars, at St Alban's on 22 May 1455, and 
Poynings was elevated as third Earl of Northumberland, without having to pay relief to 
the Crown, due the fact that his father had died in the King's service. He in his turn 
"swore to uphold the Lancastrian dynasty".[5] Although a reconciliation of the leading 
magnates of the realm was attempted in October 1458 in London, he arrived with such 
a large body of men (thought to be around 1,500)[22] that the city denied him entry. 
The new earl and his brother Egremont were bound over £4,000 each to keep the 
peace.[23] When conflict broke out again, he attended the so-called Parliament of 
Devils in October 1459, which condemned as traitors those Yorkists accused of, 
among other offences, causing the death of his father four years before.[5] On 30 
December 1460, Percy led the central "battle" or section of the victorious Lancastrian 
army at the Battle of Wakefield,[24] following which, the army marched south, pillaging 
on the road to London.[25] He fought against Warwick at the second Battle of St. 
Albans on 17 February 1461, and he commanded the Lancastrian van at the Battle of 
Towton on 29 March 1461,[26] however, "his archers were blinded by snowstorms", 
and he was either slain in close fighting, or died of his wounds soon after.[27] He was 
buried at St Denys's Church, York. He was posthumously attainted by the first 
parliament of the victorious Edward IV in November 1461, and his son and namesake 
was committed to the Tower.[5][28]

Estates, offices and finances[edit]

The estates of the Earls of Northumberland had traditionally been in constant use as a 
source of manpower and wages in defence of the border since the Percy family first 
gained the office the previous century.[29] The wages assigned to the third Earl were 
substantial: £2,500 yearly in time of peace, and £5,000 during war, as well as an 
annual payment for the maintenance of Berwick's upkeep (£66 in peacetime and £120 
in wartime). Percy often had to provide from his own resources, however, as "securing 
payment was not easy" from the Exchequer,[5] (for example, in 1454 he received no 
payments at all).[30] In July 1452 he gained a twenty-year fee-farm (£80 yearly, from 
Carlisle), although he subsequently lost it in favour of Richard Neville, Earl of 
Salisbury, in July 1454.[5] Throughout the 1450s, the Crown continually made efforts 
at paying Percy his Warden's wages and fees promptly (paying him full wartime rates 
for the whole of the year 1456-7, for example),[31] and since he was a loyal 
Lancastrian he achieved this more often than his counterpart on the west march, 
Salisbury, who by now had publicly aligned himself with York. The fee farm of Carlisle 
was returned to Percy in November 1459, following Salisbury's attainder in Coventry. 
He also benefited from the attainder of York, being granted an annuity of £66 from the 
latter's forfeited Wakefield Lordship in Yorkshire; he also received £200 from the 
profits of Penrith.[32]

As a reward for his role in the Lancastrian victory at Ludford Bridge, he was made 
Chief Forester north of the River Trent and the Constable of Scarborough Castle on 22 
December 1459 for life. He was nominated to a wide-ranging commission of oyer and 
terminer (from the old French, literally a commission "to hear and determine")[33] on 
30 May 1460, his new rank was a tactic to deal with the treasons and insurrections in 
Northumberland. On 3 July, he was granted Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and 
Cambridgeshire, all belonging to Salisbury, on a twelve-year lease.[34] After the 
Yorkists captured Henry VI at the Battle of Northampton in 1460, they accused Percy 
of having looted York's northern estates during his exile in Ireland. This charge was 
likely to have had some truth in it, as it was his continued pillaging of those estates, 
with the Lords Clifford and Dacre, that led to York marching north to Wakefield in 
December 1460. These incomes, however collected, would have been vital to the Earl 
both personally and militarily as his northern estates especially had been a victim of 
feudal decline for most of the first half of the fifteenth century: even on the forfeit of 
the earldom to the Crown in 1461, his arrears have been calculated as still standing at 
approximately £12,000.[5]

Family[edit]

At the arrangement of his father and Cardinal Beaufort in 1434,[5] he married on or 
before 25 June 1435, Eleanor Poynings (c.1422 – 11 February 1484), de jure suo jure 
Lady Poynings, daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Poynings of Poynings in Sussex, 
by his second wife, Eleanor Berkeley, daughter of Sir John Berkeley of Beverston 
Castle in Gloucestershire. She was heir general in 1446 to her grandfather, Robert 
Poynings, 4th Baron Poynings,[35] to the Lordship of Poynings, with lands across the 
south of England.[5] He was summoned to Parliament from 14 December 1446 to 26 
May 1455, by writs directed Henrico de Percy, chivaler, domino de Ponynges. His wife 
was a legatee in the 1455 will of her mother, Eleanor, Countess of Arundel (widow of 
the thirteenth Earl of Arundel). They had one son and three daughters:[35]
Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland (c.1449 – 28 April 1489), who married Maud 
Herbert, daughter of the first Earl of Pembroke.[36]
Margaret Percy (b. c. 1447), who married Sir William Gascoigne[37]
Elizabeth Percy (1460–1512), who married Henry Scrope, 6th Baron Scrope of Bolton.
[35]
Anne Percy (1444–1522), who married Sir Thomas Hungerford in 1460.[38]

Parents
DE PERCY Henry (3 Feb 1392 - 22 May 1455)
NEVILLE Eleanor (ABT 1397 - 1472)

Siblings
PERCY Henry (25 Jul 1412 - 29 Mar 1461)

Marriage To POYNINGS Eleanor (ABT 1422 - 11 Feb 1484)
    m. BEF 26 Jun 1435 

Notes

Parents
POYNINGS Richard (ABT 1399 - 10 Jun 1429)
BERKELEY Eleanor (Alianor) (Ellanora) (ABT 1390 - 1 Aug 1455)

Children by POYNINGS Eleanor ABT 1422 - 11 Feb 1484
PERCY Margaret (Margery) (ABT 1450 - )

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