On the 7th of May, 1402, the Percies defeated Earl Douglas at the battle of Homildon, inflicting a heavy loss upon the Scots, and capturing Douglas; Murdoch, son of the Duke of Albany, and other captains to the total sum of eighty.
King Henry forbade the ransoming of the prisoners, an interference which aroused the bitter wrath of the Percies. As though in mockery of their pride, he bestowed upon them the Scottish estates of the Douglas, and ordered them to abstain from ransoming Sir Edward Mortimer, Hotspur’s brother-in-law, who had fallen into the hands of Owen Glendower, the Welsh patriot.
These impositions of the royal commands resulted in the revolt of the Percies. The Scotch prisoners were released, and assisted the Percies in the field. The captive Mortimer married Glendower’s daughter, and drew that chieftain into the conspiracy. The lineal heir to the throne was Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March. Him Northumberland proposed to raise to the throne, virtually partitioning the kingdom between the Percies, Mortimers, and Glendower.
The revolt came to the issue of battle at Shrewsbury, on the 21st July, 1403, when Percy and Douglas penetrated the centre of the royal army, and Hotspur, casting up the ventaille of his helmet, was shot in the brain by an arrow, and fell in the press. The victorious advance was turned into a rout. Of Prince Henry, it is written: “The prince that daie holpe his father like a lustie young gentleman.”
Northumberland was marching to join his sons, but retired into Warkworth Castle on receiving the news of their defeat. The King, either from fear or policy, condoned his part in the revolt.
When the Archbishop of York, Richard Scrope, took up arms in 1405, the Earl was implicated in his revolt. Sir John Falconberg had raised the banner of revolt in Cleveland, but Prince John and the Earl of Westmoreland had defeated the rebels. The Archbishop’s army was so strong, for it had been augmented by Lord Bardolph and Thomas, Lord Mowbray, that the royal captains resorted to treaty, and induced the Archbishop to disband his army. No sooner was this done than the leaders of the revolt were arrested.
The Archbishop of York, Lord Mowbray, Sir John Lamplugh, Sir Robert Plumpton, and several other unfortunates, were put upon their trial, and condemned to death. On the 8th June the Archbishop of York was executed at his palace of Bishopthorpe, and his head, with that of Mowbray, was piked and exposed on York walls.
The city of York was heavily fined, and the King proceeded to Durham, where he executed Lords Hastings and Fauconbridge, and Sir John Griffith.
Northumberland, “with three hundred horse, got him to Berwike,” but on the King’s advance passed into Scotland, accompanied by Lord Bardolph.