Percy, William

(1575-1648)

   The third son of Henry Percy, eighth earl of Northumberland, was probably born at Topcliffe, near Thirsk, Yorkshire, and was educated at Gloucester Hall (afterwards Worcester College), Oxford. Percy formed a close relationship with Barnabe Barnes (see entry), who was at Oxford at the same time. In 1593 Barnes dedicated his collection of sonnets, Parthenophil, to his friend. The following year Percy published a collection titled Sonnets to the fairest Celia, which closed with a madrigal dedicated to Barnes. There is little remarkable about his life, though at one time he was in the Tower of London on a charge of homicide. He died in Oxford, having lived the last decade of his life in obscurity, and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral. Some of his poems: "A Mysterie," "Coelia," "Echo," "Faire Queene of Gnidos Come Adorn My Forehead," "If It Be Sin So Dearely for to Loue Thee," "Ivdg'd By My Goddesse Doome to Endlesse Paine," "Proue Her? Ah No, I Did It But to Loue Her," "Strike Vp, My Lute, and Ease My Heauie Cares," "To Polyxena."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Elizabethan Sonneteers, Including William Percy (http://www.sonnets.org/eliz.htm). Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (http://library.stanford.edu). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Sonnet: An Antholog y. Robert M. Bender and Charles L. Squier, eds. Washington Square Press, 1987.