{"id":528,"date":"2015-02-20T22:46:14","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T09:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.percyfamilyhistory.com\/?page_id=528"},"modified":"2015-05-06T13:32:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T01:32:30","slug":"william-de-percy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/percyfamilyhistory.com\/?page_id=528","title":{"rendered":"William de Percy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The name of Percy, strange to say, does not occur in the Roll of Battle Abbey;\u00a0<\/span>for I cannot agree with my old friend Sir Bernard Burke in his discovery of it\u00a0<\/span>in Percelay, a form in which I have never found it in any authority. <\/span><\/p>\n

Strange,\u00a0<\/span>because in view of the numerous interpolations it contains, one can scarcely\u00a0<\/span>imagine the omission of a name so distinguished in Anglo-Norman history. But for\u00a0<\/span>those manifest additions the fact of the absence of the name of Percy would go\u00a0<\/span>far to establish the genuineness of the Rolls, as no member of that family\u00a0<\/span>appears to have fought at Senlac, and William de Percy must be placed in the\u00a0<\/span>list of those noble Normans who “came over with the Conqueror” on his return to\u00a0<\/span>England in 1067, amongst whom I have already mentioned Roger de Montgoineri and\u00a0<\/span>Hugh d’Avranches.\u00a0<\/span>William de Percy was the sworn brother-in-arms of the latter, and accompanied<\/span>
\n him to England, *[Mon. Ang., vol. i, p. 72.] and who on being made Earl of<\/span>
\n Chester transferred to him the lordship of Whitby, with the extensive domains\u00a0<\/span>attached to it in the East Riding of Yorkshire. By what service he obtained the\u00a0<\/span>vast possessions held by him at the time of the general survey we have no\u00a0<\/span>information, an old manuscript, quoted by Dugdale, simply saying that, “being\u00a0<\/span>much beloved by the King,” he enjoyed them through his bounty, and it is not\u00a0<\/span>till we arrive at the reign of Stephen that we hear of any remarkable actions\u00a0<\/span>attributed to his descendants, when his great-great-grandson, William de Percy,\u00a0<\/span>distinguished himself by his valour in the famous battle of the Standard.<\/span><\/p>\n

The name of this ancient and noble family was derived from their great fief of\u00a0<\/span>Perci, near Villedieu, in Normandy, and according to tradition they were the\u00a0<\/span>descendants of one Mainfred, a Dane, who had preceded Rollo into Neustria.\u00a0<\/span>Geoffrey, the son of Mainfred, followed him in the service of Rollo, and was\u00a0<\/span>succeeded in rotation by William, Geoffrey, William, and Geoffrey, all born in\u00a0<\/span>Normandy, the latter Geoffrey being the father of William de Percy, the subject\u00a0<\/span>of this notice, and of Serlo, his brother, the first abbot of Whitby, a\u00a0<\/span>monastery founded by William on the site of one called Skinshale, which had been\u00a0<\/span>destroyed by Inguar and Hubba.<\/span><\/p>\n

Upon this abbey William bestowed the towns of Seaxby and Everley; but resumed\u00a0<\/span>and regranted them to Ralph de Everley, his esquire, who had been in his service\u00a0<\/span>many years.\u00a0<\/span>Abbot Serlo, his brother, feeling injured by this proceeding, made his complaint\u00a0<\/span>to William Rufus, with whom he had been on terms of intimacy during the reign of\u00a0<\/span>his father, and the King ordered restitution to be made. Serlo, however, was not\u00a0<\/span>satisfied with the restoration of the towns, and having no confidence in his\u00a0<\/span>brother, determined to quit Whitby and establish himself where he should hold<\/span>under the King only, and be out of his brother’s power. He therefore begged of\u00a0<\/span>Rufus six carucates of land in Hakenas and Northfield, and translated thither\u00a0<\/span>part of the community of Whitby.<\/span><\/p>\n

William de Percy married a lady named Emma de Port, “in discharging of his<\/span>
\n conscience,” says our ancient writer, she being “very heire” to the estates<\/span>
\n given to him by William the Conqueror, and in 1096, having joined the first<\/span>
\n Crusade in company with Robert Court-heuse, died at Montjoye, near Jerusalem,\u00a0<\/span>the celebrated eminence so named by the Christian Pilgrims, because from there\u00a0<\/span>they first caught sight of the sacred city. His body was brought back to\u00a0<\/span>England, and buried in the chapter house at Whitby.<\/span><\/p>\n

This Anglo-Norman race of the Percys became extinct in the male line at the<\/span>
\n close of the 12th century by the deaths, without issue, of the four sons of his<\/span>
\n grandson William, when this great inheritance was divided between their two<\/span>
\n sisters and co-heirs, Maud, wife of William de Mauduit, Earl of Warwick, who<\/span>
\n died without issue, and Agnes, on whom the whole possessions of the Percys in\u00a0<\/span>England devolved, and passed with her hand to Joceleyn de Louvaine, brother of\u00a0<\/span>Adeliza, Queen of Henry I, who assumed the name of Percy, retaining the arms of\u00a0<\/span>his own family.\u00a0<\/span>From the issue of this marriage descended those great Earls of Northumberland\u00a0<\/span>and Worcester, whose deeds and fortunes are interwoven with the most important\u00a0<\/span>portions of our history from the reign of Henry III to that of Charles II.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The name of Percy, strange to say, does not occur in the Roll of Battle Abbey;\u00a0for I cannot agree with my old friend Sir Bernard Burke in his discovery of it\u00a0in Percelay, a form in which I have never found it in any authority. Strange,\u00a0because in view of the numerous interpolations it contains, one can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-528","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/percyfamilyhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/percyfamilyhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/percyfamilyhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/percyfamilyhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/percyfamilyhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/percyfamilyhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":538,"href":"https:\/\/percyfamilyhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/528\/revisions\/538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/percyfamilyhistory.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}