Note 279 — Chapter V

A portrait of “Captaine George Percy,” copied in 1853 by Herbert L. Smith from the original at Syon House, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland, at the instance of Conway Robinson, Esq., then visiting England, is among the valuable collection of portraits of the Virginia Historical Society at Richmond. Its frame, of carved British oak, was a present to the Society from William Twopenny, Esq., of London, the solicitor of the Duke of Northumberland. Percy (born Sept. 4, 1586, died unmarried in March, 1632) was “a gentleman of honor and resolution.” He had served with distinction in the wars of the Low Countries, and his soldierly qualities were evidenced in the colony, as well as his administrative ability as the successor of John Smith. A mutilated hand represented in the portrait, it is said, was a memorial of a sanguinary encounter with the savages of Virginia. The head from this portrait is given on an earlier page.