The Percy Family Rebellion is one of the most dramatic and enduring sagas in English history—a two-century tale of loyalty, betrayal, and relentless defiance against the Crown. From the fiery rise of Henry “Hotspur” Percy to the doomed uprising of the 7th Earl in the Rising of the North, the Percys of Northumberland were at the center of nearly every major northern rebellion between the 14th and 16th centuries. Unlike other noble families who mastered the art of political survival, the Percys seemed drawn to conflict, often choosing rebellion over compromise—no matter the cost.
Let’s uncover why the Percy family couldn’t stop rebelling, how they kept coming back after ruin, and why their name became both feared and legendary in the volatile world of Tudor and Plantagenet politics.
Transcript of The House That Couldn’t Stop Rebelling: The Percy Family’s 200-Year War with the Crown
Some noble families seemed to have a talent for survival. They knew when to flatter, when to step back, and when to switch sides if the winds changed. And then there were the Percys. If you were a monarch from the 14th century through to the 16th century, there was one family you always had to keep an eye on.
That was the Percys of Northumberland. They were proud, they were powerful, and they were catastrophically bad at staying out of trouble. Their story isn’t just one rebellion. It’s a pattern, a rhythm, from Henry “Hotspur” Percy challenging Henry IV to later generations joining uprisings against the Tudors.
The Percys just couldn’t seem to help themselves. There was something about being that close to the Scottish border and that far from royal oversight that gave them ideas—dangerous ideas. So today we are going to look at how one noble family found themselves at the center of nearly every major northern rebellion for over two centuries, and ask why they kept doing it, even when it got them killed multiple times.
So let’s talk about the Percy family, starting with Hotspur riding out. To understand the Percy rebellion streak, we have to start with the one who practically wrote the playbook: Sir Henry Percy. Better known as Hotspur, he was born in 1364 as the eldest son of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland. He grew up in a family that was essentially the crown’s military muscle in the north.
They were wealthy, deeply entrenched in northern politics, and essential for keeping Scotland at bay. Under Richard II, the Percys were rewarded with lands, offices, and royal favors. But like many families during Richard’s reign, they grew uneasy with the king’s erratic behavior. They threw their support behind Henry Bolingbroke, who took the throne in 1399 as Henry IV, thanks in no small part to Percy help. But the alliance soured fast.
The Percys felt that they weren’t being properly compensated for their loyalty and military efforts. Hotspur, in particular, bristled under the new king’s rule. Tensions exploded in 1403 when Hotspur openly rebelled. He joined forces with Owain Glyndŵr, the Welsh rebel, and Thomas Percy, his uncle, known as the Earl of Worcester.
The rebellion culminated in the very bloody Battle of Shrewsbury. Hotspur died in the thick of it, fighting against the very king that he helped to crown. His body was actually cut into quarters and displayed publicly as a warning to anyone else who was feeling ever so slightly rebellious. It was a stunning downfall, but it did not end the Percy line.
The family name and titles were too important, and later monarchs could not afford to alienate all of the northern lords. So over time, the Percys were rehabilitated, only to start the cycle over again.
Hotspur became a bit of a folk hero, thanks largely to Shakespeare, who portrayed him in Henry IV, Part One as a fiery, impulsive warrior and a foil to the more politically savvy Prince Hal. But the real Hotspur was not just a romantic rebel. He was part of a family with serious ambitions and a knack for misreading the room and when it was safe to act on those ambitions.
After Hotspur’s rebellion ended in blood and body parts, you would think the Percy family would vanish from history, or at least have learned their lesson. But no, this was only the first act. The title of the Earl of Northumberland was forfeited after the rebellion, but the Percy lands in the north were still there, still valuable, and still a political problem for whoever was sitting on the throne.
The region needed strong governance, preferably by someone who could rally local support, command men in a hurry, and knew the lay of the land. In other words, someone exactly like a Percy.
By the 1410s, Henry V, ever the pragmatist, realized that he could not govern the north without them. So, in a very Tudor precursor move, he restored the title Earl of Northumberland to Henry Percy, Hotspur’s son, in 1416. He had been raised in exile in Scotland, but even that did not stop him from becoming essential to the defense of the realm.
