Henry Algernon Percy KG (abt. 1502 - 1537)

Born about 1502 in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England

Ancestors

Died 29 Jun 1537 at about age 35 in Hackney, Middlesex, England

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Biography

Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland (c.1502-1537) was the son of Henry Algernon Percy, 5th Earl of Northumberland and Catherine Spencer. He married Lady Mary Talbot, daughter of Francis Talbot, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury, circa January 1523/24.1 He died on 30 June 1537, without legitimate issue. He left an illegitimate daughter, Isabel, who, in 1544, married Henry Tempest of Broughton.

He succeeded to the title of 6th Earl of Northumberland [E., 1416] on 19 May 1527. He was invested as a Knight, Order of the Garter (K.G.) in 1531.

He died, 'at his manner in Hackney', on the 30th June 1537. He had been very ill for some time and was at the time of his death 'failed in sight and speech', jaundiced with a swollen stomach. His body was encased in lead and he was buried, with preplanned ceremonial, on the day of his death, in the parish church,^[1][2]

On his death, the Earldom of Northumberland and Barony of Poynings, as a result of his younger brother Thomas' attainder, were forfeit and technically abeyent sine the titles were later restored to his nephew Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland, 1st Baron Percy, KG (1528 – 22 August 1572).

Percy's courtship of Anne Boleyn:^[3]

• Prior to her marriage to Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn was known to be courted by 2 different noblemen: first, upon Anne's return from France in 1521,^[4] and at Henry VIII's instigation, she was engaged to James Butler, the future 9th Earl of Ormond and a protégé of the infamous Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Henry proposed the marriage between distant cousins James Butler and Anne Boleyn in order to sidestep the conflict over who should be Earl of Ormond; Thomas Boleyn, Anne's father, coveted the title as maternal grandson of the 7th Earl. By combining the 2 families, Henry had aimed to satisfy Boleyn's ambitions.

• While those negotiations dragged on, Anne was wooed by Henry Percy, son and heir of the Earl of Northumberland, but Wolsey summarily put a stop to his courtship, by the King’s order. It was formerly supposed that the King intervened to stop the Percy affair because he was himself in love with Anne; but from the dates it is clear that he was incensed because it interfered with the negotiations for the proposed Butler-Boleyn match.^[5]

Middlename

His middle name "Algernon" is uncertain, and could just be a result of confusion with his father.^[6]

Sources

1. ↑ Broce, Gerald, and Richard M. Wunderli. The Funeral of Henry Percy, Sixth Earl of Northumberland Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 22, no. 2 (1990): 199-215 jstor subscription/ access through an academic library may be required
2. ↑ John Weever (1576-1632) Antient funeral monuments, of Great-Britain, Ireland, and the islands adjacent p304 (William Tooke, London, 1767) archive books

   Hackney; 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.V111

3. ↑ See pp.403-404 of Cokayne's Complete Peerage, Vol. X, 2nd edition (London, 1945)
4. ↑ Anne went to France in 1514, in the entourage of Henry VIII’s sister Mary, who married Louis XII, and she returned to England in 1521.
5. ↑ From Cokayne's Peerage:
   • Why the Butler-Boleyn engagement failed is uncertain. Historian J. Horace Round suggests that:
     • Sir Thomas Boleyn, whose selfish avarice is matter of common knowledge, was scarcely likely to favour a scheme entirely destructive of his own claims and hopes of personal advantage. He held out, in my opinion, resolved to play for the whole stake, and he was justified, if so, in his decision, for in due time he won it. I think we have here the true reason why the negotiations came to naught.
6. ↑ Collins, Arthur, and Egerton Brydges. "Percy, Duke of Northumberland." Collins's Peerage of England Genealogical, Biographical, and Historical. Vol. II. London: Printed for F.C. and J. Rivington, Otridge and Son ... [et Al., 1812. 217-366. Print.

• The Publications of the Surtees Society</i> (1860) Vol. 38, Page 6
• http://www.thepeerage.com/p1046.htm#i10455
• R. W. Hoyle, ‘Percy, Henry Algernon, sixth earl of Northumberland (c.1502–1537)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008
• Other sources for Henry Algeron Percy include Thomas Wolsey's Biography of Henry Percy by George Corndish.
• Dictionary of National Biography - Algeron 1502-1537, London, England by Smith Elder & Co. 1885-1900, Oxford University Press
• Bernard, G. W. - The Fall of the House of Percy, The Tudor Nobility - Manchester University Press - 1992
• Brenan, Gerald: A History of the House of Percy, Fremantle & Co., 1902.
• De Fonblanque: Annals of the House of Percy. London: Richard Clay & Sons, 1887.
• Lomas, Richard: A Power in the Land: The Percys. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, Ltd., 1999.
• Rose, Alexander: Kings of the North: The House of Percy in British History. - Phoenix Press, 2003.
• Archbold, W.A.J. "Henry Percy, Sixth Earl of Northumberland" The Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. XLIV. Sidney Lee, Ed. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1895, 416-417.
• Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, II. I, 1935.
• Wikipedia:Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland
• Cokayne, George Edward and H.A. Doubleday et. al eds. Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Vol. X: Oakham to Richmond, 2nd edition. (London, 1945).