Books about Hotspur and the Percys
This is a list of every book I could find about Hotspur and the medieval Percys - if you can think of any, please let me know and I'll add it to the list. No content warnings so read at your own risk.
List is divided into Shakespeare (retellings, remixes, riffs on), non-fiction (including a section on battles), and historical fiction.
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 (16th century)
Obviously.
Tessa Gratton, Lady Hotspur (2020)
A queer, gender-swapped, fantasy (possibly loose?) retelling of the Henriad. Hal was once a knight sworn to protect the queen, Banna Morra (Richard II), before her mother usurped the throne, Lady Hotspur never expected to be more than a weapon, Banna Morra has kept her life but not her throne and now plots revenge. It's the second in a series (the first, The Queens of Innis Lear, is based on King Lear) and I'm not sure if you need to read the first to understand this which is the main reason I haven't read this yet.
Abigail Thorn, The Prince (2022)
The script for Thorn's play The Prince (which you can watch on Nebula). Jen and Sam are trapped in the Shakespeare multiverse and in effort to get back to their own world, they meet Hotspur and notice she might be like them. I've heard mixed things about this but also a lot of positives, can't wait to get my ass into gear and watch it.
Carmen A. Aiken, hotspur (2025)
A verse and prose novel that retells and queers the Henriad, focusing on Hotspur and Hal, themes of exile and retreat, and an imagined future. I found this by accident, got my hands on it and really, really liked it. You can read one of the poems here to get a sense of the style.
Honourable mention: Allen Bratton, Henry Henry (2024). I love this to pieces and Hotspur plays a significant role in the piece but I wouldn't consider this a story about him.
Non-Fiction
Edward Barrington de Fonblanque, Annals of the House of Percy (1887)
Since this is from the 19th century, it's not going to be as up-to-date as later works or up to a modern scholarly standard - just a skim suggests it skews more to dramatic narrative history - but it still seems to be the standard text on the Percy family. Out of print but available on Internet Archive.
Gerald Brenan, ed. W. A. Lindsay, A History of the House of Percy From Earliest Times To The Present Century (1902)
Given the age, this has similar issues to Annals of the House of Percy - modern scholarship has outpaced it and it's not written to a modern academic standard but reads like a dramatic narrative history - but Annals appears to be more rigorously researched and carefully written. Out of print but available on Internet Archive: Volume 1 and Volume 2.
J. M. W. Bean, The Estates of the Percy Family 1416–1537 (Oxford University Press 1958)
An academic study of the Percy estates, ranging from the restoration of the earldom in 1416 to the dissolution of the estates in the 16th century. This is a bit late for my own interest in the family but I've come across J. M. W. Bean's work on the early Percy family a few times and it's been solid. Out of print but it's available to borrow on the Internet Archive. Thank you to @eve-to-adam for recommending this to me!
Eileen Roesler, Neville, Percy, and York, 1461–1485: A Study in the Subordination of the North. (Master’s thesis, Kansas State University, 1977)
A study of how the Yorkist kings broke the power of the northern magnates and established royal power there. Again this is a bit late for my interest so I've not looked deeply into it. It can be downloaded here (this will immediately start downloading the pdf).
Thank you to @eve-to-adam for recommending this to me!
Richard Lomas, A Power In The Land: The Percys (Tuckwell Press 1999)
A "warts and all" account of the Percys from the 11th century to the 21st that's also an updating and reinterpretation of the Annals of the House of Percy for the general reader. Out-of-print.
Alexander Rose, The Kings In The North: The House of Percy In British History (Phoenix Press 2002)
A history of the Percy family from the Battle of Hastings to the end of the medieval era in England following the Battle of Bosworth by a journalist. The academic reviews for this suggest that this is not an academic history but not exactly popular history either. Out-of-print.
A. W. Boardman, Hotspur: Henry Percy - Medieval Rebel (Sutton Publishing 2003; "new and fully updated edition", The History Press 2023)
A biography of Hotspur that focuses mainly on his military and political career. I read the first edition and was pretty disappointed by it, tbh, given Boardman's tendency to just say stuff like it's historically true and verifiable when it isn't. i think it's best read alongside the John Sadler biography which provides some contrast but if you only want one, I'd go for this given Boardman doesn't go drop some political hot takes in the final chapter.
Kris Towson, Henry Percy, first earl of Northumberland: ambition, conflict and cooperation in late mediaeval England (PhD thesis 2005)
A PhD thesis about Northumberland's political career that's available online. A serious piece of scholarship. I've only read the chapter on the 1399-1403 years and liked it a lot, especially for the way it reinterprets a frequently unsympathetic Northumberland.
Richard Lomas, The Fall Of The House Of Percy, 1368-1408 (John McDonald 2007)
An account of the rise and fall of the Percys in the late 14th and early 15th century aimed at a broad readership and largely based on secondary, not primary, sources. Lomas traces the rise of Northumberland, Worcester and Hotspur and their "fall". According to medievalist Gwilym Dodd, it's a very readable narrative history that's generally sound but at times he wished Lomas provided more analysis. Out-of-print.
Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland, Lions of the North: The Percys and Alnwick Castle (Scale 2019)
Stories of the Percy family and Alnwick Castle as told by the Duke of Northumberland, with his own photographs. Out-of-print (I think).
John Sadler, Hotspur: Sir Henry Percy & the Myth of Chivalry (Pen & Sword 2022)
This is the latest biography of Hotspur around and like Boardman's, it's mostly centred on his military career. Sadler also spends some time railing against Shakespeare's "Hollywood" Hotspur and how The Left Must Hate Hotspur and how The King was "Woke Nonsense". For that reason, I'd pick up Boardman's biography over Sadler's but Sadler does provide a helpful contrast to Boardman. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be a decent biography of Hotspur around.
