[Illustration: _The Prudhoe Tower and Chapel._] There is nothing to show that Josceline de Louvain ever bore the name of Percy; but it is certain that the surname of his mother was assumed and borne by the second son of Josceline’s marriage with the Percy heiress, Henry de Percy; and by his descendants and successors the same name was regularly borne. It was Sir Henry de Percy, third of the name, who in 1309, the second year of Edward II., when already he was possessed of vast wealth, and great power, became the _first Lord of Alnwick of the House of Percy_, by purchase from Bishop Anthony Bec. Having taken an active part in the wars with Scotland and otherwise distinguished himself among the foremost men of his time, Henry, first Baron Percy of Alnwick, died in 1315, and was buried at Fountains Abbey, to which institution he had been a munificent benefactor. One of the powerful barons who signed the memorable letter to Pope Boniface VIII., in which the peers of England refused to recognise or allow the interference of Papal authority with the independent sovereignty of this realm, he married Eleanor Fitz-Alan, daughter of Richard, Earl of Arundel, by whom he had two sons, and of these the elder, another Henry de Percy, succeeded his father as second Baron Percy of Alnwick, to whom was granted by Edward III. the castle and manor of Warkworth “for service in peace and war,” as appears from the original grant now in the Duke of Northumberland’s possession. This Lord Percy was interred at Alnwick Abbey, the only head of the family buried in Northumberland. The history of the lords of Alnwick from this period becomes so closely interwoven with the history of England, that it would be superfluous in such a sketch as the present to attempt to introduce even a slight outline of the career of each of those renowned barons; and, indeed, if it were desirable, it would not be possible here to find space for the very slightest outline of so comprehensive a subject. Accordingly, we now are content to give but little more than the succession of the Percies after they became lords of Alnwick.