Richard de Percy

Richard de Percy coat of arms

Richard de Percy (* before 1181; † before August 18, 1244 ) was an English nobleman and rebel. He belonged to the aristocratic opposition, under whose pressure King John Ohneland recognized the Magna Carta in 1215 .

origin

Richard was the second son of Joscelin von Löwen, a younger son of Duke Gottfried VI. from Lower Lorraine , and from Agnes de Percy , the heiress of the original Percy family . His father was a half-brother of Adelheid von Löwen , the second wife of King Henry I of England . He died in 1180. Richard is first mentioned in 1181. His older brother Henry de Percy died before 1198, he left with William de Percy(† 1245) had a minor heir. At the beginning of the reign of King John Ohneland, Richard took part in several campaigns by the king in France. When his mother died around 1202, he took advantage of his nephew's minority and occupied his mother's lands. After the death of his aunt Matilda de Percy around 1204, he was able to bring another small part of the Percy inheritance to himself, but most of their possessions fell to his nephew William. When he came of age in 1214, he claimed the properties that Richard had occupied in 1202. As a result, there was a protracted legal dispute between the two, which was only ended with a settlement in 1234.

Rebel against the king

When a group of northern English barons formed against Johann Ohneland in 1214, Richard joined them and in 1214 refused not only to participate in the king's campaign in Poitou , but also to pay the shield money . In June 1215 he was elected one of the 25 barons who were to oversee the king's compliance with the provisions of the Magna Carta. When the conflict between the king and the aristocratic opposition to the First War of the Barons widened, Richard was on June 26, 1215 as an opponent of the king by Pope Innocent III. excommunicated. During the War of the Barons he remained on the side of the rebels and in 1216, with other barons, subjugated Yorkshire for the French Prince Louis , to whom the rebels had offered the English throne. The Regency Council, which after Johann's death in October 1216 for the underage Heinrich III. led the government, therefore gave the rights to his possessions on May 11, 1217 to his nephew William. Only after the Peace of Lambeth did Richard submit to the new king on November 2, 1217, after which he got his lands back.

Next life

In 1218 Percy supported the siege of the royal Newark Castle , whose Constable Ralph de Gaugi did not want to hand the castle over to the Regency Council after the end of the Civil War, and during the rebellion of William de Forz in 1221 he was tasked with two other barons to destroy Skipton Castle . In 1224 he supported the king in suppressing the rebellion of Falkes de Bréauté . In 1230 he took part in the king's unsuccessful campaign in France . Although he attended the sessions of parliament , he stayed during the reign of Henry III. mostly politically cautious.

Marriage and inheritance

In his first marriage he married Alice, whose origin is unknown. After her death, he married Agnes de Neville, daughter of Geoffrey de Neville of Raby Castle . He had a son Henry, who was arguably illegitimate because his heir was his nephew William. Richard was a patron of Sawley Abbey and of Fountains Abbey , where he proposed to be buried.

Web links

• Nigel Saul: Magna Carta 800th: Richard de Percy
• WE Rhodes; Hugh M. Thomas: Percy, Richard de (b. Before 1181, d. 1244). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
• Richard de Percy on thepeerage.com , accessed November 24, 2015.