erland's) rebellion; and was detained there, as
some say, in concealment, till Henry V. made known his determination
to restore him to his title and estates. The Scots, who were in
possession of his person, kept him as a prisoner and hostage; and
although Henry might have considered a foreign land the best home for
the son of the enemy of his family, yet so bent was he on effecting
the noble design of reinstating him in all which his father's and his
grandfather's treason had forfeited, that he consented to exchange for
him a noble Scot, who had been detained in England for thirteen years.
Mordak of Fife, son and heir of the Duke of Albany, had been taken
prisoner at the battle of Homildon Hill, in 1402, (it is curious to
remark,) by Hotspur, and his father Northumberland; and now (p. 014)
Henry V. exchanges this personage for Hotspur's son, the heir of
Northumberland. This youth was only an infant when his father fell at
the battle of Shrewsbury; his mother was Elizabeth, eldest daughter of
Edmund Mortimer,[15] Earl of March: and thus a king, under the
circumstances of Henry, but with a less noble mind, might have
regarded him with jealousy on both sides of his parentage, and been
glad (without exposing himself to the charge of any positive act of
harshness) to allow him to remain in a foreign country deprived of his
honours and his estates. But Henry's spirit soared above these
considerations; and, in the orphan of a generous rival, he saw only a
fit object on whom to exercise his generosity and Christian charity. A
negotiation was carried on between Henry and some who represented
young Percy; care being taken to ascertain the identity of the person
who should be offered in exchange for Mordak. After certain prescribed
oaths were taken, and pledges given, and the payment of a stipulated
sum, 10,000_l._, the young man was invited to come to Henry's court
with all speed.

[Footnote 15: Dugdale's Baronage.]

There seems to have intervened some considerable impediment to this
proposed exchange.[16] The commission to John Hull and William
Chancellor to convey Mordak to the north bears date 21st of (p. 015)
May; and yet instructions for a negotiation with his father, the Duke
of Albany, then Regent of Scotland, for the exchange, were issued to
Sir Ralph Evre and others, as late as the 10th of the following
December. At the parliament, however, held March 16, 1416, Henry
Percy, in the prese