Henry Percy (Hotspur) - Rebellion and Death

Rebellion and Death

The Percys had become increasingly discontented with Henry IV, however. Among their grievances was the King's failure to pay the wages due to them for defending the Scottish border, his favour towards Dunbar, his demand that the Percys hand over their Scottish prisoners, his failure to put an end to Owain Glyn Dŵr's rebellion through a negotiated settlement, his increasing promotion of his son Prince Henry's military authority in Wales, and his failure to ransom the Percys' kinsman, Henry Percy's brother-in-law, Sir Edmund Mortimer (1376–1409), whom the Welsh had captured in June 1402, and who had a claim to the crown as the grandson of Lionel, 1st Duke of Clarence, second surviving son of King Edward III.

Spurred on by these grievances, in the summer of 1403 the Percys rebelled and took up arms against the King. According to Bean, it is clear that the Percys were in collusion with Glyndŵr. On his return to England shortly after the victory at Homildon Hill, Henry Percy issued proclamations in Cheshire accusing the King of 'tyrannical government'. Joined by his uncle, Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, he marched to Shrewsbury where he intended to do battle against a force there under the command of the Prince of Wales. However the army of his father, Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland was, for reasons never fully explained, slow to move south as well, and it was without Northumberland's assistance that Henry Percy and Worcester arrived at Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403, where they found the King with a large army. The ensuing battle was fierce, with heavy casualties on both sides, but when Henry Percy himself was struck down and killed, his own forces fled. The Earl of Worcester was executed two days later.

Prince Henry, upon being brought Percy's body after the battle, is said to have wept. The body was taken by Thomas Neville, 5th Baron Furnival (d.1407), to Whitchurch, Shropshire for burial; however when rumours circulated that Percy was still alive, the King 'had the corpse exhumed and displayed it, propped upright between two millstones, in the market place at Shrewsbury'. That done, the King dispatched Percy's head to York, where it was impaled on one of the city's gates; his four quarters were sent to London, Newcastle upon Tyne, Bristol, and Chester before they were finally delivered to his widow. She had him buried in York Minster in November of that year. In January 1404, Percy was posthumously declared a traitor, and his lands were forfeited to the Crown.