Welcome to the Hotspur School of Defense!

So, Who Was Hotspur?

Well, it depends who you ask. Northumbrian hero or treacherous regicidal turncoat, paragon of knightly prowess and chivalry or violent killer - Hotspur could be called all of these things.

One thing is certain, however—the tales of his martial skills and daring exploits live on to this day, and his name is still synonymous with unswerving Northern bravery… albeit sometimes verging on the foolhardy.

But this is how heroes are made, and Hotspur is no different. While he has his own sublime qualities, he also has his flaws, and his untimely death at the age of 36 at Shrewbury in 1403 bears testimony to that famous impetuous streak.

Lord Henry "Harry" Percy was born on the May 20th, 1366 at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, on the battle-ravaged Anglo-Scottish border. His father had already been granted the violent Earldom of Northumberland and his mother, Mary Plantagenet, was the grandaughter of the ruthless King Edward III.

At the age of eight, Lord Harry accompanied his father on a campaign against Du Guesclin, bearing the mantle of page and under the banner of the famous Percy Crescent. In 1376, and aged just 10, he witnessed the bloody fights between the Scots and the English. At 11 he was knighted at the Coronation of Richard II to become Sir Harry Percy, Knight by the King's hand. In the Autumn of 1378 young Harry won his spurs, when the most pivotal of all the towns on the River Tweed, Berwick, was captured by the Scots.
The siege lasted nine days, but it was to end in a dramatic, devastating storming—led in person by the eager youngster—to whom his father had granted him this most dangerous of honours.

The boy leapt through the breach, sword brandished and crying "Esperance", the Percy family motto.

He was just 12 years old.

In the years that were to follow, Harry—now furnished with the sobriquet "Hotspur", earned for his fleeting speed in combat—was to fight in several battles that would shape the very nation of Great Britain. He would help depose one monarch, yet die fighting against the very King whom he had helped onto the throne.

Aged 22, he battled by moonlight in a skirmish of honour on the field at Otterburn, where he was captured while fighting to retrieve his stolen pennon. The flag had been taken by Archibald, Earl Douglas, during a fray in Newcastle, as the Scotsman led one of two great incursions down the East and West coasts of England. As part of a series of passages of arms and skirmishes beneath the city walls, the two finally met in single combat"… mounted on two greete coursers, with sharpe grounde speares at the utterance." Douglas the veteran unhorsed the younger man, leaving him concussed on the ground, before Percy was hoisted away by his kinsmen. Before he left, however, Douglas rode up to within earshot of the town wall, followed by his squire holding Hotspur's captured lance and pennon. Popular accounts tell of Earl Douglas shouting up to the battlement:

"Syre—I shall bear this token of o' your prowess into Scotland, and shall set it high in my castle of Dalkeith that it may be seen from far off."

Hotspur shouted down in reply:

"Ye may be sure ye shall not passe the bounds of the countrye tyll ye be met withal in such wyse that ye shall make none account thereof."

Earl Douglas answered:

"Well Syre, come you this night to my lodgyngs and seek for your pennon. I shall set it before my lodgynge, and see if you will come and take it away."

Hotspur's wounds may have negligible, but the insult was grave. With his men behind him he gave chase, and under a harvest moon fell without mercy on the encamped and unprepared Scotsmen, who were heavy with plunder.

Douglas would die just hours later at Otterburn for the offence given, and that fateful August night in 1388 would lay the foundations for folkloric fancy. The historical accounts of the melee are varying, often contradictory, but the strategies and outcome are well documented. While Douglas lay encamped at Otterburn, Percy's army had bolstered in number to around eight hundred mounted men and eight thousand footmen. But Hotspur—instead of waiting for the support of the Prince Bishop of Durham—immediately took up the chase north to Redesdale, arriving at Otterburn in the late evening of August 19.

Despite the speedy march of at least 25 miles, and with the day having given way to the light of the moon, the ever-impetuous Northumbrian was determined to set about the Scots without delay. Chroniclers record that the attack was two-pronged—one spearhead led by Thomas Umfraville, Lord of Redesdale, who would attack the Scots from the rear, with Hotspur leading his own assault from the South. To battle cries of "A-Percy! A-Percy!" Hotspur's onslaught was brought down on the Scottish camp, but in the confusion of darkness they missed Douglas and the bulk of his retinue, instead setting about a small encampment of servants and followers who bravely fought back. The element of surprise now lost, and the noise of battle ringing across the lonely moors, Douglas flew into action, so hastily arming himself that accounts suggest he entered the fray in little more than an arming jack and wielding only an axe.

