accordingly; he was also on the same day appointed Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the county of Nottingham, and of the town of Nottingham, and county of the same town; also steward, keeper, and guardian of his Majesty's forest of Sherwood, and park of Folewood, in the county of Nottingham. His Grace was also Fellow of the Royal Society; Doctor of Laws, being so admitted when the Duke of Newcastle was installed Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, in July 1749; high steward of Westminster, and president of the Westminster hospital.

His Grace married, October 16th, 1744, Catherine, eldest surviving daughter and coheir of the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, Esq. brother to the above mentioned Thomas Duke of Newcastle; and by her (who died July 27th, 1760, and was buried at Bamber in Lincolnshire) he had issue, first, George, Lord Clinton, who was born on November 26th, 1745, and died at Greenwich on August 19th, 1752; second, the Honourable Henry Fienes Pelham Clinton, commonly called Earl of Lincoln, born November 5th, 1750, one of the representatives elected in 1774 for the county of Nottingham. His Lordship died in France, October 18th, 1778, and was buried in Westminster Abbey; having on May 21st, 1775, married Lady Frances Seymour Conway, daughter of Francis Earl of Hertford, by whom he left a daughter, born April 6th, and baptised on May 6th, 1776, by the name of Catherine, married, October 2d, 1800, Viscount Folkestone, and died May 17th, 1804; and a son Henry, born December 23d, 1777, ob. September 23d, 1779; third, the Hon. Thomas Pelham Clinton, born July 1st, 1752; who was, while a younger son, a captain in the first regiment of foot guards, with the rank of lieutenant colonel in the army; also member in 1774 for the city of Westminster, and afterwards succeeded his father, as second Duke; fourth, the Hon. John Pelham Clinton, born on September 13th, 1755, elected 1774 member of parliament for East Retford in Nottinghamshire; and died at Lisbon November 10th, 1781, æt. twenty-seven.

His Grace died February 22d, 1794, and was succeeded by his aforesaid son b.

Thomas, SECOND DUKE OF NEWCASTLE, who was a major general in the army, and colonel of the seventeenth regiment of light dragoons. He married Lady Anna Maria Stanhope, sister

to the present Earl of Harrington, by whom he had, first, Henry Pelham, present Duke; second, Lord Thomas, lieutenant in the first regiment of foot guards, died of a malignant fever at Gibraltar, October 13th, 1804; third, Lady Charlotte, married colonel Stapleton Cotton, of the sixteenth dragoons, and died 1807. His Grace died May 17th, 1795, and was succeeded by his son.

Henry Pelham, THIRD AND PRESENT DUKE, married July 18th, 1807, Miss Mundy, only daughter of Edward Miller Mundy, Esq. by his last wife (widow of Lord Middleton.)

Titles. Henry Pelham Clinton, Duke of Newcastle, and Earl of Lincoln.

Creations. Earl of Lincoln, May 4th, (1572), 14 Elizabeth, and Duke of Newcastle under Line by patent, November 13th, 1756, Geo. II.

Arms. Argent, six Crosslets fitchy, Sable, on a chief Azure, two Mullets, round pierced, Or.

Crest. In a ducal coronet Gules, five ostrich feathers, proper, banded Azure.

Supporters. Two greyhounds Argent, plain collared and lined Gules.

Motto. Loyalte na honte.

Chief Seats. Clumber Park Lodge, in the county of Nottingham, formerly part of the Holles estates.

THE truly noble family of PERCY, so renowned not only in the annals of England, but also in the history of Europe, is descended from one of the Norman chieftains, who came over with William the Conqueror in the year 1066, and, like other Norman families, derived their name from their principal place of residence in France. In Lower Normandy are three towns or villages of the name of PERCY; b the chief of which is situate near Villedieu, in the election of St. Lo. Hence the family took the name DB PERCY, and not from one of them PIERCING a King of Scotland's EYE at the siege of Alnwick Castle, as some writers have ignorantly alleged for although that accident is said to have happened to King Malcolm III. in the reign of King William Rufus, A. D. 1093, the officer that slew him (who, according to the ancient chronicle of Alnwick Abbey, was named Hammond) had no connection or affinity with the Percy family; which had not the least interest in Northumberland till near two hundred years after, in the reign of King Edward II. as will appear in the folfowing pages whereas their name De Percy stands among the most distinguished in the list of Norman chieftains, who as

a It is with great regret that the compiler has been necessitated to curtail very materially the full and laborious article of this family, as it appeared in the last edition of Collins; but it was impossible to allow so much space in the present increased size of the Peerage.

