Perkin Warbeck’s Rebellion

This series has six easy 5-minute installments. This first installment: Perkin’s Childhood.

Introduction
Soon after his accession to the throne of England, Henry VII married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the rival houses of York and Lancaster. But notwithstanding this adjustment of the rival interests, the rule of Henry, the Lancastrian, failed to satisfy the Yorkists; and this party, with the aid of Margaret of Burgundy — sister of Edward IV — and James IV of Scotland, set up two impostors, one after the other, to claim the English throne. At the same time there was living a real heir of the house of York — young Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward IV. Henry had taken the precaution to keep this genuine Yorkist in the Tower.

In 1487 a spurious earl of Warwick appeared in Ireland. Receiving powerful support in that country, he was actually crowned in the Cathedral of Dublin. In order to defeat this imposture Henry exhibited the real earl to the people of London. He also vanquished the army of the pretender at Stoke, in June, 1487. This false earl was found to be Lambert Simnel, son of an Oxford joiner. He became a scullion in King Henry’s kitchen.

The second of these impostors, known as Perkin Warbeck, contrived to make himself a figure of some importance in the history of England. Supposedly born in Flanders, he first appears upon the historic stage in 1492, when he landed at Cork. Going soon after to France, he was recognized by the court as Duke of York, according to his claim. How he was coached for his part, and how the drama in which he played it was acted out, are told by Bacon in what is perhaps the best specimen we have of that great author’s style in historical composition.

Warbeck was executed in 1499, and, although Bacon gives us no dates, the whole history, covering about seven years, may be said to form a practically continuous series of incidents. The character of this adventurer has been made quite prominent in literature, having been the subject of Ford’s tragedy, The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck (1634), of a play by Charles Macklin, King Henry VII, or the Popish Impostor (1716), and of Joseph Elderton’s drama, The Pretender.

This selection is from History of the Reign of Henry VII by Francis Bacon published in 1622. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was, besides a writer, a Lord Chancellor, a philosopher (father of empiricism), a scientist (developed the scientific method), and a Viscount.

Time: 1497

This youth of whom we are now to speak was such a mercurial as the like hath seldom been known and could make his own part if at any time he chanced to be out. Wherefore, this being one of the strangest examples of a personation that ever was in elder or later times, it deserveth to be discovered and related at the full — although the King’s manner of showing things by pieces and by dark lights hath so muffled it that it hath been left almost as a mystery to this day.

The Lady Margaret,[1] whom the King’s friends called Juno, because she was to him as Juno was to Aeneas, stirring both heaven and hell to do him mischief, for a foundation of her particular practices against him, did continually, by all means possible, nourish, maintain, and divulge the flying opinion that Richard, Duke of York, second son to Edward IV, was not murdered in the Tower, as was given out, but saved alive. For that those who were employed in that barbarous act, having destroyed the elder brother, were stricken with remorse and compassion toward the younger, and set him privily at liberty to seek his fortune.

[1: Sister to Edward IV, and widow of Charles le Téméraire, Duke of Burgundy.]

There was a townsman of Tournai, that had borne office in that town, whose name was John Osbeck, a convert Jew, married to Catherine de Faro, whose business drew him to live for a time with his wife at London, in King Edward’s days. During which time he had a son [2] by her, and being known in the court, the King, either out of a religious nobleness because he was a convert, or upon some private acquaintance, did him the honor to be godfather to his child, and named him Peter. But afterward, proving a dainty and effeminate youth, he was commonly called by the diminutive of his name, Peterkin or Perkin. For as for the name of Warbeck, it was given him when they did but guess at it, before examinations had been taken. But yet he had been so much talked of by that name, as it stuck by him after his true name of Osbeck was known.

[2: Bernard André, the poet laureate of Henry VII, states in his manuscript life of his patron, that Perkin, when a boy, was “servant in England to a Jew named Edward, who was baptized, and adopted as godson by Edward IV, and was on terms of intimacy with the King and his family.” Speed, mistranslating André’s words, makes Perkin the son of the Jew, instead of the servant; and Bacon amplifies the error, and transforms John Osbeck into the convert Jew, who, having a handsome wife, it might be surmised why the licentious King “should become gossip in so mean a house.” Hume adds: “People thence accounted for that resemblance which was afterward remarked between young Perkin and that monarch.” The surmise of Bacon, grounded upon the error of Speed, is clinched into the positive assertion of Hume as to a popular belief for which there is not the slightest ground. — Charles Knight.]

While he was a young child, his parents returned with him to Tournai. There he was placed in the house of a kinsman of his called John Stenbeck, at Antwerp, and so roved up and down between Antwerp and Tournai, and other towns of Flanders, for a good time, living much in English company and having the English tongue perfect. In which time, being grown a comely youth, he was brought by some of the espials of the Lady Margaret into her presence. Who, viewing him well, and seeing that he had a face and personage that would bear a noble fortune, and finding him otherwise of a fine spirit and winning behavior, thought she had now found a curious piece of marble to carve out an image of a Duke of York. She kept him by her a great while, but with extreme secrecy.

The while she instructed him by many cabinet conferences. First, in princely behavior and gesture, teaching him how he should keep state, and yet with a modest sense of his misfortunes. Then she informed him of all the circumstances and particulars that concerned the person of Richard, Duke of York, which he was to act, describing unto him the personages, lineaments, and features of the King and Queen, his pretended parents; and of his brother and sisters, and divers others, that were nearest him in his childhood; together with all passages, some secret, some common, that were fit for a child’s memory, until the death of King Edward. Then she added the particulars of the time from the King’s death, until he and his brother were committed to the Tower, as well during the time he was abroad as while he was in sanctuary. As for the times while he was in the Tower, and the manner of his brother’s death, and his own escape, she knew they were things that a very few could control. And therefore, she taught him only to tell a smooth and likely tale of those matters, warning him not to vary from it.

It was agreed likewise between them what account he should give of his peregrination abroad, intermixing many things which were true, and such as they knew others could testify, for the credit of the rest, but still making them to hang together with the part he was to play. She taught him likewise how to avoid sundry captious and tempting questions which were like to be asked of him. But, this she found him so nimble and shifting as she trusted much to his own wit and readiness, and therefore labored the less in it.

More information here and here and below.