Edward IV, King of England from 1461 to 1470 and from 1471 to 1483. Perkin Warbeck was said to be very like him in appearance, something which helped convince Edward’s sister Margaret, widow of the Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, to give Warbeck her patronage as his supposed aunt, and her financial backing. Whether Warbeck was in some way related to her cannot now be known, though Francis Bacon (1561-1626) thought he might have been one of Edward’s numerous illegitimate children.
Part 1 of 2
IN 1485, King Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth, ending the Wars of the Roses between the Houses of York and Lancaster.* Henry Tudor took his crown, though he had little right to it save conquest; but when Richard murdered his own nephews Edward and Richard, the ‘Princes in the Tower’, sons of his brother Edward IV, he conveniently eliminated Henry’s only serious rivals too.*
Six years later, Richard’s disappointed Yorkist supporters hit back.* They produced a sixteen-year-old boy named Perkin Warbeck, who had spent most of his life in Antwerp, and declared that he was Richard of Shrewsbury, the younger of Richard’s two vanished nephews, and England’s rightful king. The imposture was slow to gain traction, but he briefly won the backing of Charles VIII of France and then much more importantly of Margaret of Burgundy, Edward IV’s sister and the real Richard’s aunt.* Perkin looked very like her brother, and she may even have believed him, or wanted to.
For the account of the murders provided in Holinshed’s Chronicles, and taken from the works of Thomas More, see The Princes in the Tower.
Not for the first time. In 1487, a boy called Lambert Simnel had been coached into impersonating Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of Margaret’s brother George, 1st Duke of Clarence. It was an absurd imposture, as Edward was quite alive and locked up safely in the Tower of London.
Margaret of York was dowager Duchess of Burgundy, and the sister of both Edward IV and Richard III. Francis Bacon suggested that Perkin may have been one of Edward’s many illegitimate children. On the other hand, his subsequent claim (extracted under duress) to be the son of Jehan de Werbecque of Tournai and his wife Katherine de Faro is backed up by local records.
Précis
After Henry VII came to the throne in 1485, killing Richard III in battle, the defeated Yorkists brought forward a young boy claiming to be Richard’s nephew Richard of Shrewsbury, one of the two Princes in the Tower rumoured to have been murdered by their uncle. One of those who apparently believed the claim was the missing prince’s aunt, Margaret. (59 / 60 words)
Part Two
Beaulieu (pronounced ‘byoo-lee’) Abbey in Hampshire, founded by King John in 1203-1204 with monks brought over from the abbey of Cîteaux in France. The Pope of the day, Innocent III, appointed special privileges to the Abbey as a place of sanctuary, and it was here that Warbeck sought refuge after abandoning his rebel forces in September 1497. He surrendered himself to King Henry VII and at first was treated well though watchfully; two botched escape attempts tried the king’s patience too high, and Warbeck was executed in 1499.
MARGARET raised a small army and Perkin sailed for England, only to be driven off from Deal in Kent on July 3rd, 1495, without stepping ashore. Chased out of Ireland too, he was welcomed to Edinburgh by James IV of Scotland, who hoped Warbeck’s claims would sow enough doubt in England to prosper a Scottish invasion backed by Spain. James even married Perkin off to Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntly, and hosted a tournament in his honour.
However, James’s invasion of England was snuffed out in Northumberland, just four miles south of the border. Warbeck then tried to capitalise on grievances in Cornwall, landing there on September 7th, 1497, but after failing to capture Exeter the self-declared ‘King Richard IV’ lost his nerve, deserted his army on September 21st, and hid in Beaulieu Abbey. He gave himself up, and was imprisoned in the Tower of London, not unkindly; but two escape attempts led to his execution on 23rd November, 1499.
Précis
In 1491, Margaret equipped the supposed prince Richard, whose true name was Perkin Warbeck, with an army to help him claim his crown, but he was driven out of everywhere save Scotland. When James IV’s plans for him also fell through, Warbeck tried again in Cornwall but was captured in September 1497, and executed two years later. (55 / 60 words)
