#historian: laura tompkins

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If Edward III had died as expected in autumn 1376 then the marriage between Mary Percy and John de Southeray [bastard son of Edward III and Alice Perrers] would probably have never taken place. When John of Gaunt took control of government in the months following the Good Parliament, Percy was his most active and vigorous supporter. In return for his loyalty he was appointed Lord Marshal, and Gaunt presumably promised Percy other forms of patronage, including the wardship of his half-sister. As it was, there was little that Percy or Gaunt could do until Edward III died in June the following year. Percy was far from being permanently back in the royal fold, however, and when his subsequent actions are viewed as a whole they are highly revealing about his attitude towards royal authority. In 1381 he opposed Gaunt during the Peasants’ Revolt and in 1399 he turned against Richard II in a crucial change of sides, which paved the way for his removal from the throne. This was followed by high-profile rebellions against Richard’s replacement, Henry IV, in 1403 and 1405. Percy clearly did not have a high opinion of, or any sense of loyalty to, anyone – magnate or king – who acted against his interests. It is not surprising then that he reacted so strongly against Alice, and the episode might have helped shape his later actions against the crown.

Laura Tompkins, "Mary Percy and John de Southeray: Wardship, Marriage and Divorce in Fourteenth-Century England", Fourteenth Century X (Boydell and Brewer, 2018)

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Henry Percy was twenty-six years older than Mary, and at the time of her birth was already married with children of his half-sister’s age. In 1340, parliament (echoing a reform made by Henry I in 1100) enacted that, if requested, wardships should be granted to the nearest ‘friends’ of the heir who were not themselves in line to inherit. Since Percy had no hereditary claim to the Orreby lands, he could therefore have reasonably expected to be entrusted as Mary’s guardian. He must have been furious when her wardship was not only granted to somebody else, but to the king’s low-born mistress [Alice Perrers]. It is clear from Mary’s will that there was great affection between brother and sister and the Percy family more widely, and the grant of the keeping of the estate to Percy as first earl of Northumberland immediately following Alice’s forfeiture in 1377 indicates his long-term desire to obtain it.

Laura Tompkins, "Mary Percy and John de Southeray: Wardship, Marriage and Divorce in Fourteenth-Century England", Fourteenth Century X (Boydell and Brewer, 2018)

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Mary eventually died childless on 25 August 1394 aged just twenty-six, with the majority of the Orreby lands ultimately absorbed into the Percy estate. Mary’s will paints a picture of a woman with a great affection for her family and her home in the north of England. She requested that her body be buried at Rievaulx Abbey in the choir next to the body of her husband, and left 100s. ‘to make a marble stone for my tomb like the one that lies over Lady Margaret de Orreby my grandmother in the church of St Botolph’ in Boston, Lincolnshire, in a display of strong affiliation to her Orreby roots. In her opening bequest, Mary left one gilt cup to ‘my dearest brother, the lord earl of Northumberland’, which offers an indication of the warmth of the relationship between the half-siblings. She also left a pair of gold rosaries to Henry’s wife, Lady Percy (Maud Lucy), two gilt spoons and a diamond ring to her mother-in-law Lady Roos (Beatrice Stafford), and a gilt goblet to Elizabeth, Lady Clifford, her late husband’s sister. To her nephews Henry ‘Hotspur’ Percy and Sir Ralph Percy, she bequeathed a tablet of gold and ‘my best pair of rosaries of gold and one gold ornament’ respectively. Finally, to her half-sister Isabella Percy she left the most historically impressive gift of twenty marks, a fur-lined mantle and gown of scarlet, the ‘French book of the duke of Lancaster’, and ‘my green primer which once belonged to my lord and father, to pray for my soul’. The ‘French book’ almost certainly refers to Le Livre de Seyntz Medicines written by Henry Grosmont, first duke of Lancaster, which would have been extremely rare.

Laura Tompkins, "Mary Percy and John de Southeray: Wardship, Marriage and Divorce in Fourteenth-Century England", Fourteenth Century X (Boydell and Brewer, 2018)