Uncovering the Mystery of Perkin Warbeck by Sandra Worth

Today’s post is a guest article by Sandra Worth acclaimed author of five books chronicling the demise of the Plantagenet dynasty in England.

Sandra holds an honours B.A in Political Science and Economics from the University of Toronto and is a frequent lecturer on the Wars of the Roses.

Pale Rose of England: a novel of the Tudors by Sandra Worth

Sandra’s latest novel, Pale Rose of England: a novel of the Tudors, is a story of love and defiance during the Wars of the Roses. Here is a brief synopsis:

It is 1497. The news of the survival of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, has thundered across Europe, setting royal houses ablaze with intrigue and rocking the fledgling Tudor dynasty. Stepping finally onto English soil, Catherine arrives at the island of Saint Michael’s Mount, along with her husband and young son Dickon, their second child already on the way. With the keen support of Scotland’s King James IV, Richard—known in England as Perkin Warbeck—has come to reclaim his rightful crown from Henry Tudor. Based on a prophecy given Catherine by a seer that she would be loved by a king, she has no doubt Richard will succeed in his quest. But rather than assuming the throne she believed was their destiny, Catherine would soon be prisoner of King Henry VII, and her beloved husband would, unimaginably, be stamped as an imposter.

Nothing could shake Catherine’s belief in Richard and her loyalty to the man she loved. She became a favored lady-in-waiting to the queen, Elizabeth of York, but her dazzling beauty only brought her unwanted affections from a jealous king and enmeshed her in a terrifying royal love triangle. With her husband facing execution for treason, Catherine, alone in the glittering but deadly Tudor Court, finds the courage to spurn a cruel monarch and shape her own destiny, winning the admiration of a nation.

I am very much looking forward to reading this novel as the mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower and the reappearance of ‘Perkin Warbeck’ a decade later make for very interesting reading.

Was Perkin Warbeck really Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York? Or was he a pretender to the English Throne and an impostor?

Uncovering the Mystery of Perkin Warbeck

In 1492, the news of the survival of the younger prince in the Tower thundered across Europe, setting royal houses ablaze with intrigue and rocking the fledgling Tudor dynasty. Who was this mysterious young man the Tudors nicknamed “Perkin Warbeck” who claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, younger son of King Edward IV? Handsome, courtly, with a stunning royal presence and “the voice of a king”, he was, as his biographer notes, “the perfect prince”. Certainly, he was greeted as such by the world.

We can never know the absolute truth about “Perkin Warbeck, whether the princes were strangled to death in the Tower by their uncle Richard III—as the Tudors said—or if one of them was smuggled to safety on the Continent, as “Perkin” claimed. Too much time has gone by. Evidence has been lost, or destroyed, sometimes by royal decree, and Shakespeare has forged myth into historical fact. But there are serious shortcomings in the theory that King Edward’s sons were murdered and much remains unexplained.

Experience teaches us that the truth is not always black or white, but a mixture of grays and a great deal more complicated than we realize. Such, I believe, is the case here. A new biography raises serious doubts that “Perkin Warbeck” was a fraud as the Tudors claimed, sparking an intriguing idea in my mind. What if the younger prince survived and Perkin Warbeck was Richard, Duke of York?

I am not alone in accepting that “Perkin Warbeck” was really who he claimed to be. In 1830, the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, reached the same conclusion. She wrote a novel based on his youthful adventures hiding from Henry VII’s spies. The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck ends with Richard landing in England. I picked up the tale where hers left off, and Pale Rose of England begins with Richard’s arrival in Cornwall, his beautiful wife and grand passion of his life, the Scottish princess, Lady Catherine Gordon, at his side.

Hailed as the rightful heir to the throne of England, Richard sets out to reclaim his father’s throne. But England already had a king: the first of the Tudors, Henry VII. Henry proclaimed the young man an imposter and nicknamed him “Perkin Warbeck”, but he behaved—not as if the young man was an upstart—but as if he faced the clash of another legitimate claimant.

Was this most intriguing and charming pretender a true prince? The greatest European monarchs of the age seemed to have thought so, and that includes Henry VII. They either used him as a pawn, championed his cause, or took him under their protection. The King of France wouldn’t deliver him up to the King of England; Isabella and Ferdinand wouldn’t send their daughter to England to marry Prince Arthur while he lived; and the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian backed the young man without reservation. James IV went one better and gave him not only support, but the hand of his dazzlingly beautiful royal cousin, Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntly.

Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, Richard’s strongest supporter, never deserted the one she called her nephew. After his capture, she did everything humanly possible to secure his release. On his death, she mourned profusely, and on the first anniversary of his death, broken-hearted, she burned three times the usual number of candles in her chapel at Binche. Nor did the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian of Austria ever abandon him, though the young man was of no further use to him. Maximilian did all he could to free Richard, and even considered going to war against Henry until civil strife in his own land made that impossible. Then he made Henry the astounding offer to resign in perpetuity—for himself, and for Richard, and for all their descendants—their claims to the throne of England. All Maximilian wanted in return was to have the young man back safe, and whole.

