Claimants to Royalty

by John Henry Ingram

Determined not to let go his hold on Perkin, the king promised him a full pardon upon condition that he confessed himself an impostor. Unable to discover any means of escape, the pretender accepted Henry's conditions, and on the 5th October surrendered to the royal troops at Taunton. He did not reach London until the end of November, and on his arrival was sent as a prisoner to the Tower. At first the supposed Richard was treated with much respect, and the evidence of his official examination kept strictly secret; although the garbled and absurd account of it which Henry caused to be published was so contradictory and generally unsatisfactory, that "men missing of that they looked for," says the chronicler, "looked about for they knew not what, and were in more doubt than before." Perkin, on his way to the Tower, was made to traverse the city on horseback, but not in any ignominious fashion; and although scoffed at by some, by the majority was treated with respect.

After about six months of detention, the pretender contrived or was permitted to escape; but such diligent pursuit was made that he was compelled to again take sanctuary, and this time in the Priory of Shene, in Surrey. As soon as his retreat was publicly known, the King was advised to take him forth and hang him, but Henry was too prudent for such a course. At the intercession of the Prior of Shene, the King promised to spare the fugitive's life, bidding them "take him forth, and set the knave in the stocks." Taken from his place of refuge, and brought back to London, the wretched youth was fettered and placed for a whole day in the stocks, and on the following day, the 14th June, 1499, was compelled to read from a scaffold, erected in Cheapside, a lengthy and rambling confession, in which, among other matters, he acknowledged himself to be Perkin, son of John Warbeck, a Flemish tradesman, and that he had been taught to enact his part by various enemies of King Henry.

After the second reading of this "confession," which was so badly composed that it served rather to confirm than dissipate the belief that the so-called "Perkin" was the personage he had assumed to be, the prisoner was again incarcerated in the Tower, where he became the companion and friend of the unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, whom Lambert Simnel had formerly counterfeited. Such was the fascination of the claimant's manners that he not only won the friendship of his fellow-prisoners, but also the favour of his keepers, the four servants of Sir John Digby, the Lieutenant, who, apparently, conspired together to permit the escape of the two captives, and to aid them to excite another insurrection. The whole plot in all probability originated in the cunning of Henry, who made it a pretext for the trial and execution of both his troublesome prisoners. "The opinion of the King's great wisdom," as Bacon dexterously recounts it, "did surcharge him with a sinister fame, that Perkin was but his bait to entrap the Earl of Warwick."

About the time of this presumed plot, and most opportunely for Henry, another claimant to the name and title of the young Earl of Warwick appeared in Suffolk. Although this pretender was speedily taken and executed, the state of disquietude these events kept the country in afforded the King ample excuse for proceeding to extremities, notwithstanding the fact that the whole affair was regarded as a subtle device of the Sovereign. Accordingly, on the 16th November, 1419, Perkin was brought to trial, and was found guilty upon the indictment of having conspired, in company with the hapless Earl of Warwick, "to raise sedition and destroy the King." Upon the 23rd of the month Perkin was taken from the Tower to Tyburn, and, after having again read his confession and vouched for its truth, was executed. Such was the end of this strange drama, which was, as Bacon remarks, "one of the longest plays of that kind."

The case of Perkin Warbeck is one of the most mysterious on record; and in attempting to gauge the truth or falsity of his claim to royalty it must not be overlooked that the only contemporary records of him and his adventures are by those who professedly wrote on King Henry's behalf, and were not, therefore, likely to be over scrupulous in suppressing any facts tending to support the pretender's claims. The confession wrung from him under fear of death is of little or no value; the absence of all allusion in it to the Duchess of Burgundy seems to disprove the assertion that it was written by Perkin himself; whilst the absurd statement it contained that he, a thorough master apparently of the language, did not learn English until forced to, after his arrival at Cork, is most suspicious. He was never confronted with his supposed mother, the Queen Dowager, whom Henry had in safe keeping at Bermondsey, nor were any judicial steps taken to expose his imposture, if such it were. The King was most studiously careful to keep all records of the affair out of the people's sight; he took Tyrrell, the supposed chief murderer of the young princes, into his favour, and never had, what might have satisfied the suspicions of many, the remains of the two lads publicly exhumed. According to the account of Sir Thomas More, the murdered princes were first buried "at the stairfoot, deep in the ground, under a heap of stones," but were afterwards taken up, at the desire of King Richard, and reburied by the Tower Chaplain "privately, in a place that, by reason of his death, never came to light." This account, if true, would seem to cast a doubt upon the identity of the "small bones" discovered under the staircase in the reign of Charles the Second, and by him had interred and commemorated as the remains of the royal princes.

The circumstantial account of Lord Verulam is so enveloped in mystery and innuendo, and his desire to screen the Tudor King is so self-evident, that it has caused many, including the sophistical and shallow Walpole, to believe and assert that "Perkin Warbeck" was indeed the royal personage he claimed to be.

THE FALSE MUSTAPHA THE SECOND OF TURKEY.

A.D. 1555.

The Sultan Soliman the First, surnamed the Legislator, raised the Turkish Empire to its highest pinnacle of glory. Owing, however, to the great extent of frontier which his dominions possessed, he was continually at war with one or the other of the neighbouring powers. In 1555 he was engaged in hostilities with Persia, but, despite his desire to pursue the contest with vigour, the weight of sixty years, and the fatigues of twelve personally conducted campaigns, rendered repose necessary to him; he, therefore, left the command of his forces to the Grand Vizier Rustem.