Etat Geographique de la Province de Normandie, par le Sr. de Masseville, à Rouen, 1722, 2 Tom 12mo vid. p 239, &c.

c Harl. MSS. No. 692, (12,) fol. 155.

Harl. MSS No 293, fol 31, 35, Leland's Collectanea, tom i p. 206.

sisted in the conquest of England, and continually occurs in Doomesday Book, which is well known to have been drawn up in the reign of King William the Conqueror.

As the old Norman nobility were very exact in preserving and perpetuating their genealogies, and in this followed the example of their Teutonic and Celtic ancestors, who had their Bards and Scalds to record the exploits and descent of their chieftains, we are not to wonder that this great family had preserved the memory of their ancestors for two centuries back, viz. from the conquest of Normandy to that of England, deriving their descent from

f

MAINFRED, a Danish chieftain, who made irruptions into France before the year 886, which was the era of Rollo's expedition that ended in the conquest and peopling of Normandy, in the year 912.

GALFRED, or GEOFFREY, son of Mainfred, assisted Rollo in that conquest, and obtained considerable possessions in this new duchy. From him descended four generations before the conquest of England in 1066. These, when surnames began to be taken up by the French nobility from their lands and castles, were successively named h

WILLIAM DE PERCY, son of the first Geoffrey.

GEOFFREY DE PERCY, Son of William.

WILLIAM DE PERCY, son of Geoffrey.

GEOFFREY DE PERCY, son of William.

This last Geoffrey had two sons, WILLIAM and SERLO, who accompanied their Duke William, and assisted in the conquest of England in 1066.

i

WILLIAM DE PERCY, being much beloved by the Conqueror, and one of his Barons, obtained from that King very large grants in his new dominions: for it appears by the Great Survey, or Doomesday Book, that he held Ambledune, in Hampshire: also thirty-two lordships in Lincolnshire, whereof Immingham, Caborne, and Ludford, were part; and in Yorkshire, eighty-six, of which Topcliff in the North Riding, and Spofford in the West

• See a remarkable extract in the Appendix to Drake's Hist. of York, P. 35.

£ Vid. Dugdale's Baronag. vol. i. p. 269, et Antiqu. Stemmata apud Sion, &c. & Ibid.

h Ibid.

i Mon Ang. I. p. 384.

* Dugdal. Baronag. I. p. 269.

Riding, became the chief seats of the family in these parts, for many succeeding ages. Indeed, Madox, in his Baronia Anglica,! hath shewn that William the Conqueror granted to Mons. de Percy a barony of thirty knights fees.

William de Percy appears also to have had a great friendship with Hugh Lupus, the first Earl of Chester, (nephew to the Conqueror) who bestowed upon him the whole lordship of Whitby, with the large territory adjacent, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, in which William de Percy restored, or rather founded anew, the famous Abbey of St. Hilda, which had formerly been destroyed by Hinguar and Hubba the Danes; and endowing it with ample possessions, filled it with Benedictine Monks, and dedicated it to God, St. Peter, and St. Hilda :n of which his brother Serlo, taking upon him the monastic profession, became one of the first superiors, with the title of Prior; and their nephew William de Percy, coming over from Normandy about the year 1096, was, after the death of Serlo in 1102, chosen Abbot, and presided for twenty-six years, with such reputation of sanctity, that after his death he is believed to have been adopted into the number of their saints. P The numerous benefactions of the first Lords de Percy to this and other monasteries, may be seen at large in the Monasticon Anglicanum, and other books on that subject, whither we beg leave to refer the reader.

Of the two brothers above mentioned, Serlo de Percy, afterwards Prior of Whitby, is recorded to have been a most intimate friend of the Conqueror's second son William Rufus, his familiar and most beloved companion, when they were young soldiers together in the household and court of that Prince's father.

And

as to the elder brother, William de Percy, we have more than one proof in the Monasticon Anglicanum of his personal attendance on, and great interest with, his Sovereign, King William I. In an account of the principal chieftains that accompanied the Conqueror, which is preserved in the Harleyan Collection, the list

1 Page 91.

m Mon Ang tom i. p. 72.

"See Charlton's Hist. of Whitby, 4to. book i. and ii.

• Ibid.

P Ibid. p 63, 84.

t

Tom i. and ii passim Burton's Monasticon Eboracense, folio, and Charlton's curious Hist of Whitby Abbey, 4to.

See Mon Ang. vol. i. p. 414. Where a cotemporary writer assures us, that Serlo de Percy had been to King William Rufus, "Familiaris ejus et socius amantissimus, cum ipsi juvenes milites essent in domo, et in curia Willielmi regis patris ejus.

Tom i p 384, &c.

Harl. MSS. No. 293, fol. 35.