Lord Henry Percy General Lord Henry Hugh Manvers Percy VC KCB ( 22 August 1817 – 3 December 1877 ) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross , the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces . Background . The Hon . Henry Percy , fourth child and third son of George Percy , Lord Lovaine ( later 2nd Earl of Beverley ) by Louisa Harcourt Stuart - Wortley , third daughter of The Hon . James Stuart - Wortley - Mackenzie , was born at Burwood House , Cobham , Surrey , on 22 Aug . 1817 , and educated at Eton . Styled Lord Henry Percy from 1865 after his father became 5th Duke of Northumberland at the age of 86 . Crimean War Service . He entered the British Army as an ensign in the Grenadier Guards on 1 July 1836 , and was present during the insurrection in Canada in 1838 . Aged 37 , he served as a Captain and Lieutenant - Colonel in the 3rd Bn . , Grenadier Guards , during the Crimean War of 1854 – 5 . He was present at the Battle of Alma ( where he was shot through the right arm ) , the Battle of Balaklava , the Battle of Inkerman ( where he was again wounded ) , and the Siege of Sebastopol . For his valour at the Battle of Inkerman on the 5th November 1854 he was awarded the VC ( Victoria Cross ) with the following citation : " At a moment when the Guards were some distance from the Sandbag Battery at the Battle of Inkerman Colonel Percy charged singly into the Battery , followed immediately by the Guards ; the embrasures of the battery , as also the parapet , were held by the Russians who kept up a most severe fire of musketry . At the Battle of Inkerman , Colonel Percy found himself with many men of various regiments who had charged too far , nearly surrounded by the Russians , and without ammunition . Colonel Percy , by his knowledge of the ground , although wounded , extricated these men , and , passing under a heavy fire from the Russians then in the Sandbag Battery , brought them safe to where ammunition was to be obtained , thereby saving some 50 men and enabling them to renew the combat . He received the approval of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge for this action on the spot . Colonel Percy was engaged with and put " hors de combat " , a Russian soldier . " The subaltern s in the company which Lieutenant - Colonel Percy commanded at Inkerman were the Hon . Henry Neville and Sir James Fergusson , Bt . . Neville was killed and Fergusson was wounded . Percy himself suffered during the action a black eye , gashes to the face and severe contusion on the back of the head . Forty - four members of his company were killed or wounded in the battle . On Boxing Day 1854 , Percy was taken ill with dysentery and Crimean Fever . He was therefore evacuated to the General Hospital , Scutari the following month . He survived the very high death rates which were prevalent in the hospitals of Scutari that winter and by mid February 1855 was well enough to be invalided back to England . He returned voluntarily to the Crimea in May and rejoined his regiment in the trenches before Sebastopol . He was promoted to full colonel in the summer of 1855 , and then held the local rank of Brigadier - General in command of the British - Italian Legion in Turin , where he arrived in August . The British - Italian Legion was a mercenary force raised following the passage of the 1854 Foreign Enlistment Act to fight for the allies ( France , Great Britain and Turkey ) in the Crimean War , modelled along the lines of similar foreign legion s raised in the Napoleonic Wars . The Kingdom of Sardinia had already entered the Crimean war on the side of the allies and Count Cavour , Prime Minister of Sardinia , was in theory supportive of the British Government and Percy ' s efforts to recruit and train a fighting force in Turin . However , the project became mired in bureaucracy , suffered from lack of funds and inadequate resources and was eventually rendered redundant by the fall of Sevastopol in September 1855 and a formal end to hostilities six months later . Given this , Percy resigned his command of the British - Italian Legion in October 1855 in a state of total exasperation . After leaving the British - Italian Legion , Colonel Percy was asked by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe , British Ambassador to Turkey , to attempt to relieve the Siege of Kars , Armenia , which