University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION.

Henry Percy, the son of Hotspur, found himself, when he emerged from childhood, bereft of friends, stripped of the possessions of his ancestors, and subsisting, in exile, upon the bounty of strangers.

On the rupture of his family with Henry the Fourth, whom they had been instrumental in elevating to the throne, leaguing with Glendour and the Earl of Douglas, they published it as their intention to transfer the crown to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. This nobleman was the great-grandson of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward the Third; and, besides representing an elder branch of the family than that from which Henry sprung, had been acknowledged by Richard the Second as his successor. The issue of their enterprise was the well-known battle of Shrewsbury. The Earl of Northumberland, whom accident had detained from the engagement, and whose power was still formidable, received pardon. Stung, however, by the loss of his son and brother, he, in company with Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, and Thomas Mowbray,

Earl Marshal, appeared, two years afterwards, again in arms. Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, who was allied, by marriage, to Henry, and was devoted to his cause, broke this combination by stratagem; took York and Mowbray prisoners on Shipton-Moor, and delivered them into his master's hands, at the castle of Pontefract, where, after a summary trial, they suffered death. Northumberland, accompanied by his faithful friend, Lord Bardolph, and bearing with him his young grandson, retired into Scotland. His estates were confiscated, and bestowed on different adherents of the King. Failing in an application for aid to the Scottish Court, and in their attempts to purchase it in Wales, France, and Flanders, through which they wandered together, these Noblemen came to the resolution of making a third effort to dethrone Bolingbroke, with no other means than those assured by their great personal influence and popularity in the North of England. Thither they accordingly returned, and were, soon after, both slain in the battle of Bramham-Moor. “So that now,” says Holinshed, “the prophesie was fulfilled which gaue an inkling of this heauie hap long before;”—“For this Earle was the stocke, and maine root of all that were left aliue called by the name of Persie, and of manie more by diuers slaughters despatched. For whose misfortune the People were not a little sorrie, making report of the gentleman's valiantnesse, renowne, and honour, and applieng unto him certeine lamentable verses out of Lucane,” &c.

Respecting his grandson, the same author remarks: “Henrie Persie, then but a child, sonne to the Lord Henrie Persie surnamed Hotspur, after his father's deceasse, that was slaine at Shrewesburie field, was conuied into Scotland, and there left by his Grandfather.” He was educated at the Court of the Regent, Robert Stuart, Duke of Albany; where he remained till about the date of the following scenes.