This is the beginning of a pattern. The crown removes the Percys when they rebel, only to call them back a generation later when it turns out that no one else can manage Northumberland without sparking chaos. The Percys themselves seemed to understand this too, and they used it to their advantage.
Under Henry VI, the Percys became dominant again, though by then they had a new problem—a rival family, the Nevilles. The Percy–Neville feud was not just a localized tiff. It turned violent and personal, and at times embarrassingly public. It was a full-blown aristocratic street fight over land, honor, and influence.
And when the Wars of the Roses broke out, both families jumped into the fray on opposite sides. The Percys chose the Lancastrian cause. The Nevilles were backing the Yorks, especially after Richard Neville, the so-called Kingmaker, married into the Yorkist line.
So once again, the Percys found themselves on the losing side of a civil war. At Towton in 1461, the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil, Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland, died fighting for Henry VI. His heir was a child, his lands were forfeited yet again, and the family honor was thrown into yet another period of disgrace.
But just like before, they did not stay down for long. The Wars of the Roses were a kind of dynastic nightmare that tested every noble family’s survival instincts. Some hedged their bets. Some switched sides mid-battle. The Percys, naturally, went all in on the wrong horse.
After the 3rd Earl of Northumberland was killed at Towton in 1461, his heir, Henry Percy, the future 4th Earl, was just a boy. And the Yorkist king, Edward IV, was not about to let a Percy hold power in the north again. The earldom was stripped, and the Percy lands were handed over to—wait for it—you guessed it, the Nevilles.
It was a purposeful insult, one that rubbed salt into an already gaping wound. The Percys were locked up, their retainers were scattered, and their status as northern overlords was replaced by the very family they had been feuding with for decades.
That should have been the end. But Edward IV was not a fool, just a realist. By the early 1470s, he needed the north stabilized. Warwick the Kingmaker had fallen out of favor, switched sides, and died in battle. The Neville grip on the region loosened, and suddenly restoring a Percy did not seem like such a bad idea.
So in 1473, Edward released the young Henry Percy from the Tower, and two years later officially restored him as the fourth Earl of Northumberland. Once again, the Percys were back. This is key: they were never quite as powerful again. They were watched more closely, their lands were fewer, and the trust was gone.
The family had been branded with the stink of rebellion, and though they were politically useful, they were no longer irreplaceable. Still, the fourth Earl walked a careful line. He served Edward IV loyally. He helped to maintain order and even attended Richard III’s coronation.
But when Richard’s reign started to wobble, Percy hesitated. At the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, he commanded a reserve force but never committed his troops. Whether that was indecision or sabotage is still debated by historians. Either way, Richard lost the crown and his life.
And you might think that Henry Tudor would reward Percy for his well, non-committal treachery. But Henry VII did not trust anyone with a reputation for playing both sides. And in 1489, when Percy tried to collect taxes on Henry’s behalf in Yorkshire, angry locals murdered him. A brutal end, and yet somehow the line still survived.
Because of course it did. The Percys were like political weeds. They were trimmed back by force but always growing back with new shoots. And with the Tudors now in power, a new chapter of rebellion was just around the corner.
By the 1530s, England was in upheaval again, but this time it was not about rival dynasties. It was about faith. Henry VIII’s break with Rome and the beginning of the English Reformation tore through the country’s political and spiritual foundations. Nowhere did the earth shake harder than in the north.
Enter Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland. If ever there was a Percy who did not want to rebel, it was this one. He was sickly, childless, and politically cautious. The 6th Earl had zero appetite for uprisings. But unfortunately for him, he was surrounded by people who did.
In 1536, when the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out—this massive northern rebellion in response to the dissolution of the monasteries and Cromwell’s religious reforms—the Percy name was once again at the center of it all. The Earl did not participate, but his younger brother, Sir Thomas Percy, did enthusiastically.
Thomas joined the rebel cause, which called for the restoration of Catholic practices, the removal of Cromwell, and the protection of traditional monastic institutions. The rebels marched under the banners of the Five Wounds of Christ, mixing religious symbolism with open political defiance.
The 6th Earl was caught between loyalty to the crown and sympathy for his family and his region, and he suffered a literal nervous breakdown. He was dragged into this mess by association, forced to swear loyalty to the king multiple times. He ultimately died in 1537 without an heir.
