Alnwick Castle is a castle and country house in Alnwick in the English county of Northumberland. It is the seat of the 12th Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman conquest and renovated and remodelled a number of times. It is a Grade I listed building now the home of Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland and his family. In 2016, the castle received over 600,000 visitors per year when combined with adjacent attraction the Alnwick Garden.
Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, KG, PC,, known by the epithet "The Proud Duke", was an English aristocrat and courtier. He rebuilt Petworth House in Sussex, the ancient Percy seat inherited from his wife, in the palatial form which survives today. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, he was a remarkably handsome man, and inordinately fond of taking a conspicuous part in court ceremonial; his vanity, which earned him the sobriquet of "the proud duke", was a byword among his contemporaries and was the subject of numerous anecdotes; Macaulay described him as "a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease".
Duke of Northumberland is a noble title that has been created three times in English and British history, twice in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of Great Britain. The current holder of this title is Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland.
The title of Earl of Northumberland has been created several times in the Peerage of England and of Great Britain, succeeding the title Earl of Northumbria. Its most famous holders are the House of Percy, who were the most powerful noble family in Northern England for much of the Middle Ages. The heirs of the Percys, via a female line, were ultimately made Duke of Northumberland in 1766, and continue to hold the earldom as a subsidiary title.
The title Baron Percy has been created several times in the Peerage of England. The first, soon after 1066, a feudal barony rather than a barony by writ, which continued in parallel with the later baronies by writ, until the abolition of feudal tenure by the Tenures Abolition Act 1660. The second, created by writ in 1299, became extinct in 1517. The third, created by writ in 1557, became extinct in 1670. The present creation was in 1722, by writ of summons.
Petworth House is a late 17th-century Grade I listed country house in the parish of Petworth, West Sussex, England. It was built in 1688 by Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, and altered in the 1870s to the design of the architect Anthony Salvin. It contains intricate wood-carvings by Grinling Gibbons. It is the manor house of the manor of Petworth. For centuries it was the southern home for the Percy family, earls of Northumberland.
General Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset was a British Army officer, Whig politician and peer who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 to 1722 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Percy and took his seat in the House of Lords.
Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Baronet, of Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, was an English Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1710 to 1740. He served as Secretary at War in 1712 and Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1713 during the reign of the last Stuart monarch, Queen Anne (1702–1714). He was a Jacobite leader firmly opposed to the Hanoverian succession and was leader of the Tory opposition in the House of Commons during the reign of King George I (1714–1727) and during the early years of King George II (1727–1760).
Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland, was an English peer, politician, and landowner.
Earl of Beverley, in the County of York, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain, held by the Duke of Northumberland since 1865. It was created in 1790 for Algernon Percy, 2nd Baron Lovaine. He was the second son of Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland. The title of Baron Lovaine, of Alnwick in the County of Northumberland, had been created in the Peerage of Great Britain in 1784 for the first Duke of Northumberland, with a special remainder to his second son, the aforementioned Algernon, who succeeded in the barony on his father's death in 1786. Lord Beverley was succeeded by his son, George, the 2nd Earl, who in 1865 inherited the dukedom of Northumberland from his cousin, the 4th Duke. All three titles have remained united since.
Robert de Clifford, 1st Baron de Clifford, of Appleby Castle, Westmorland, feudal baron of Appleby and feudal baron of Skipton in Yorkshire, was an English soldier who became 1st Lord Warden of the Marches, responsible for defending the English border with Scotland.
Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley,, styled Lord Algernon Percy between 1766 and 1786 and known as the Lord Lovaine between 1786 and 1790, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1774 to 1786 when he succeeded to the Peerage. He is the ancestor of the present Dukes of Northumberland.
The Smithson Baronetcy, of Stanwick in the County of York, is a title in the Baronetage of England. It was created on 2 August 1660 for Hugh Smithson (1598-1670) of Stanwick St John, Yorkshire. Sir Hugh Smithson, 3rd Baronet, married Elizabeth Langdale, daughter of Marmaduke Langdale, Baron Langdale. Sir Hugh Smithson, the fourth Baronet, married Lady Elizabeth Seymour, daughter of Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset and heiress of the Percy family, Earls of Northumberland. In 1749 the Duke of Somerset was created Earl of Northumberland, with remainder to his son-in-law Sir Hugh Smithson, who succeeded as second Earl on his father-in-law's death in 1750. He assumed the surname of Percy and was created Duke of Northumberland in 1766. The baronetcy remains merged with the dukedom.
Joscelin of Louvain, also spelled Jocelin de Louvain and Jocelyn of Leuven, (1121/36–1180) was a nobleman from the Duchy of Brabant who settled in England after his half-sister Adeliza of Louvain married King Henry I. There Joscelin married an English heiress, and through his son, the House of Percy—as the Earls and later the Dukes of Northumberland—became the most powerful family in Northern England.
JoscelinePercy, 11th Earl of Northumberland, 5th Baron Percy, of Alnwick Castle, Northumberland and Petworth House, Sussex, was an English peer.
Henry de Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Alnwick was a medieval English magnate.
Warkworth Castle is a ruined medieval castle in Warkworth in the English county of Northumberland. The village and castle occupy a loop of the River Coquet, less than a mile from England's north-east coast. When the castle was founded is uncertain: traditionally its construction has been ascribed to Prince Henry of Scotland, Earl of Northumbria, in the mid-12th century, but it may have been built by King Henry II of England when he took control of England's northern counties. Warkworth Castle was first documented in a charter of 1157–1164 when Henry II granted it to Roger fitz Richard. The timber castle was considered "feeble", and was left undefended when the Scots invaded in 1173.
William I (Willame) de Percy, 1st feudal baron of Topcliffe in North Yorkshire, known as Willame als gernons, was a Norman nobleman who arrived in England immediately after the Norman Conquest of 1066. He was the founder via an early 13th-century female line of the powerful English House of Percy, Earls of Northumberland, and via an 18th-century female line of the Dukes of Northumberland.
The Constable of Chester was a mediaeval hereditary office held by the Barons of Halton. The functions of the Constable are unclear, possibly they related to the custody of Chester Castle, as was the main function of most mediaeval constables, but Sanders (1960) says the office-holder was constable for the entire County Palatine.
William de Percy, sixth feudal baron of Topcliffe, was an English noble.
