nobility, by forwarding an act of parliament to allow the breaking of entails, and by encouraging a lavish expenditure among their barons, while they filled the places of highest civil trust and emolument with persons of inferior birth, eventually did its work in the case of this Earl and, towards the close of a life, whose dawn had been brilliantly promising, the pecuniary, as well as domestic, circumstances of Northumberland must have been desperate. His necessities, but not his will it may be presumed, consented to sue Cromwell, the upstart minister, for his interest to obtain for him the captaincy of Berwick. In a letter, dated from Topcliff, 6 November 1535, after stating that the death of Sir Thomas Clifford was expected, and that would make a vacancy, he thus proceeds :-"to whych rome, good Mr. Secretorye, I pray yow helpe me: wherby ye shall not only recover a pouer nobull man beyng in decaye, but also get your selff much wyrsheppe, that bye your meanes so pouer a man shall be recoweryd, as I am; and bynd me, my frendes, and them that shall come off me, ever, (as never the lese I am most bondon affore) next the Kyng our Maister, to be tword you and all yours duryng ouer lyffes." And then he adds, what his experience,* perhaps, of the secretary may have taught him would be a still more moving appeal to his feelings :-" And, good Mr. Secretory, I shall not fayl to gyff you a 1000 markes for the sayme, bryngyng yt to pas."+ Whether or not this vacancy actually did occur, and this humble suit was successful, the embarrasments of the Earl cannot have been removed; for, in the following spring, he alienated to the King in fee, by a deed of bargain and sale dated the 3rd of February, 26 Henry VIII, his house of Petworth and other lands in Sussex, his lands in Hackney in Middlesex, and large estates in Lincolnshire, Pembrokshire, Carmarthenshire, and Somersetshire, &c. And this dispositon of his

* Cromwell, as well as Northumberland, had been retained in the establishment of Wolsey, and probably both were contemporaneously in his service. Cromwell has generally been believed to have, on the fall of Wolsey; been conspicious for ❝ his honest behaviour in his master's cause" (Cavendish), and to have eventually left his service with his sanction; as the Cardinal joined in the fears of his protege lest his fortunes should be sacrificed to his fidelity.

"Say, Wolsey-that once trod the ways of glory,

And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour-
Found thee a way, out of his wrack, to rise in."

Henry VIII., Act 3, Scene 2.

Yet the turn given by Dr. Lingard to Cromwell's conduct is, that he "despairing of the fortunes of the fallen favourite, hastened to court." It would be well, however, if the sectarian bias of Dr. Lingard, pace tanti viri, had never led him in a still less justifiable instance to foul the ashes of the distinguished dead. See the Quarterly Review, No. LXV. article 1.

+ State Papers published by the Record Commission, Vol. v. p. 34.

In

property was, in the following spring, confirmed by Parliament.* the same session of Parliament another act† was passed, in the performance of certain covenants between the King and the Earl, settling all the other lands, that belonged to the Earl, upon himself and the issue of his body [of which there was none] and then upon the King "his heirs and successors for ever in augmentation and encrease of the imperial crown." In this there are clauses saving to third parties their interests in such incumbrances as had previously + been made and a small provision is thus reserved for his brother and heir presumptive, Sir Thomas Percy [who was not yet implicated in the Pilgrimage of Grace as it took place half a year later§], and for Henry and Thomas Percy sons of this brother. The difficulties in which the Earl allowed himself to be involved, and the disposition he was in consequence led to make of the inheritance of his

+

An act of Parliament (27 Henry VIII. c. 38), passed in the spring of 1536, assures and confirms these extensive territories to the King in fee simple. See Statutes of the Realm, fol. 1817, Vol. III.

† 27 Henry VIII. c. 47. Statutes of the Realm, fol. 1817, vol. III.

By sec: 17, the lands comprised in the Percy fee "equivalent in extent to half Craven," were confirmed, “in consequence of a settlement," to Henry Lord Clifford, in the event of his brother in law Northumberland dying without issue male. Whitaker's Craven, p. 235. 1st Ed. This territory was carried by the daughter and heiress of the fifth and last Earl of Cumberland, to her husband Richard Boyle Earl of Burlington and of Cork, and, through an heiress of this family, was transferred to the house of Cavendish, in which it is now vested.

$ The session called 27 Henry VIII., in which this and the previously mentioned acts were passed, commenced 4 February 1536, and the parliament itself was dissolved, 14 April 1536: but the Pilgrimage of Grace commenced as late as October, 1536, which was after the first session of the new parliament, and that, meeting 8 June in the same year, is styled 28 Henry VIII.

It is provided in this act (sec. 4.) that "Sir Thomas Percy, Knight, brother of the said Earl and his heyrs and assigns" shall neither be prejudiced in the enjoyment of the manor of Kyldacle in Yorkshire which had been settled on him: nor (sec. 34) in an annuity of 100 marks out of the "Lordships and manors of Prowdehow, Ovyngham, Hedley, Harlowe, Horseley, Kyrkewhelpyngton, Ingo, Britley, and Baresford” in Northumberland: nor in the "constableshyp of the castell of Prowdehowe aforsayde with xli. yerly goyng out of the premysses for the exercysyng of the same offyce, nor also to or for the Stuardship of the seide Lorships manors Londs Tentements and other Heredytaments aforsayd with vi li. xiiis. iiiid. sterlying to and for exercysing of the same offiyce; all whiche premysses the sayd Sir Thomas Percy brother of the sayde Erle, and Thomas and Henry sonnes of the sayde Sir Thomas, have to them and to ther assignes for terme of there lyves and the longest lyver of them, as by graunte of the sayde Erle," "more pleynley appereth."

