Henry Percy (Hotspur)

Henry Percy, known as Hotspur, was an English nobleman and soldier celebrated for campaigns against the Scots and border raiders. After helping Henry IV seize the throne, the Percy family rebelled, and Hotspur was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403.

In A. W. Boardman’s The Two Horns of the Moon, Service in France and Scotland brings him early fame, while the costly fighting at Otterburn establishes the courage and impetuosity that earn him the name Hotspur. In Anne O’Brien’s Queen of the North, as Hotspur moves towards open rebellion and cooperation with Welsh resistance, political calculation enters the marriage itself.