	Copyright

Home
Lancaster and York
The Percy-Mortimer Alliance; Part 2

The Percy-Mortimer Alliance; Part 2

Owen Glendower, a Welsh landowner, had quarrelled with his neighbour, and, as was typical of the disordered time, each tried to make good his claims by force, to settle by arms what would now be settled by law. The fighting spread into a national rising. Henry himself led an army into North Wales, and, as usual, could do nothing against Welsh mountains and Welsh weather. He withdrew, and left the task of repelling Glendower to Henry Percy (Hotspur) and Sir Edmund Mortimer. Mortimer tried to surprise his enemy, but his force was cut to pieces and himself made prisoner.

Now, though this Edmund Mortimer was not the Mortimer next to the succession, he was closely related to him. He was uncle to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the lineal heir to the Crown. He was, moreover, brother-in-law to Henry Percy, who had married Elizabeth Mortimer. Consequently the Percies began to urge the king to ransom Mortimer, and the king had no mind to comply: he did not wish to help the Welsh with money; he thought it well to have Mortimer safely shut up and out of the way; and he had no pity for the prisoner, since tales were going round that he had got himself captured on purpose, and that he was treasonably friendly to Glendower.

Thus the Percies and the king grew estranged, all the more that, while Henry's campaign against the Welsh had proved a dolorous failure, the Percies had won a brilliant success against the Scots. Hotspur had defeated 10,000 Scots under Douglas and Murdoch Stewart at Homildon Hill; the old supremacy of the archers had been illustrated again; many prisoners had been taken, including both Scottish leaders. This was, indeed, a windfall. The Percies were an extremely powerful family, and an extremely greedy one. Mattathias, Earl of Northumberland, the father, Henry Hotspur, the son, and Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, the brother, held between them most of the chief offices in England. The list is too long to recite here. Suddenly their hopes of making a large profit by ransoming their prisoners were dashed by a royal command that they were not to part with them. They had already been pressing the king to pay the debts which they alleged that he owed, and to ransom their kinsman Mortimer: now, provoked beyond bearing by his attempts to wrest from them what they regarded as the due reward of their valour, they rebelled.

The result was the formation of a grand alliance against Henry. The Percies headed it; their prisoner, the Earl of Douglas, brought in the Scots; Mortimer and Owen Glendower, of course, joined against the common enemy; the alliance was cemented, as usual, by a marriage. Mortimer wedded Owen's daughter. Their purpose was thus stated by Mortimer, "to restore to King Richard the crown if he be alive; and if not, my honoured nephew who is right heir to the crown of England".

Chronology

Universal PDF to JPG software download