PERKIN WARBECK: THE GREAT PRETENDER

Between 1455 and 1485, England had been ensnared in a series of bloody civil wars, known as the Wars of the Roses. The incompetent reign of Henry VI had resulted in losses of land and wealth, while corruption festered within the king's court.

In 1454, Henry succumbed to a sudden psychosis that left him catatonic and barely able to function let alone rule. This led to a power grab over the role of Lord Protector, passing back and forth between rival factions of the royal House of Plantagenet via a veritable cavalcade of schemes and plots. Ultimately, an all-out war broke out, between the Houses of York (the White Rose) and Lancaster (the Red Rose).

A conclusion to this now decades-long battle began to emerge in 1483 when Edward IV died. The crown went to his son Edward V, who at just twelve years old was too young to rule, with Edward IV's brother Richard becoming Lord Protector until the boy king came of age. However, Richard sought the throne for himself and had Edward, along with his eight-year-Old brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, held in the Tower of London.

The now infamous Richard III was crowned in July 1483 and the little princes mysteriously vanished - almost certainly killed. Unsurprisingly, most people were not overjoyed at Richard's route to the throne and his right to rule was tenuous at best. Lancastrian Henry Tudor took this as an opportunity to stake his own claim to the throne. In August 1485, the two sides met once more at the Battle of Bosworth.
Richard III was defeated and killed, leaving Henry Tudor the new King of England. Yet just over a decade later, his rule was questioned by a pretender named Perkin Warbeck.

Not much is known about the early life of Perkin Warbeck. He was born around 1474 to a poor family in Flanders, and would later move to work as a servant and apprentice in Antwerp. Around 1491, his work led him to Cork, Ireland, and it was there that people started to notice that if you squinted, Perkin Warbeck had a bit of a Plantagenet look about him.

The exact reasoning for why Warbeck began to claim to be an heir to the English throne is murky; however, he first purported to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick, the son of George Plantagenet, brother to Edward IV and Richard III.

Unfortunately, this would have been very difficult as Warwick was currently a prisoner in the Tower of London, where he'd been held since 1485. So, Warbeck changed his claim, and he was now the youngest lost prince, Richard of York.

According to him, his older brother Edward had indeed been murdered, but he was spared thanks to his youth and innocence. Since then, he'd lived in secrecy in Europe, but now he was back and ready to claim the English throne.

Warbeck's story was incredibly silly to say the least. Aside from the initial flip-flopping claims of who he was, he was still learning to speak English, which was a bit suspicious considering that, if his tale was to be believed, he'd left England when he was nine. Still, for those looking to take down the Tudors, Warbeck and his story were useful if nothing else. Over the next few years, Warbeck was sent around the great European courts and was accepted as Richard of York by Charles VIII of France and the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I. Even Margaret of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV, claimed Warbeck as her nephew, though this was likely less because she believed him, and more because she wanted her family's throne back, not to mention that Henry Tudor had killed her husband.

In July 1495, with the help of Margaret of Burgundy, Warbeck set forth to win his crown. However, when he landed in the English town of Deal, he was met with strong resistance from local forces loyal to Tudor King Henry VII. Warbeck swiftly fled to Ireland, where his forces attempted to invade Waterford and failed once more. Tail between his legs, Warbeck ran to Scotland, where he was granted refuge by King James IV. Just like the King of France, James IV likely didn't believe Warbecks story, but it made him an excellent pawn in undermining the new Tudor rule and attempting to win English land.

In September 1496, with Scottish support, yet another invasion of England went ahead, and again it was a huge failure. The Scottish troops just used it as a border invasion, while the Yorkist supporters Warbeck had been depending on to rise up on his account never showed up.

But the key to a final push for the crown appeared in 1497. In June that year, Cornwall had seen a rebellion against the Crown in response to Henry VII raising taxes. Seemingly keen to get rid of the failure that was Perkin Warbeck, and make him someone else's problem, James IV urged Warbeck to join the Cornish uprising and form his own army. In September, he arrived on the Cornish coast and managed to raise a force several thousand strong. However, most of Warbeck's new army weren't carrying weapons, and so when the king's forces met them it was all over.
Henry VII was harsh on the Cornish rebels and executed their leaders, but he chose to spare Perkin Warbeck. By now Warbeck had admitted that he wasn't Richard of York, just some guy from Flanders, and so Henry VII held him at his own court.

Warbeck was a prisoner, but he wasn't in a cell and he wasn't facing death; in fact, within the court he had relative freedom - as prisons went, this was very comfortable. Still, in 1498, Warbeck attempted to escape and was immediately sent to the Tower of London. It was there that he met Warwick, the man he'd initially pretended to be. This was not good for Warwick - the last surviving male Plantagenet heir, he'd been a prisoner in the Tower since he was ten, and in the thirteen years that had passed, he'd lived quietly, perhaps due to the fact that allegedly such early confinement had led to Warwick losing his grip on reality. Yet Warbeck had proved that any Plantagenet heir, real or fake, was a threat that couldn't be contained. In early 1499, another Warwick pretender appeared and although they were swiftly crushed, Henry VII decided enough was enough. A likely fabricated plot was suddenly uncovered, in which Warbeck and Warwick would escape the Tower.

His excuse in place, Henry Tudor ordered the deaths of both men, and in November 1499 they were executed. The Plantagenet threat was dead, and the Tudor reign cemented.

Source ~ A short history of the world in 50 lies ~ by Natasha Tidd