Nonetheless, a sobering Scots attack opened up on the Northumbrian's flanks with chants of "A-Douglas! A-Douglas!" rising above the clash of steel on armour and the cries of wounded and dying men. For a time the Scots seemed to be easily winning the battle, perhaps helped by the absence of Thomas Umfraville's contingent, which had got lost in the moors to the north. Eventually Umfraville decided to give up the plan of attacking the Scots from the rear and retraced his steps to rejoin the main English forces under Hotspur. Together the forces of Umfraville and Percy may have seemed unstoppable, but Scottish resolve tightened and Douglas's men began to fight more fiercely than ever.

Douglas, sensing the danger, rose to the challenge and began to violently hack his way through the English forces armed with his battle-axe, but in the close combat three spears were said to have pierced his body, his head and thigh. He fell from his horse and lay dying as the battle continued all around him, trampled, as some accounts say, by a thousand feet.

According to the Otterburn Ballad, the dying Douglas told his men he had foreseen his own doom:

"But I hae dream'd a dreary dream
Beyond the isle of Skye
I saw a dead man win a fight
And I think that man was I."

The frantic march from Newcastle, however, began to tell on the Englishmen, as more and more fell to the well-rested Scots, either captured or slain. Hotspur was eventually forced to yield to Lord Montgomery, who had taken over the command from Douglas, who was by this time dead, his body concealed by his men beneath a bush. Percy's younger brother, Sir Ralph, was "sorely hurt" and also called it a day rather than die on the field.

The great chronicler Froissart wrote:

"Knights and squires were of good courage in both parties to fight valiantly; cowards there had no place, but hardiness reigned with goodly feats of arms, for knights and squires were so joined to-ether at hand-strokes that archers had no place at, neither party. There the Scots showed great hardiness, and fought merrily with great desire of honour. The English were three to one. Howbeit I say not but Englishmen did nobly acquit themselves, for ever the Englishmen had rather been slain or taken in the place than fly. At the beginning the English were so strong that they recoiled back their enemies. Then the Earl of Douglas, who was of great heart and high of enterprise, seeing his men recoil back, then to recover the place and show knightly valour, he took his axe in both his hands, and entered so into the press that he made himself way in such wise that none durst approach near him, and he was so well armed that he bore well of such strokes as he received.

"The Englishmen well they had borne one down to the earth, but wist not who it was, for if they had known that it had been the Earl of Douglas they would have been thereof so joyful and so proud that the victory had been theirs. Nor also the Scots knew not of that adventure till the end of the battle, for if they had known it they should have been so sore despaired and discouraged that they would have fled away."

Froissart adds:

"There were taken or left dead on the field on the side of the English one thousand and forty men of all descriptions; in the pursuit eight hundred and forty, and more than one thousand wounded. Of the Scots there were only about one hundred slain and two hundred made prisoners."

The body of Douglas was taken back to Scotland and he was buried with great ceremony at Melrose Abbey in Tweeddale.
Hotspur and Ralph were later released for a sizeable ransom. Despite the humbling experience, Hotspur fought the Scots many more times, most notably winning a decisive victory against a hand-picked army including 30 French knights at Homildon (now Humbleton) Hill on the Northumberland-Scotland border near Wooler in 1402. Legend says he had to be held back by his men and pinned to an ancient standing stone in the field to stop him charging alone, uphill, to spark off the melee. Less than a year later, though, he would himself lie dead like Douglas on another battlefield, the result of a desperate venture with Welsh hero Owain Glyndower and, in a curious twist, allied with his former Douglas enemies to depose King Henry IV. Testimony tells of him shot in the head with an arrow.

"The earth bore him dead, Bore not alive so stout a gentleman."

Yet even in death, all of England continued to ring with the fame of Harry Hotspur. Two centuries later, Shakespeare would immortalise him forever, gifting him a central role in his historical epic, Henry IV Part I. Hotspur's apparent youthful good looks and indisputable absolute fearlessness caught the popular fancy of both commoner and nobleman across the length and breadth of 15th century England, Scotland and Wales. Not since the days of the Black Prince had the land seen such a knight as him.

And that's why we've named our modest School after Henry "Hotspur" Percy. The year of our founding marks the 600th anniversary of his death, but still he remains larger-than-life, a paragon of the chivalric ideal, even after six centuries.

Harry Hotspur—he's our knight, and long may his memory and deeds prevail.

"Esperance!"

"I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands and says to his wife—
'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work'
'O my sweet Harry,' says she. 'How many has thy killed today?'
'Some fourteen,' an hour after; 'a trifle a trifle.' "
—Henry IV Part I, Act 2, Scene 4

Warkworth Castle, Hotspur's Home

Warkworth Keep