a Norman bishop named in his stead! The idea of turning out from high estate those who were unworthy or incapable is one that might suggest many reflections, if it were not _scandalum magnatum_ to make them. In the chapel at Alnwick Castle there is displayed a genealogical tree. At the root of the Percy branches is ‘Charlemagne;’ and there is a sermon in the whole, much more likely to scourge pride than to stimulate it, if the thing be rightly considered. However this may be, the Percys find their root in Karloman, the Emperor, through Joscelin of Louvain, in this way: Agnes de Percy was, in the twelfth century, the sole heiress of her house. Immensely rich, she had many suitors. Among these was Joscelin, brother of Godfrey, sovereign Duke of Brabant, and of Adelicia, Queen Consort of Henry the First of England. Joscelin held that estate at Petworth which has not since gone out of the hands of his descendants. This princely suitor of the heiress Agnes was only accepted by her as husband on condition of his assuming the Percy name. Joscelin consented; but he added the arms of Brabant and Louvain to the Percy shield, in order that, if succession to those titles and possessions should ever be stopped for want of an heir, his claim might be kept in remembrance. Now, this Joscelin was lineally descended from ‘Charlemagne,’ and, _therefore_, that greater name lies at the root of the Percy pedigree, which glitters in gold on the walls of the ducal chapel in the castle at Alnwick. Very rarely indeed did the Percys, who were the earlier Earls of Northumberland, die in their beds. The first of them, Henry, was slain (1407) in the fight on Bramham Moor. The second, another Henry (whose father, Hotspur, was killed in the hot affair near Shrewsbury), lies within St. Alban’s Abbey Church, having poured out his lifeblood in another Battle of the Roses, fought near that town named after the saint. The blood of the third Earl helped to colour the roses, which are said to have grown redder from the gore of the slain on Towton’s hard-fought field. The forfeited title was transferred, in 1465, to Lord John Nevill Montagu, great Warwick’s brother; but Montagu soon lay among the dead in the battle near Barnet. The title was restored to another Henry Percy, and that unhappy Earl was murdered, in 1489, at his house, Cucklodge, near Thirsk. In that fifteenth century there was not a single Earl of Northumberland who died a peaceful and natural death.