Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland

• 1. Introduction

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  Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland, died on the 30th of June 1537 at Newington Green, yellow and distended, his mind fast failing. A visitor named Richard Layton had called just the day before and found him in that condition. Percy was not yet forty years old. He left behind no children, a wife who hated him heartily, and an earldom he had already signed away to the King. What brought him to this end is a story of a love forbidden at the highest levels of Tudor power, a marriage built on misery, and a life spent ill and indebted on the violent northern frontier of England.

• 2. A Page in Wolsey's House

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  Percy was born around 1502, the eldest son of Henry Algernon Percy, the 5th Earl of Northumberland, and his wife Catherine, daughter of Sir Robert Spencer. When he was quite young, his family sent him to serve as a page in the household of Thomas Wolsey, then the most powerful churchman in England. This was a standard route for young aristocrats; Wolsey's household was a school in the workings of power and society. Percy was knighted in 1519, and the principal record of his early years comes from the biography of Wolsey written by George Cavendish, a man who witnessed these events at close quarters. Through his mother, Percy was a first cousin of William Carey, who was the brother-in-law of a young woman who would change the course of his life: Anne Boleyn.

• 3. The Forbidden Betrothal

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  Probably in the spring of 1523, while he was still a page in Wolsey's household, Percy fell in love with Anne Boleyn and the two became betrothed. His father had planned since at least 1516 to match him with Mary Talbot, daughter of George Talbot, the 4th Earl of Shrewsbury. There was a second obstacle: Anne herself had been intended to marry James Butler, the 9th Earl of Ormond, a match designed to settle a dispute over the vast Ormond estates in Munster involving her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn. Wolsey, on hearing of the betrothal, scolded Percy publicly before his entire household. Permission had not been sought from Percy's father or from the King, who had a direct interest given the importance of the Northumberland earldom. Whether the King already had personal feelings for Anne at this point, making Wolsey's anger partly a jealous reaction on Henry VIII's behalf, has been debated by historians ever since. Percy's father then summoned his son home. The elder Percy told his boy he had always been a proud, presumptuous, and unthrift waster. Anne Boleyn, as a knight's daughter, was simply not ranked high enough to marry the heir to an earldom.

• 4. The Wreckage of Marriage

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  Percy was quickly and unhappily married to Lady Mary Talbot by early 1524 or in 1525, with the historian David Starkey dating the formal union to August 1525 or August 1526. The old earl allowed the couple very little in the way of comforts or income. Wolsey attempted to insert his own servants into the household to keep an eye on the young man. By 1528, only four years into the marriage, it had broken down irretrievably. Percy suspected Mary of spying on him for the Duke of Norfolk, while her father feared that Percy was abusing her and might even poison her. Percy refused to allow his father-in-law's servants to visit or speak to his wife. When Mary's brother-in-law, William, Lord Dacre, asked Norfolk to intervene on her behalf, Percy told Norfolk flatly that he would never see his wife again as long as he lived. Mary delivered a stillborn child at her father's home in April 1529. In 1532, Mary raised the charge that Percy had a precontract with Anne Boleyn, a betrothal with legal force that would have made his marriage to Mary invalid. Percy denied this accusation on oath. By 1536, Shrewsbury noted that his daughter had been living under his roof for two and a half years.

• 5. Warden of the Marches

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  In July 1522, Percy was made a member of the Council of the North, and by October he was deputy warden of the East Marches. On the 19th of May 1527, he succeeded his father as sixth Earl, and by the 2nd of December that year he had become Lord Warden of both the East and West Marches. The border was violent and demanding work, and Percy was chronically ill with an ague, a feverish, shivering condition almost certainly malaria, while also burdened with debt. Cardinal Wolsey treated him in a patronising manner. He was rarely permitted to attend court, and was even kept from his own father's funeral. His closest friend was Sir Thomas Arundell. Despite all this, Percy remained active on the borders. In 1530, while he was at Topcliffe, a royal order arrived commanding him to ride to Cawood and arrest Wolsey himself. Percy sent his former patron south in the custody of Sir Roger Lascelles and stayed behind to make an inventory of the Cardinal's goods. On the 23rd of April 1531, he was created a Knight of the Garter. On the 26th of April 1532, he became a privy councillor, and on the 11th of May that year he was made High Sheriff of Northumberland for life.

• 6. Trial, Rebellion, and the End

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  In May 1536, Percy, by then a man in broken health, sat as one of the jury at the trial of Anne Boleyn. Anne is said to have confessed a precontract with him in the hope of saving her life. When the verdict was delivered, Percy collapsed and had to be carried out of the room. In September 1536, a grant of one thousand pounds was arranged for him to come to London to settle his lands. Before that could be completed, the Pilgrimage of Grace began. His brothers and his mother openly sympathised with the rebels. The rebel leader Robert Aske brought men to Wressle Castle, where Percy lay ill in bed, and demanded that he resign his march commands to his brothers or join the uprising. Percy refused both demands. Aske eventually sent him to York to protect him from rebel followers who wanted to behead him. In February 1535, Percy had already written to Thomas Cromwell confirming his decision to name the King as his heir, and in June 1537, after his brother Sir Thomas was attainted and executed, Percy made the grant of his estates entirely unconditional. He died on the 30th of June 1537 and was buried in St Augustin's Church, on what is now the site of St John at Hackney. The antiquarian John Weever, writing in the early seventeenth century, recorded the original epitaph, which noted that Percy died the last of June 1537 in the twenty-ninth year of Henry VIII. A memorial plaque, presumed to be of Victorian origin, was rediscovered during the 2020 refurbishment of the church and reinstalled inside.