The Last Baron of the North: Thomas Percy and the Tragedy of 1569

To understand the landscape of sixteenth-century England, one must recognize that the North was effectively a different country from the South. While London and the court of Elizabeth I were pivoting toward a centralized, Protestant bureaucracy, the “dark corners of the land” beyond the River Trent remained fiercely loyal to the “Old Religion” and the ancient feudal order. At the heart of this cultural and political chasm stood the House of Percy, a dynasty that had ruled the borderlands like kings for generations. And at the center of the House of Percy stood Thomas, the 7th Earl of Northumberland - a man destined to become the protagonist of a tragic tale of rebellion, betrayal, and martyrdom.

The story of the 7th Earl is not merely a military history of the failed Rising of the North in 1569; it is a human tragedy of a man caught between two eras. Born in 1528, Thomas Percy was an inheritor of trauma. His father, Sir Thomas Percy, had been executed at Tyburn in 1537 for leading the Pilgrimage of Grace, a massive uprising against Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. This event was the foundational wound of the 7th Earl’s life. He was raised in the shadow of his father’s martyrdom, a child of the Catholic faith in a kingdom that was violently turning against it. Although Queen Mary I restored his family estates and earldom in 1557 with great pomp at Whitehall, her death and the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558 placed him once again on the precipice of ruin.

[Image of Thomas Percy 7th Earl of Northumberland portrait]

The Erosion of the Northern Power

To comprehend why Thomas Percy, a man known to his contemporaries by the somewhat diminutive nickname “Simple Tom,” would risk everything in a rebellion, we must look at the systematic dismantling of his life by the Elizabethan state. The conflict was structural. Elizabeth I and her chief minister, William Cecil, viewed the semi-autonomous power of the northern magnates - the Percys, the Nevilles, and the Dacres - as an existential threat to the stability of the realm.

For centuries, the authority of the Earls of Northumberland was derived from their role as Wardens of the Marches. This was a vice-regal position that granted them military and judicial power over the borderlands with Scotland. It was the mechanism through which they maintained their vast retinues and their standing as the premier nobility of the North. However, the Elizabethan regime pursued a policy of favoring “new men” - Protestant administrators whose loyalty was owed solely to the Crown.

The most stinging insult came when Thomas Percy was removed from the Wardenship of the Middle and East Marches. In a calculated move to sideline the old aristocracy, the Queen appointed Sir John Forster to the post. Forster was a local rival of lesser status but staunch Protestantism. For Percy, this was not just a loss of a job; it was a severance of the ancient feudal bond between his family and the border clans. It was a public humiliation that signaled the end of Percy dominance.

Furthermore, the Crown aggressively encroached on Percy’s economic survival. When rich copper deposits were discovered on his estates near Keswick, the government invoked the royal prerogative over “mines royal,” seizing the lucrative operation for the state treasury. Percy, who was land-rich but cash-poor, found himself struggling to maintain the hospitality expected of his rank while his resources were siphoned off by a hostile government in London. By the late 1560s, he was a man cornered - stripped of his offices, his income, and his influence.

The Spark: Religion and the Queen of Scots

If political marginalization provided the fuel for rebellion, religion was the undeniable spark. The North had remained stubbornly Catholic, viewing the Elizabethan reforms not as theological progress but as a cultural assault on their ancient liberties. The imposition of the Book of Common Prayer was deeply resented by the northern gentry.

The arrival of Mary, Queen of Scots, in England in May 1568 transformed this simmering discontent into active conspiracy. For the Catholic North, Mary was a romantic heroine and, in their eyes, the rightful Queen of England. Her confinement at Bolton Castle made her a magnetic focal point for disaffection. Thomas Percy and his wife, Anne Somerset - a woman of formidable character and fervent Catholicism - became deeply enmeshed in the intrigues surrounding Mary.

The “Norfolk Marriage Plot,” a scheme to marry Mary to the Duke of Norfolk, garnered the support of the northern earls. They believed this union would force Elizabeth to name Mary her successor and restore Catholic worship. However, the leadership of this conspiracy was fractured. Percy himself wavered, earning his moniker “Simple Tom” for his apparent indecision. He was a man of deep loyalty to his lineage but was susceptible to the influence of sharper, more militant minds, including his wife and the fiery gentry like Richard Norton.

The rebellion was ultimately precipitated by panic rather than strategy. Rumors of the plot reached London, and Elizabeth summoned Percy and the Earl of Westmorland to court. Fearing the fate of his father, Percy was stampeded into action. On the night of November 9, 1569, the church bells at Topcliffe were rung backwards - the traditional tocsin of alarm and treason. The Rising of the North had begun.

A Pilgrimage of Failure

The rebellion began with a moment of spectacular theatricality. On November 14, the Earls marched into Durham with a force of armed retainers. In a symbolic reclamation of the North, they stormed the cathedral, overturned the communion table, and tore up the English Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. They celebrated a Catholic Mass - the first public mass in the cathedral since Elizabeth’s accession.

[Image of Banner of the Five Wounds of Christ]

Crucially, they raised the banner of the Five Wounds of Christ. This was the very emblem used by Percy’s father in the Pilgrimage of Grace, explicitly linking their cause to the earlier martyrdoms of the 1530s. Despite gathering a force of approximately 6,000 men, the rebellion was doomed by strategic incompetence. The promised Spanish aid from the Duke of Alva never materialized, and the southern nobility remained loyal to the Queen.