Thomas Percy, meanwhile, was arrested and executed in 1537 for his role in the rebellion. His death was gruesome and public—hanged, drawn, and quartered—and it once again marked the end of a Percy branch, or so it seemed.
But wait, because of course the Tudors could not manage the North without a Percy. Henry VIII, with all of his contradictions, allowed the title to lie dormant but kept the Percy lands in play. Young Thomas’s son would eventually be restored as the 7th Earl of Northumberland under Queen Mary.
The Percys had now been removed and restored more times than anyone could count, and the pattern was becoming unmistakable. Every time they regained their footing, someone—usually a younger brother or a cousin—would stick a toe back in the rebellion pool and drag the entire family down under again.
The next chapter would be the most spectacular one of all. One final blowup: big, loud, and utterly disastrous. And that was the Rising of the North. By the late 1560s, it was clear that Elizabeth I was not budging on religion. The Protestant settlement was here to stay, and anyone clinging to the old faith had to either keep quiet or risk everything.
The Percys naturally risked everything. Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland, had been restored to the earldom during the reign of Mary I, who was a Catholic. But under Elizabeth, he found himself increasingly marginalized. His conservative Catholic beliefs made him a suspect figure at court. His influence in the North, while still formidable, was carefully monitored.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s Protestant regime was pushing hard to root out recusants. Priests were being hunted, masses were held in secret, and rumors were flying about Mary, Queen of Scots, who was being held under house arrest in England after fleeing her own kingdom.
To Catholic nobles like Percy and Charles Neville, Earl of Westmorland, the situation was intolerable. They began plotting what would become the Rising of the North in 1569, a full-scale rebellion meant to restore Catholic worship and place Mary Stuart on the English throne.
It was bold. It was theatrical. And it was a disaster. The plan was to seize control of the North, rally support from discontented Catholics, and march south to free Mary. The two Earls gathered an army of 6,000 men and raised the old religious banners—the Five Wounds of Christ—once again. They even held a mass in Durham Cathedral, an act of open defiance that left no room for forgiveness.
But the rebellion was hopeless from the start. Mary, Queen of Scots, was swiftly moved further south under an even tighter guard. The Catholic gentry wavered. The promised support from Spain never arrived, and Elizabeth’s forces under the Earl of Sussex responded quickly and with overwhelming force.
The rebels scattered. Westmorland escaped abroad, never to return. Thomas Percy was captured, handed over by the Scots after a year in hiding. His fate was sealed. In 1572, he was executed in York. His head was placed on a spike over Micklegate Bar, the same gate where traitors’ heads had been displayed for generations. His body was buried secretly, but later venerated by Catholics. In 1895, he was made a saint by the Pope. He is now known as Blessed Thomas Percy, a martyr to the Catholic cause.
Beatification did not help the Percy family. Their lands were seized again. The name was tainted again. And this time, even though the title would be passed down in various forms, their political power in the North was permanently broken. It was the last great rebellion of the old northern lords, and fittingly the last time that the Percys would lead it.
So over nearly two centuries, the Percy family managed to insert themselves into almost every major uprising against the crown—not just once, but over and over again. It was practically the family business.
They backed Henry Bolingbroke, then rebelled against him. They supported the Lancastrians, then lost everything at Towton. They were restored by the Yorkists, then stood by at Bosworth. They dabbled in the Pilgrimage of Grace. They went all in on the Rising of the North. And every time it ended the same way: rebellion, disaster, forfeiture, and then somehow a comeback—until finally, they ran out of comebacks.
The later Percys, stripped of real political power, did what most formerly rebellious nobles eventually had to do. They turned inward, focused on their estates, built stately homes, collected art, married well, and tried very hard not to get executed.
You can still see the remnants of their old world today at places like Petworth House or in the heroic lion that once stood for northern authority and battlefield bravery. But behind all that grandeur, there is their history of ambition, miscalculation, and spectacular inability to know when to sit still. They were not cursed. They were just Percys, and that, as it turns out, was actually dangerous enough.
Related links:
Episode 085: Tudor Times on Mary Queen of Scots
Episode 052: Rebellions Part Two
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