was being defended by Brigadier - General Williams . However , Kars fell to the Russia ns on 28 November 1855 , the day after Percy arrived in Constantinople , so the expedition was called off before it got under way . Colonel Percy was an accomplished linguist and Turkophile , so in January 1856 , after the armistice in the Crimea but before the signing of the Treaty of Paris in March 1856 , he was ordered by General Codrington , Commander - in - chief of the British Army in the Crimea , to reconnoitre possible landing places in Asia Minor in case of a continuation of hostilities along the Caucasus front . Relations with the Royal Family . From 29 June 1855 he was an Aide - de - camp to the Queen – a post he held until 10 February 1865 . He was gazetted for the Victoria Cross ( VC ) on 5 May 1857 . As the most senior officer in the British Army to be awarded the VC during the Crimean War , Percy was on the occasion of the first investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde Park , London , on 26 June 1857 tasked with commanding the 62 recipients who had the decoration pinned to their breasts by Queen Victoria that day . In the summer of 1861 , as commanding officer at the Curragh , he was tasked with overseeing the Prince of Wales ' military induction . Colonel Percy was well regarded by the royal family : Prince Albert had previously recommended that Percy ' s infantry manual , " Brigade Movements " ( 1853 ) be distributed to every officer in the Brigade of Guards . In spite of the young Prince not being given as much commendation or responsibility in matters of drill as he had hoped , he liked Percy ' very much ' – perhaps because the latter , being a strict disciplinarian , insisted on treating him just like any other junior officer . However , the Curragh visit was marred by the Prince ' s ' fall ' , following which Queen Victoria blamed her son for Prince Albert ' s death . ' The fall ' came in the form of initiation in carnal pleasure with the actress Nellie Clifden , as arranged by junior officers at the Curragh . Later Military Career . On the occurrence of the Trent Affair in December 1861 , Percy was sent to New Brunswick in command of the first battalion of the Grenadier Guards . He had been promoted to be major in 1860 , but retired from active service on 3 October 1862 owing to the chronic ill health he had suffered ever since the Crimean War . However , he remained on half - pay and briefly commanded a brigade at Aldershot – the place to which he and another Grenadier officer , Col . F . W . Hamilton , had first brought the army in 1853 when they selected Aldershot Heath and its surrounding area as a new training ground . In 1870 , during the Franco - Prussian War , he was sent by HRH The Duke of Cambridge , Commander - in - Chief , as an observer with the Prussian Army at Sedan . On 24 May 1873 he was gazetted a KCB . He was also rewarded for his military services by being appointed to the colonelcy of the 89th ( The Princess Victoria ' s ) Regiment of Foot on 28 May 1874 . He became a full General on 1 October 1877 . Politics . He succeeded his brother , Lord Lovaine , as Conservative Member of Parliament ( MP ) for Northumberland North from 1865 to 1868 . He was found dead in his bed at his residence , 40 Eaton Square , London , on 3 December 1877 , and was buried in the Percy family vault in St . Nicholas ' Chapel , Westminster Abbey on 7 December . He was unmarried . Further reading . Barthorp , Michael ( 1991 ) , " Heroes of the Crimea : The Battles of Balaclava and Inkerman " . London , Blandford Press . Bayley , C . C . ( 1977 ) , " Mercenaries for the Crimea " . Montreal and London , McGill - Queen ' s University Press . Hamilton , Lieut - Gen Sir F . W . ( 1874 ) , " The Origin and History of the First or Grenadier Guards " . London , John Murray . Higginson , General Sir George ( 1916 ) , " Seventy - One Years of a Guardsman ' s Life " . London , Smith , Elder & Co . Mercer , Patrick ( 1998 ) , " ' Give them a Volley and Charge ! ' Inkerman 1854 " . Staplehurst , Spellmount . Neville , the Hon . Henry & the Hon Grey , ( 1870 ) , " Letters written from Turkey and the Crimea , 1854 " . Privately printed , since republished in paperback . Percy , Algernon ( 2005 ) , " A Bearskin ' s Crimea : Colonel Henry Percy VC and his Brother Officers " . Barnsley , Leo Cooper .