The Battles
Peter Armstrong, Otterburn 1388: Bloody border conflict (Osprey 2006)
One of the Osprey Campaign books so it's going to be packed with photos, illustrations and diagrams.
John Barratt, War For The Throne: The Battle of Shrewsbury 1403 (Pen & Sword 2010)
Pretty decent overview with the battle - there are a few textual errors and no citations given so it's not the most scholarly or accurate account. I found the diagrams a bit hard to decipher.
David Boyle, Like Leaves Fall in Autumn: Hotspur, Henry IV and the Battle of Shrewsbury (Friends of Battlefield Church 2016)
A decent book for tourists to pick up at the Battlefield Church but you don't need to read this. There are a few errors that suggest an indebtedness to Shakespeare rather than historical fact (e.g. Elizabeth Mortimer being called Katherine or Henry V being characterised as the "playboy prince") or just human error (the author has Henry V being struck in the jaw by an arrow). The description of the battle was OK, but pretty brief and there's no diagrams or maps. Also includes the entirety of Act 5 of Henry IV, Part 1 in case you need it in a hurry.
Dickon Whitewood, Shrewsbury 1403: Struggle for a Fragile Crown (Osprey 2017)
One of the Osprey Campaign books. I like this a lot - the text is pretty solid (there's a couple of errors but nothing major) but the great strength is how well-illustrated this is. There's maps and diagrams (colour-coded!), photos of Shrewsbury and several illustrations by Graham Turner.
Historical Fiction
G. A. Henty, Both Sides of the Border (1898)
Children's novel. Oswald Forster joins Hotspur's retinue and serves as a messenger "for several very sensitive communications" between the Percies and their allies". Technically out-of-print but Project Gutenberg has it for you.
Freda Hyman, Who's For The North? (1956)
Children's novel. Roland Umfraville serves Hotspur as a squire. I've heard good things about this. Out-of-print.
Edith Pargeter, A Bloody Field By Shrewsbury (1972)
This centres on the relationship between Hotspur, Hal and Henry IV that ranges from Richard II's disposition to the Battle of Shrewsbury. There are some things I wish were a little different but I just adore it.
Carol Wensby-Scott, The Percy Trilogy (1980-1984)
Three novels charting the rise and fall of the Percy family in the late Middle-Ages. All out of print.
Lion of Alnwick (1980): the story of Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland and his "defiant love" for Margaret Neville.
Lion Dormant (1983): Hal Percy (Hotspur's son) is brought home from exile to marry a Neville, reigniting the Percy-Neville feud against the backdrop of the reigns of Henry V and Henry VI.
Lion Invincible (1984): Harry Percy's father and grandfather died fighting for the Lancastrians. Now after nine years imprisoned in the Tower, Harry forges an alliance with the Duke of Gloucester - but on the brink of the Battle of Bosworth, "he cannot love the King of England as he had loved the Duke of Gloucester."
The reviews on Goodreads seem pretty positive. I just got my hands on the first two volumes and I'm excited to get into them.
Juliet Dymoke, A Border Knight (1987)
Beginning at the moment Hotspur is knighted alongside the future Richard II and the future Henry IV, this traces the story of Richard's reign through the eyes of Hotspur. This isn't a perfect book - because it's from Hotspur's POV, we don't see a lot of the action around Richard's reign and Dymoke tends to rush through events. Hotspur spends a lot of the book pining after Elizabeth of Lancaster if that's a deal breaker for anyone.
Charles Randolph Bruce, Games of Otterburn 1388 (2012)
A novel about the Battle of Otterburn. The description doesn't give much clue as to the plot.
Anne O'Brien, Queen of the North (2019)
Novel about Elizabeth Mortimer (better known as Shakespeare's Kate Percy) that follows her and Hotspur from the deposition of Richard II to her remarriage. This gets props for being the one thing I've found centred on Elizabeth (and actually seems to do a decent job of depicting her) and I think it's solid. Not great but, like, fine.
A. W. Boardman, The Two Horns of the Moon: The Life of Harry Hotspur (2020)
A self-published novel by one of Hotspur's biographers, told from the perspective of yet another member of Hotspur's retinue, John Hardying (who at least actually existed). I've heard generally bad things about this and I couldn't get past the opening scene that depicts the teenaged Henry V, arrow still lodged in his skull, was furiously beating up Hotspur's corpse in a fit of temper while his noble father is like "no... stop..."
Liz Sevchuk Armstrong, The Epic Of Hotspur (2024-2025)
A trilogy focused on Hotspur:
To Remain Vigilant (2024): Hotspur questions the corruption at the heart of the "venal" Richard II's court and gets called a traitor for it. Initially joining Henry Bolingbroke in resistance, Hotspur finds himself disillusioned by both Richard and Henry and falling in love with an ex-abbess, Ciarry.
To Be Worthy of Honor (2025): owed money and increasingly disillusioned by the despotic Henry IV, Hotspur wins renown in Wales and begins to try to come to an accord with Owain Glyn Dwr.
To Tread On Kings (2025): Hotspur's triumph at Homildon Hill brings bitter fruit when Henry demands the prisoners' ransom for himself. Becoming friends with Douglas, supported by Ciarry and members across all social ranks, Hotspur rises to challenge Henry.
I haven't read this and tbh, the plot summaries make me itch all over with the heavily romanticised Hotspur against the grimdark reads of Richard II and Henry IV and the rest of the medieval world. The less said about the ex-abbess OFC love interest the better too.
