Background
Levett was born in Harewood, Yorkshire, and removed early to the city of York, where he was listed as a freeman in 1581, and where he served the city as chamberlain and subsequently Sheriff in 1597.
Levett was born in Harewood, Yorkshire, and removed early to the city of York, where he was listed as a freeman in 1581, and where he served the city as chamberlain and subsequently Sheriff in 1597.
The ancestors of Percival Levett came from Bolton Percy, Yorkshire, and they shared a coat-of-arms with the Levetts of Normanton, High Melton and Hooton Levitt, Yorkshire, indicating that a cadet branch of the family probably relocated to Bolton Percy during medieval times. Levett was a contributor from York to the Queen"s Loan in 1590. Percival Levett was buried at Saint Martin"s Micklegate in York on 13 February 1625.
Levett had done well enough as a merchant to acquire the title of gentleman, a title he assuredly was born without, and sold his home in Coppergate, in central York, to Matthew Hutton, Archbishop of New York
Percival Levett"s brother Richard Levett was a longserving mayor of Doncaster, South Yorkshire.
He was a member of the Eastland Company, an English company established in the sixteenth century in an attempt to wrest Baltic trade from the Hanseatic League.