Harry Percy, the new Earl of Northumberland, hated being stuck in the north and wrote to a friend that the ‘unhappy air’ was making him weak. Unlike the south, he felt the north barbarous and much preferred the court of King Henry VIII where he was surrounded by art, music, and culture. A mutual love of such things may have brought Harry and Anne Boleyn together in the first place, but the match had been forbidden and there was no use dwelling on the past. Harry was married to Mary Talbot, the King had turned his eye to Anne, and he must now turn his eye to the north.
Ahead of Harry lay a tough job, for the Scots continually raided English villages, and vice-versa, and Cardinal Wolsey placed little faith in Harry’s effectiveness to control them. At Alnwick Castle Harry did his best, holding regular councils to try and address any problems, unaware of Wolsey’s spies watching his every move. But it was not easy for a young man plagued by ill health and before long, he had made enemies of those he had punished. Did he still yearn for Anne? She was now mistress to the king, flying high, with everything she could ever wish for. However, with the birth of a still-born son in 1528, Harry’s marriage had completely broken down, and he and Mary probable separated. In 1530, he was sent on the king’s business to arrest Cardinal Wolsey, now fallen from favour, and languishing in the north. Wolsey had forbidden Harry’s affair with Anne and he was ordered to bring him to London. It must have given him small comfort to see him brought down so low.
In 1532, Harry’s wife, seeing an escape from a miserable marriage, repeated her list of matrimonial grievances to her father, who then repeated them to Anne Boleyn’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk. Mary accused Harry of a pre-contract with Anne, thus ensuring her marriage to Harry would be judged null and void. Affronted, Anne ordered a public inquiry. Harry denied the accusation, and, to Mary’s chagrin, his accusers were dismissed. Everything blew over and was forgotten…or was it?
Over the next few years, King Henry chipped away at the power of the Percy family, and Harry was ordered to obey only instructions from London on the governance of the north.
In May 1536, Harry’s world turned upside down when he was questioned, yet again, on his pre-contract with Anne, now, Queen of England. He was tired of the whole affair and yet bravely, he wrote to Cromwell: ‘I perceive that there is supposed a pre-contract between the Queen and me; whereupon I was not only heretofore examined upon my oath before the archbishops of Canterbury and York, but also received the blessed sacrament upon the same before the duke of Norfolk…assuring you, Mr. Secretary, by the said oath and blessed body…that the same may be to my damnation if ever there were any contract or promise of marriage between her and me.’
What more could he say? It was the truth, and he was sick of repeating it.
But worse was to come. Anne had been arrested and on the 15th May, he was summoned to her trial in the Tower of London. The woman he had once loved now stood fighting for her life, accused of treason and incest, amongst other crimes. Although it was his duty to attend, it was cruel to appoint Harry one of her judges, and when he saw her, he collapsed and had to be removed from the hall. How different things would have turned out had she been allowed to marry him! A few days later, Anne was executed.
The summer that followed brought great misery to the north, for the harvest failed and many starved. High taxes and religious reforms caused further unrest, and a rebellion known as the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ gathered more numbers daily. The leader, Robert Aske, visited his friend, Harry Percy, at Wressle Castle, in Yorkshire, along with Harry’s brother, Thomas. Harry refused to see his brother and remained in bed and it was left to Aske to urge him to join them, along with Ingelram, Harry’s other brother. However, Harry refused to support the rebels even though outside his window Thomas’s men were threatening to kill him and make Thomas the earl instead. Matters were turning violent and Aske whisked the ailing, tearful Harry away to the safety of York, to recover. When the Pilgrimage failed no mercy was shown to the rebels. Thomas Percy was executed for his part and Ingelram was locked up in the Tower, although he was later released and fled abroad. If Harry thought his loyalty would placate the king – or Cromwell – he was wrong, for regardless of taking no part in the rebellion, he was accused of treason and ordered to London – travelling in a litter due to his sickness – to answer the charges. It was a desperate situation.
With his brother dead and no heir, on 3 June 1537, Harry wrote to Cromwell agreeing to give up all his inheritance to the king. He had hoped to give something to his nephew, but when his brother was attainted, he changed his mind. A few weeks later, on St Peter’s day, a priest reported to Cromwell that he found Harry at his house at Hackney, languens in extremis, sight and speech failed, his stomach swollen ‘so great as I never see none, and his whole body as yellow as saffron, but his memory still good…. He cannot live 24 hours. This last three weeks he had no money but by borrowing.’
He died that night, in his mid-thirties, possibly from pancreatic cancer or hepatitis, leaving a long list of debtors. He did manage to leave his wife 500 marks, a mark being worth around 13 shillings and 4 pence.
He was buried rather hastily on the same day he died, at Hackney church, and was not given the usual, lavish, aristocratic funeral procession. No member of his family attended and the chief mourner was a ‘Lord Butler.’ It appeared a rather mean affair, a sad end to a sad young life, but since the king controlled such noble funerals, perhaps he was making it clear that he would no longer accept powerful nobles such as the Percies.
Today, the church at St John-at-Hackney, in London, built in 1792, contains monuments dating from the early sixteenth century, which were transferred from the medieval parish church to the present one. Only St. Augustine’s Tower remains at the edge of the churchyard. Percy’s monument reads:
Here lieth interred, HENRY, lord PERCY, earl of Northumberland, knight of the most honorable order of the garter, who died in this town the last of June 1537, the 29th of HEN. VIII.
I think it is a sad end for a young man who was thought a wastrel. Had his health been better, had he not been burdened with debt, he may have been less ineffectual in his dealings with the north. Maybe then he would have been less inclined to ‘fall weeping, ever wishing himself out of the world.’ However, he must have had something about him for the man who had loathed his father, wife, and two brothers loved the intelligent and cultured, Anne Boleyn. How different history would have been, had they married…
Sources:
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 4, 1524-1530
The Percies of Northumberland by Douglas Stedman.
Kings in the North, the House of Percy in British History, Alexander Rose.
Images: Anne holds a miniature of Harry. Alnwick Castle. St John-at-Hackney.
