grandson taken refuge in Scotland, confiding in the honour of the regent; who it seems had agreed to deliver him up to Henry. He, however, escaped from this act of treachery, only to perish more nobly in the unequal battle of Bramham Moor.

The anger of the king was not appeased by the death of the venerable nobleman; and, in accordance with the senseless brutality of a barbarous age, he caused the body to be sought out amongst the slain to inflict on it the last indignities of which he was capable. It was quartered and exposed at Lincoln, York, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Berwickupon-Tweed; the head being stuck upon London Bridge. The writ for this revolting act runs as follows:*

Rex vicecomitibus Londoniarum, salutem. Præcipimus vobis firmiter injungentes quod caput Henrici Percy nuper comitis Northumbriæ et unum quarterium corporis Thomæ nuper Domini de Bardolf, proditorum nostrorum, cum caput et quarterium illud vobis ex parte nostra liberata fuerint, ea super pontem civitatis prædictæ modo quo ante hæc tempora in hujusmodi casu fieri consuevit poni faciatis. Teste Rege, apud Westmonasterium, x. die Marcii. Per breve de privato sigillo.

After the same manner the body of David, last of the Welsh princes, was disposed of; thus also the bodies of William Wallace, Hugh le Despenser, his son, and others were treated.

In the mean time Henry personally assisted at the siege of Warkworth (1 July, 6 Hen. IV. 1405), and perhaps at Prudhoe, which speedily surrendered; the former, being well garrisoned and provisioned, held out, the captain declaring he would defend it for the earl. Upon this the king ordered his artillery to fire upon it, and at the seventh discharge it yielded. On the king's return from Berwick, the castle of Alnwick was likewise compelled to surrender.

The Earl of Northumberland's estates were forfeited, and conferred upon John of Lancaster (Duke of Bedford). ‡

In little more than half a century we again find Alnwick the scene of a memorable event in history. The son of the gallant Hotspur had fallen at the battle of St. Alban's; and his grandson, one of the three great Lancastrian leaders, had met with his death on the field of Towton.

*Rot. Claus. 9 Hen. IV.

† Chron. Lanercost. p. 203. The Chancellor's Roll states the cost of this execution and transmitting the quarters to

Scotland was 61s. 10d. Rot. Canc. 33
Edw. I.

Calend. Rot. Pat. p. 249.

Elated with his victory in Yorkshire, Edward IV. pressed rapidly onwards to the north. Margaret fled with her vanquished husband, who, in his just humiliation, was compelled to seek for succour from James III. of Scotland, to whom he ceded the important fortress of Berwick as the condition of his refuge. The English had held it uninterruptedly for a hundred and twenty-eight years. Edward marched as far as Newcastle; but finding affairs tranquil, he soon returned to the south again, leaving Neville, the Earl of Warwick, general warden of the Scotch marches.*

The castles in Northumberland had not formally surrendered; but at this time no apprehensions were entertained that the Lancastrian family, who had usurped the throne for sixty years, would attempt to regain its possession. Margaret, however, viewing the desperate state of their prospects, went over to France and supplicated the assistance of Louis XI.; but she only succeeded in obtaining from that quarter a small body of troops. These were commanded by Peter de Brezé,† a soldier of reputation, who, being under the displeasure of the French king, and thrown into prison at Loches, was liberated to take charge of the expedition. He landed, with only five hundred men, on the coast of Northumberland, and immediately was received within the walls of Alnwick. Sir Ralph Grey, Lord Hastings, and Sir John Howard, were sent to oppose him; and they besieged him in the castle. Twenty thousand Scots marched to his relief; but they made an agreement with the English before they got so far, when Brezé, after an ineffectual sally, surrendered the castle (July 30, 1462). Sir Ralph Grey was appointed governor. Whether he was unequal to the position, or became treacherous, or whether his provisions failed, when Margaret made a more successful appeal to the French king the following year, on her approach in October 1463, she readily gained

*July 31. Rot. Scot.

† She obtained a loan of 20,000 livres, as well as the services of Peter de Brezé and his troops. After a stormy passage, she arrived off Tynemouth. Being unable to land there, many of the ships were put on shore near Bamborough, and the one in which the queen sailed reached Berwick with great difficulty. The French troops took shelter in Holy Island; but they were soon dislodged by a superior

force. (V. Henry, vol. ix. p. 182; Monstrellet, vol. ii. p. 289.)

The Scots forces retiring, Alnwick surrendered to the Earl of Warwick, and was committed to the custody of Sir John Astley. Carte, vol. ii. p. 766.