This is not the way of kings.

Henry refused all Maximilian’s offers. In this, and every possible way, the Pretender’s great rival, Henry VII, behaved as if he, too, believed the young man to be the lost prince, referring to him in private correspondence as the Duke of York and expending vast sums of money to defeat his cause (sixty thousand pounds alone for war with Scotland because James IV wouldn’t relinquish his support of “Perkin”). Nor did he, a miser, seem to mind, or to count the cost. He never spent—and was never again to spend—so much money resisting anyone. In his privy purse accounts, the day “Perkin” was apprehended went down as a newsworthy event equal to the announcement of the peace with France in 1492, and the arrival of Katherine of Aragon in 1501.

For eight years, the pretender tormented Henry. After his capture, Henry used “Perkin” as a bargaining chip to effect peace treaties, gain better trade advantages, and win political and economic concessions, especially from James of Scotland and Maximilian of Austria. When James IV demanded that Henry ameliorate the treatment of his cousins, Lady Catherine Gordon and her husband, Henry responded that if he wished better treatment for them, he should consider marrying his daughter Margaret.

Even “Perkin Warbeck’s” name has significance. “Wesbecque” was a play on words by someone who knew Flemish as well as French; with the Flemish wezen, “to be” or “to be real”, and weze, the word for “orphan.” It is curious that the official narrative of this young man given under torture contains so many elements applicable to the life of the real prince, Richard, Duke of York. Here is a child whose name meant “real” and “orphan,” born in England of no known address or clear parentage, who moved all over Europe, always in the company of English people (to explain his fluency in the English language) and who lived for a time in Portugal, somehow managing to attach himself to the wife of a man whose name resembled one of Richard III’s most loyal retainers, the Portuguese Jew, Duarte Brandeo—Sir Edward Brampton. Even Edward IV makes an appearance in Perkin’s tale, acting as his godfather. Both the prince and the pauper are linked by a common thread of wandering, jeopardy, and sorrow.

Despite all Henry VII’s expenditures on spies and his intense efforts to learn about the young man’s background, he was never able to do so to his satisfaction. The young man seemed to have materialized at the age of nine, with no history before that point. Richard’s wife, Catherine Gordon, believed utterly in her husband and stood by him with unquestioning loyalty. She never abandoned him, though a king sought her love and offered to lay the world at her feet. After Richard’s death, she befriended his sister Cecily, and Cecily’s daughter, Margaret Kymbe, whom she referred to with the royal terminology of “cousin.” This kinship could only have come through Richard. In perpetual mourning, Lady Catherine Gordon wore black to the end of her life.

In the month after “Perkin’s” execution, Henry fell so ill that the succession was rumored. His biographer notes that the king did not feel safe even after “Perkin” was gone. Tiny acts of piety suggest that his conscience pricked him, and punishing those who had believed in “Perkin” became an obsession. He assessed enormous fines on all who had shown him sympathy, and he made notations about the fines in his own hand on the rolls. Seven years after the event, in 1504, men were still being put to death, or attainted for treason because of “Perkin Warbeck.”

As he himself faced death, Henry’s royal will carried a final echo of his struggles with Lady Catherine Gordon’s husband and he seemed to be a haunted man. He increased the number of daily masses and offerings for his soul, and implored the Virgin that his “ancient and ghostly enemy” nor other horned devil be permitted to dive into his throat to seize his soul.

A word about Sir Thomas More is in order here, since he was the first to suggest in The History of the Reign of King Richard III that the princes had been murdered, and to identify the culprit. Cardinal Morton is given as the source of More’s information that Sir James Tyrell confessed to the murder of the princes in the Tower before his execution. No one mentioned a confession before More did, and no record of one survives. Strangely, while the Pretender was a captive at Henry’s court, Tyrrell was in Henry’s good graces, alive and flourishing in Calais. Yet More’s account quickly became the accepted story of what had happened to Richard, Duke of York.

Ultimately, the actions and behavior of those most closely involved in the drama of the princes in the Tower, including the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, and Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, James IV of Scotland, and Henry VII himself seem to evince a belief bordering on conviction that the young man called “Perkin” was the true prince. The fact that he was not only of the right age and appearance, but also exhibited an exceptional talent for music—just as little Prince Richard had done!—makes it very difficult to dismiss his claim. To find all these qualities combined in a fraud defies probability, and therefore it is highly likely that the Pretender was King Edward’s son, Richard of York, executed by Henry VII as “Perkin Warbeck.”

In Pale Rose of England the heroic journey of Richard, Duke of York and Lady Catherine Gordon entwine to shape a saga of love and adventure that has all the power, drama, and brutality that defined the Tudor era. Bursting with sound and fury, the story of this royal princess and the man she loved brings new meaning to the definition of tragedy, triumph and the resilience of the human spirit. Together, they close out my Rose of York series set during the Wars of the Roses.

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