Thomas Percy (Gunpowder Plot)

Thomas Percy was a member of the group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Little is known of his early life beyond his matriculation in 1579 at the University of Cambridge, and his marriage in 1591 to Martha Wright. He was reportedly killed by the same musketball as Robert Catesby, and was buried nearby. His body was later exhumed and his head exhibited outside Parliament.

About Thomas Percy (Gunpowder Plot) in brief

Thomas Percy was a member of the group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Little is known of his early life beyond his matriculation in 1579 at the University of Cambridge, and his marriage in 1591 to Martha Wright. In 1596 his second cousin once removed, Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, appointed him constable of Alnwick Castle and made him responsible for the Percy family’s northern estates. He served the earl in the Low Countries in about 1600–1601, and in the years before 1603 was his intermediary in a series of confidential communications with King James VI of Scotland. Percy became disenchanted with the new king, who he supposed had reneged on his promises of toleration for English Catholics. He has been described as “a tall, physically impressive man, with various various belligerent and eccentric, subsiding into wild energy into sloth” He was reportedly killed by the same musketball as Robert Catesby, and was buried nearby. His body was later exhumed and his head exhibited outside Parliament. He may have been a papist before he was at some point received into the Catholic Church, and he may have sailed with George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, in 1589. During a border skirmish he killed James Burne, a Scot, for which he was imprisoned at a London gaol, but his release was secured by the intervention of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

Thomas subsequently aided in a revolt against the Scottish warden of the middle marches, although unlike several later others who joined the Gunpowder plot, he was not a member. He was the younger of two sons born to Edward Percy of Beverley and his wife Elizabeth. His father was a son of JocelynJosceline Percy, whose father was Henry Percy,. 4th earl of Northumbersland. Thomas was the great-grandson of Henry Percy and the second cousinonce removed of the 4th Earl’s descendant, Henry. Percy, who was born around 1560 and matriculated at theUniversity of Cambridge as a members of Peterhouse in 15 1979. He married Martha Wright, daughter of Ursula Wright and sister to Christopher and John Wright. In 1591 he married Martha, and the two were at least estranged: in 1605 Martha and her daughter were living on an annuity funded by the Catholic William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle. Despite not being a close relative, the 9th earls made Thomas responsible for collecting rents from his northern estates in 1595 and the following year appointed him as constable. He replaced at least one of his tenants as sheriff of the town of Dunchurch in Warwickshire. In 1605 Thomas and Martha’s son, Robert, married Emma Mead at Wiveliscombe in Somerset on 22 October 1615. The following year he was appointed constable for Alnwood Castle.

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