She left the custody of Alnwick to Brezé's son and Lord Hungerford; Bamborough Castle to the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Pembroke, and Sir Ralph Percy. Carte, vol. ii. p. 766.

possession of this important fortress. At this crisis, Edward collected all his forces and marched hastily against the enemy. Brezé had left Alnwick in the hands of his son and Lord Hungerford, with a garrison of three hundred men; and committed Bamborough Castle to the charge of the Duke of Somerset and Sir Ralph Percy. Dunstanborough also was garrisoned with one hundred and twentysix men. As soon as the king arrived, the Earl of Warwick and others assaulted the castle of Alnwick. Bamborough surrendered on Christmas-day (1463), and Alnwick fell on the 6th of January (1464).

A document has been printed in the Excerpta Historica* which gives the following account of the state of the sieges in Northumberland in December 1462. I modernise the spelling to make it more readily intelligible:

"My lord of Warwick lieth in the castle of Warkworth, and with him the Lord Crumwell, the Lord Grey Cotmore, and my Lord Wenlock. At the siege of Alnwick lieth my Lord of Kent, my Lord Harry, my Lord Scalys, and many other knights and squires. And at the siege of Dunstanborough lieth the Lord Fitzhagh, and the Lord Scroop, and the Lord Greystock, and the Lord Powis. At the siege of Bamborough, the Earl of Worcester, the Lord Montague, the Lord Strange, and the Lord Say, the Lord Grey of Wilton, the Lord Lumley, the Lord Ogle. In Alnwick Castle is the Lord Hungerford, and Sir Thomas Fyndern, and Robert Whitingham, and with them the number of five or six hundred Frenchmen. And in the castle of Dunstanborough is Sir Richard Dunstall, Dr. Moreton, Sir Philip Wentworth, and with them six or seven hundred. In the castle of Bamborough is the Duke of Somerset, the Lord Roos, and Sir Ralph Percy, and with them to the number of two or three hundred. Our men be in all by estimation by twenty, thirty, and forty thousand, without the king and his host."

In aurora Epiphania venerunt Scotti cum Francigenis, aciebus densatis, ad tercium castrum (Alnwike), nostris non audentibus eis resistere ; et secum tulerunt multos (illic inclusos) de consociis suis; et sic in brevi redditum est illud castrum in manus nostrorum, Francigenis remanentibus gratis abire permissis.

Not despairing under these unfavourable issues of war, Margaret made another effort to retrieve her fallen fortunes; but all in vain. The battle of Hexham (May 15) sealed the fate of the house of Lancaster. In a skirmish a few days before, Sir Ralph Percy was slain (April 25); and in memory of his valiant conduct a cross was subsequently erected on the spot, which still stands, indicating by its rude

* P. 365, where is also quoted the Latin passage from William of Worcester.

1

armorial sculptures both its founder and the honourable descent of the warrior to whose memory it was consecrated.

CHAPTER IV.

SAXON EARLS OF NORTHUMBERLAND.

66

NORTHUMBERLAND was the last of the kingdoms of the Heptarchy to acknowledge the supremacy of the AngloSaxon monarch. In the year 827 " King Egbert conquered the kingdom of the Mercians, and all that lies south of the Humber; and he led an army to Dore against the Northumbrians, and they offered him obedience and allegiance, and with that they separated." Whether this submission produced any practical results in the way of service or tribute, or was merely an offering to the vanity of Egbert, does not appear; but it is certain that it caused no interruption in the succession of the Northumbrian kings. Eanred, who mounted the throne in 808, continued to hold it till his death in 840; and historians have recorded the names of twenty of his successors, Anglo-Saxon and Danish, who retained the title of royalty for a further period of 113 or

114 years.

In 953 according to the Saxon Chronicle, or 954 according to Symeon of Durham, Eric or Eiric, the last king of Northumberland, was driven from the throne by Eadred king of England, and the province was committed to the administration of an earl, which form of government was continued till after the Norman conquest. The first earl

*Saxon Chronicle.

Of these earls we have two lists in the works attributed to Symeon of Durham. The first, commencing with the first earl, is inserted in the chronicle "De Gestis Regum Anglorum;" the second is a distinct tract entitled "De Obsessione Dunelmi, et de probitate Uchtredi Comitis, et de Comitibus qui ei successerunt." The latter, although it does not commence so early as the other, contains some additional particulars which are not elsewhere to be met with. Besides

these there exists a third account confined to the later earls, and enlarging on the history of Robert de Mowbray, who forfeited the earldom in the reign of William Rufus. This document is now amongst the public records at the Rolls, having formed part of a bundle formerly in the Northumberland "County Bag" at the Chapter-House, Westminster, entitled "Evidences of Tyne Water, and how Northumbr' came and went from the Mowbrays." It is written in a hand of Henry III. or Edward I., and appears to