As the royal army, led by the Earl of Sussex, advanced from the south with 10,000 men, the Earls lost their nerve. The winter cold bit hard, and their forces began to melt away. By mid-December, what had started as a glorious crusade disintegrated into a chaotic retreat. The Earls disbanded their infantry and fled north, becoming fugitives in their own lands.

The Journey into the Debateable Lands

The collapse of the rebellion forced Thomas Percy into a harrowing journey that stripped him of all dignity. On December 20, 1569, leaving their army to the scant mercy of the Queen’s forces, Percy and Westmorland fled across the snow-covered Pennines. They sought refuge in Liddesdale, a lawless region known as the “Debateable Lands.” This area was inhabited by the Border Reivers - clans who recognized no authority but their own.

The flight was a humiliating ordeal. The Countess Anne, heavily pregnant, was forced to ride through the bitter winter landscape. Upon entering Liddesdale, the refugees were robbed by Black Ormiston, a notorious reiver captain, who took the Countess’s horses and jewels. The once-great House of Percy was left destitute in the frozen wastes, reliant on the volatile code of border hospitality.

The Earls separated for safety, and here the tragedy of Thomas Percy deepened. He was taken in by Hector Armstrong of Harelaw, a man who pledged his honor to protect the Earl. However, the Regent of Scotland, the Earl of Moray, offered a substantial bribe for Percy’s capture. In an act that shocked the northern conscience, Armstrong betrayed his guest.

In late December, Percy was handed over to Moray’s men. The betrayal was so reviled in the Borders that “to take Hector’s cloak” became a proverbial expression for betraying a friend. While Westmorland eventually escaped to Flanders, Percy was transported to Lochleven Castle, the bleak island fortress where Mary Queen of Scots had previously been imprisoned.

The Prisoner of Lochleven

For two and a half years, from January 1570 to June 1572, Percy languished in Lochleven. His captivity became a complex game of international chess. Queen Elizabeth demanded his extradition as a traitor, while the Scottish Protestant faction used him as a bargaining chip. His wife, Anne, wrote desperate letters from the continent, trying to raise a ransom to outbid the English Queen, but the geopolitical tides were against them.

Ultimately, the English government agreed to pay £2,000 for the Earl - a transaction of cold political calculation. In June 1572, the Scots handed the Earl of Northumberland over to the English at Berwick. Lord Hunsdon, the Queen’s cousin, took custody of him and famously remarked on his prisoner’s character: “I never thought him so simple as I now find him.”

During his interrogation at Berwick, Percy attempted to minimize his agency, claiming he was led into the rebellion by the importunity of others. He famously remarked regarding his brother Henry, who had remained loyal to Elizabeth: “Symple Tome must dye to sett up crewell Henry.” This statement reveals a bitter awareness of the dynastic mechanics at play; his death would ensure the survival of the Percy name, albeit under a loyalist guise.

The Architecture of Decline: Alnwick Castle

To fully grasp the tragedy of the 7th Earl, one can look to his ancestral seat, Alnwick Castle. The fortress was a physical manifestation of the Percy dynasty, and in the late 1560s, it mirrored the fortunes of its owner: imposing but decaying.

A survey conducted in 1567 by George Clarkson, the Earl’s surveyor, paints a bleak picture of the castle just two years before the rebellion. Clarkson noted that while the castle was “large, beautiful and portly,” it suffered from significant structural failure. The Ravine Tower, vital for defense, was described as “so rente that it is mooche like to fall.” The survey also admitted that the medieval walls were “not liable to abide the force of any shot,” acknowledging that the fortress was obsolete in the face of modern artillery.

The most poignant detail of Alnwick, however, was the stone figures on the battlements. These life-sized statues of warriors were a medieval affectation, intended to project strength. In the context of the 1569 rebellion, these stone soldiers serve as a powerful metaphor. Just as the castle relied on stone effigies to hide its crumbling walls, the Rising of the North relied on the symbols of the past - the Five Wounds banner, the Latin Mass - to challenge the modern state. Both were facades that crumbled when tested by reality.

The Final Act at York

There was no trial for Thomas Percy. He had already been attainted of high treason by Parliament in 1571. The Act of Attainder meant that his blood was corrupted, his lands forfeited, and his life forfeit at the Queen’s pleasure. The “Commission for the Execution” was a formality.

On August 22, 1572, Thomas Percy was led to a scaffold erected on the Pavement in York. The execution was intended to be a display of state power, but Percy transformed it into a moment of religious martyrdom. Refusing an offer to save his life by renouncing his faith, he declared that he died a true son of the Catholic Church.

His head was struck off and placed on a spike on Micklegate Bar, where it remained for two years as a warning. Yet, in death, Percy achieved a victory that had eluded him in life. His steadfastness earned him the title of “Blessed” in the eyes of the Catholic Church (he was beatified in 1895), and he washed away the stain of “Simple Tom” with the blood of a martyr.

The 7th Earl of Northumberland was a man ill-equipped for the ruthless politics of Elizabethan England. He was a feudal relic in a modern state, a devout Catholic in a Protestant kingdom, and a trusting man in a world of spies. His rebellion was a failure, and his castle was left in ruins, but his story remains a compelling testament to the agonizing transition that birthed modern England - a tale where the old world did not fade away quietly, but went down fighting in the snows of the North.

References & Further Reading

• The Rising of the Northern Earls (British Catholic History)
• The Yorkshire Archaeological Journal (Vol 22)
• Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569
• The History of Alnwick Castle (Alnwick & District Local History Society)
• Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland and Rebel (Executed Today)