JANUARY 45 



the only woman he ever loved. He lingered out a few 

 miserable years. Backed by disease, robbed of all his 

 property by a dishonourable trick of the King, and 

 deserted by his wife, he died in June 1637, aged only 

 five-and- thirty. Richard Lay ton, describing his death- 

 bed to Secretary Cromwell, wrote: 'this iij wekes he 

 hade no money but by borowyng, as his servauntes 

 declarede to me.' 



Nevertheless, even this ill-starred earl had his brief 

 hour of splendour and power. As Warden of the East 

 and Middle Marches, he managed to consign to violent 

 death quite a considerable number of his fellow-creatures. 

 Thus, at his first Wardenry Court, held at Alnwick in 

 January 1528, he was able to report to Cardinal Wolsey 

 that he had beheaded nine men and hanged five for 

 march-treason. A little later he wrote that ' all the Scots 

 of Tivydale that came to my hands, I put them to death 

 saving three,' and asked instructions as to these last. 



The Percy standard was no doubt displayed in a 

 notable raid which this earl made into Scotland in 

 December 1532, at the head of 2500 men, in reporting 

 which he declares that ' thankes be to God we did not 

 leave one pele, gentleman's howse or grange unburnt 

 or undestroyed, and so reculed to England. . . . Such 

 a roode [raid] hath not been scene in winter this two 

 hundreds years.' 



(4) Lastly, there is the famous Cavers standard, still 

 in the possession of E. Palmer Douglas, Esq, of Cavers 

 ■ — that flag of sage green silk to which tradition assigns 

 a higher antiquity than any of the others. Bishop 

 Percy of Dromore, visiting Cavers in 1744, notes that 



