of discussion which might throw sufficient light upon the family pedigree to enable him to make out his true descent,’ Percy now set to work to collect evidence to the effect that the last four earls had all owned his relationship, and in Trinity term 1674 he brought an action in the king's bench against one John Clarke for calling him an impostor. The case was tried before Sir Matthew Hale, who finally nonsuited the plaintiff, though he expressed a somewhat unguarded belief in the genuineness of his claim. Greatly encouraged, he now set seriously to work to find a more authentic great-grandfather, and, acting upon a hint given him by the old Countess of Dorset, who alleged that some of the Percy children were sent down south to Petworth in hampers at the time of the trouble in the north (1569?) during Queen Elizabeth's reign, he asserted that one of these children was his father, Henry Percy, who was a grandson of Sir Ingelram Percy, the younger brother of Henry Algernon, sixth earl of Northumberland [q. v.] Against the petition which he based upon this assertion it was contested that Sir Ingelram was unmarried, and that his only issue was one illegitimate daughter. It does not appear that Sir Ingelram's will was put in as evidence on either side, but the terms of this document, which is still extant in the prerogative court of Canterbury, dated 7 June 1538, render it extremely improbable that Sir Ingelram left any legitimate children. Percy's resources were well-nigh exhausted by his neglect of business and long residence in London; but upon the revolution of 1688, after a litigation extending over nearly twenty years, he determined to once more carry his claim before the House of Lords. On 11 June 1689 a final judgment was given against him by the peers, by whom he was sentenced to be brought before the four courts in Westminster Hall, bearing upon his breast a paper, with the inscription, ‘The False and Impudent Pretender to the Earldom of Northumberland.’ He was then seventy years old, and he is supposed to have died shortly after the adverse decision. There is no mention of the execution of the sentence in the contemporary newspapers. Percy seems to have firmly believed in the justice of his claim, which was evidently regarded as plausible by contemporary opinion; and the weight of interest that was arrayed against him insured him a certain measure of popular favour. On the other hand, it must be admitted that he was unable to adduce any documentary proofs, and showed himself completely ignorant of the character and degree of his pretended affinity with the noble house of Percy. The claimant left three sons, who were respectively merchants in London, Dublin, and Norwich, and of whom the second, Anthony, was lord mayor of Dublin in 1689, but the claim upon which he wasted so much energy was not renewed by any member of his family.
[To our Royal King's Sacred Majesty … the humble complaint of J. Percy, 1677, fol.; Claim, Pedigree, and Proceedings of James Percy, now claimant to the Earldom of Northumberland, presented to both Houses of Parliament, 1680, fol.; the Case of James Percy, Claymant to the Earldom of Northumberland, 1685; Craik's Romance of the Peerage, iv. 286–321 (containing a very full account of the proceedings in connection with the claim); De Fonblanque's Annals of the House of Percy, ii. 487; Burke's Peerage and Romance of the Aristocracy, iii. 154; Collins's Peerage, ii. 178; Brydges's Restituta, vol. iii.; Lords' Journals, 11 June 1687; Wheatley and Cunningham's London, iii. 528.]
PERCY, JOHN (1569–1641), jesuit. [See FISHEK, JOHN.]
PERCY, JOHN (1817–1889), metallurgist, third son of Henry Percy, a solicitor, was born at Nottingham on 23 March 1817. He went to a private school at Southampton, and then returned to Nottingham, where he attended chemical lectures by a Mr. Grisenthwaite at the local school of medicine. He wished to become a chemist, but yielded to his father's desire that he should graduate in medicine, and in April 1834 was taken by his brother Edmund to Paris to begin his medical studies. While in Paris he attended the lectures of Gay-Lussac and Thénard on chemistry, and of A. de Jussieu on botany. In 1836 he went for a tour in Switzerland and the south of France, and made a large collection of mineralogical and botanical specimens. In the same year he proceeded to Edinburgh, where he became a pupil of Sir Charles Bell [q. v.] and a friend of Edward Forbes [q. v.] In 1838 he graduated M.D. in the university, and obtained a gold medal for a thesis on the presence of alcohol in the brain after poisoning by that substance. In 1839 he was elected physician to the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham, but, having private means, did not practise. The metallurgical works in the neighbourhood excited his interest in metallurgy. In 1846 he worked with David Forbes (1828–1876) [q. v.] and William Hallowes Miller [q. v.] on crystallised slags. In 1847 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, and served on the council from 1857 to 1859. In 1848 he contributed a paper to the ‘Chemist’ (vol. i. p. 248) on a mode of extracting silver from
