Henry Percy, Earl Percy

Henry Algernon George Percy, Earl Percy (21 January 1871 – 30 December 1909), sometimes styled as Lord Percy or, until 1899, Lord Warkworth, was a British Conservative politician from the Percy family. He held political office under Arthur Balfour as Under-Secretary of State for India and Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs before his early death in 1909.

Background

Percy was born at 25 Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, the eldest son of Henry Percy, 7th Duke of Northumberland, and his wife Lady Edith, daughter of George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll. Alan Percy, 8th Duke of Northumberland, and Eustace Percy, 1st Baron Percy of Newcastle, were his younger brothers.

He was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. In August 1902 he was appointed Under-Secretary of State for India in the Conservative administration of Arthur Balfour, a post he held until 1903, and was then Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under Balfour from 1903 to 1905.

Personal life Lord Percy died in Paris in December 1909, aged 38, from pleurisy caused by pneumonia. The Paris correspondent for The Times reported:

His brother Lord William Percy and sister Lady Victoria Percy, who had traveled to Paris when they learned of their brother's condition, were with him when he died. A decade later, unfounded rumours circulated that he had been murdered on the orders of Winston Churchill, who was unpopular at the time because of his role as mastermind of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during the First World War, when he served as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Rumours alleged that Percy had been the lover of Clementine Hozier, whom Churchill married in 1908. Churchill's mild-mannered brother Jack was whispered to have been the unlikely perpetrator of this act, because Winston was "too cowardly" to do the deed himself.

Percy was unmarried. He died intestate and with property worth more than £210,000 , which was left to the administration of his father. His brother Alan became heir to their father in the dukedom.