¶ He might, perhaps, have been the less reluctant to transfer that part of the family possessions which was to vest in the crown; for he might entertain the hope that it would be kept together, and would, at some future period, be restored to his heirs,—a hope which the event would to a great extent have justified.

ancestors have rightly acquired for him the appellation of "Henry the Unthrifty."

The Earl expired together with all his accumulated titles, 30th June 1537, about the period of the execution of his next brother and heir Sir Thomas Percy; and not improbably of a heart broken at beholding the ruin of his house. The vial devoted to wrath, too full to hold this last calamity, shivered.

It will be recollected that Sir Thomas Percy, the attainted brother of the late Earl, had a family. It consisted of two sons who grew to manhood, named Thomas and Henry; besides a third son Guiscard, who is presumed to have died in infancy, and female issue. These had the mortification to see the title of Northumberland raised to a Dukedom, and, together with much of the lands of their ancestors, conferred by Edward VI., on John Dudley, the father in law of the Lady Jane Grey, the ill-fated and favourite cousin once removed of the young monarch. However, the wanned crescent of the Percies

* The perhaps ideal origin of this badge of the Percies is represented as forming one

was soon again to fill its horns. Mary succeeded to the throne, and the Dudleys in their turn were attainted for treason. The attachment of the house of Percy to the connection with Rome would ensure it the favourable consideration of the new Queen. And soon (in 1557) the elder of the two brothers so confirmed her regard by putting down a rebellion at Scarborough, that she restored to him those of his family possessionst which had lately been held by Dudley; and created anew‡ the Earldom of Northumberland§ and the barony of Percy with other titles, with limitations in tail male to himself and similar limitations in remainder to his brother Henry, after they had passed from their family for an interval of twenty

of the themes of the minstrels of their house.

"They sung, how in the Conqueror's fleet

Lord William shipp'd his powers;

And gained a fair young Saxon bride,

With all her lands and towers.

Then journeying to the Holy Land,

There bravely fought and died

But first the silver crescent wou
Some paynim Soldan's pride.

Hermit of Warkworth.

* See "A Lamentable Ditty" on this subject, Vol. I. page 91.

+ Besides these, the Percies eventually acquired, through Dudley's attainder, Sion house, in Middlesex. Formerly a nunnery, it had been confiscated and granted to Dudley; but was restored by Mary to its ancient use. In the time of Elizabeth it was again secularized; and, though not one of the ancient Percy possessions, was at length granted by her to Heury Percy 9th Earl of Northumberland.

Sir Harris Nicolas' Synopsis of the Peerage, p. 483.

§ In 1558, the newly created Earl merited the continuance of her favour by commanding, together with his brother, the border cavalry which repelled at Grindon, not far from the Duddoe Stones, a formidable band of Scotch who were ravaging the country. Ridpath's Border History, p. 590.

years. However, after the accession of Elizabeth, the same religious opinions entangled him in a knot of difficulties, which he attempted, like his father, to cut with the sword.

The captivity of the beautiful Queen of Scots, the heiress presumptive to the crown of England, had awakened the sympathy of many of its nobility: but especially of those attached to the connection with Rome; since they hoped through her means eventually to obtain ascendence or toleration for their faith. Amongst these the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland had been brought to entertain* projects for her liberation.

"And woe to the mermaid's wyly tongue;

And woe to the fire was in her 'ee;

And woe for the wiching spell she flung,

That lur'd the North Star from the sky!

It, nevertheless, does not appear that the Earls were then prepared to rush into open rebellion: but, as their consultations with their friends had excited a suspicion, which their explanations had been unable to remove, a letter was, on the 13th of November, 1569, delivered to Northumberland at his Yorkshire castle of Topcliff, peremptorily requiring his immediate attendance at court. This was at night followed by a hostile clamour about the castle; arising either from the zeal of headstrong friends who wished to startle him into committing himself to a rebellion in which their hearts were already enlisted; or the loyalty of officious enemies who, though without warrant, expected to gain credit by arresting him.‡ Alarmed for his personal safety, he immediately took horse and fled towards Alnwick: but unfortunately called, on his road, on the Earl of Westmoreland at Brancepath. And it was there determined to unfurl the banner of the five wounds of Christ against the protestant Queen. As “ the Rising of the North, §" was unconcerted, its failure was generally anticipated. And hence those even who wished success to its objects, but who were sufficiently distant to escape being drawn in by its sudden vortex, were found shrinking from its standard, or marching against

* See Sir C. Sharp's "Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569,” pp. 193–6.
+ Camden's Annals under the year 1569.

The account written in the spring of 1572, by Lesley, bishop of Ross, the faithful adherent of the Scottish Queen, and published in "Anderson's Collections relating to Mary Queen of Scotland," Vol. III. p. 81.

§ The events connected with this rebellion have been celebrated in several ballads, as "The Rising of the North," given in the Legendary Div., Vol. I. page 43; “Jock o' the Side," page 37; "Northumberland betrayed by the Douglas," page 51; and another on the same subject with the last at Vol. II. page 12; “An Answer to the Proclamation of the Rebels," p. 113; "The Pope's Lamentation on their defeat, p. 154; "Claxton's Lament" in the "Memorials of the Rebellion," p. 270.