The heir to a leading noble family in northern England, Hotspur was one of the earliest and prime movers behind the deposition of King Richard II in favour of Henry Bolingbroke in 1399.

[2] He returned to England in January 1395, taking part in Richard II's expedition to Ireland, and was back in Aquitaine the following autumn.

[3] Under the new king, Percy had extensive civil and military responsibility in both the East March towards Wales, where he was appointed High Sheriff of Flintshire in 1399, and in the north toward Scotland.

On his return to England shortly after the victory at Homildon Hill, Henry Percy issued proclamations in Cheshire accusing the king of 'tyrannical government'.

The ensuing Battle of Shrewsbury was fierce, with heavy casualties on both sides but, when Henry Percy himself was struck down and killed, his own forces fled.

The chronicler Thomas Walsingham stated in his Historia Anglicana that "while he led his men in the fight rashly penetrating the enemy host, [Hotspur] was unexpectedly cut down, by whose hand is not known".

However, when rumours circulated that Percy was still alive, the king "had the corpse exhumed and displayed it, propped upright between two millstones, in the market place at Shrewsbury".

[13] Thomas Camoys distinguished himself as a soldier in command of the rearguard of the English army at the Battle of Agincourt on 25 October 1415.

In Henry IV, Part 1, Percy is portrayed as the same age as his rival, Prince Hal, by whom he is slain in single combat.

In fact, he was 23 years older than Prince Hal, the future King Henry V, who was a youth of 16 at the date of the Battle of Shrewsbury.

The 1960 production was part of a BBC series An Age of Kings, a synthesis of Shakespeare's histories, with the episodes (3 & 4) featuring Hotspur first broadcast in summer 1960.