Perkin Warbeck: Pretender or Prince?

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In this episode, we’re going to explore the man known to history as the pretender to the English throne, Perkin Warbeck. I’m covering the pieces of contemporary evidence which suggests that maybe we shouldn’t trust everything the Tudors tell us. At least, not when it comes to making their enemies look bad in front of the history books.

First things first. Who was Perkin Warbeck? Perkin Warbeck was a young man who had failed to invade England twice. Henry VII captured and imprisoned Perkin in 1497 and beat him until his face became unrecognisable. He had Perkin sign a confession to say he wasn’t the man every other monarch of Europe claimed him to be. He claimed to be Richard of England, the second son of Edward IV, the nephew of Richard III. Henry eventually had him executed in 1499 for treason aged 26. His signed confession has him admitting he’s a boatsman’s son from Tournai.

How on earth you can execute a citizen of Flanders for treason against an English king?

We’re ignoring the conventional story. As historian Ann Wroe tells us, someone else had already prepared and partly published the confession before Henry had captured Perkin. And the confession is the only piece of evidence anyone ever cares about. So something’s already going on there. We’ll also look at the document known as the Gelderland manuscript, previously dismissed because it went against that aforementioned signed confession. Next, we’ll examine a specific law overturned by Henry VII. Then we’ll examine Henry’s behaviour while he had Perkin Warbeck in custody. Finally, we’ll explore just what those European monarchs were saying about the man Henry VII was calling Perkin Warbeck. Look, I’m not saying Perkin Warbeck was Richard of England. I’m just saying no-one’s ever seen them in the same room at the same time.

Look, I’m not saying Perkin Warbeck was Richard of England. I’m just saying no-one’s ever seen them in the same room at the same time.

The Confession of Perkin Warbeck

When it comes to Perkin Warbeck, all anyone really cares to understand is the signed confession and his execution in 1499. The confession was already written and partially published before Perkin’s arrest. It relies on the claim that Perkin Warbeck was the son of a boatsman from Tournai. Henry used this confession in the execution on the charge of treason against the English king.

By admission, Perkin was a Flemish citizen. In English law, high treason is defined as the crime of disloyalty to the Crown. In relation to Perkin, this would be either plotting to murder the sovereign, levying war against the sovereign, or undermine the lawfully established line of succession. Provided, of course, that Perkin was an English citizen and not Flemish, as the confession claims. Or, indeed, that Henry VII had come to the throne legally himself.

There’s also the fact that it was common to torture individuals into admitting a plea of treason. The statutory execution for the charge until 1814 was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. They often just beheaded nobles. Perkin was hung at Tyburn and his head was placed on London Bridge.

If we take the confession to be true, signed under duress as it no doubt was, then Henry had a foreign national executed for holding no allegiance to a king who wasn’t his. But if he wasn’t Flemish at all, and if the confession was pre-written, then we have questions. Why use English law against a Flemish citizen? Why claim treason at all unless there was something there for Henry to fear? There were two years between the capture and execution. And Henry allowed Perkin to eat at royal banquets with only two guards, after all.

The Gelderland Manuscript

So if we can’t trust the signed confession as the whole truth, what do we trust? In 2020, Philippa Langley’s Missing Princes Project rediscovered a manuscript in the Gelderland Archive in the Netherlands concerning the fate of Richard, second son of Edward IV. As the Missing Princes Project aimed to treat the fate of the Princes as a cold case missing person’s investigation, they went to great pains to authenticate and verify the document.

The first line of the document says its written by, “The Duke of York, son and heir of King Edward the Fourth, Richard.” But this smoking gun of a document needed verification. There is no date or signature on the Gelderland manuscript. Experts examined the style of handwriting and names and places. This dates the manuscript to around the year 1500, as experts corroborate this with other contemporary sources.

Ann Wroe was one of the first historians to note that there were two distinct versions of the Warbeck confession.

The French compilation contained a separate appendix for Perkin’s childhood. This is absent in the English version, despite maintaining plausibility until the journey to Portugal. Wroe discovered documents placing the pretender in the Portuguese court for three years, not the single year the official confession claims. And the Richard of the manuscript doesn’t detail his time in Portugal until he’s writing to his mother and noting one of his bodyguards died of the plague. Recorded evidence exists of plague outbreak between 1488 and 1489. There’s also the fact that Henry VII spent a lot of attention on Portugal around this time. He sends an Embassy to Portugal, a man who later becomes an important and trusted spy in the Warbeck affair.

The Legitimacy of Richard, Duke of York

If there’s someone more famous when it comes to the fate of the Princes in the Tower, it’s Richard III. But Richard III’s role in this episode is minor. In short, he came to the throne because of an Act of Parliament. The Act of Succession said that due to a previous marriage agreement between Edward IV and another woman, Edward’s children were bastards. Richard of Gloucester was now the next in line to the throne. But we’re not discussing Richard III, we’re discussing what Henry Tudor did with this Act of Parliament.

Rumours of the deaths of the Princes in the Tower started in earnest after Henry Tudor, in exile in France, sent an open letter to his allies in England. He called Richard III a murderer. And the way he sets about securing his claim to the throne doesn’t make sense.

Lawyers compile a legal record each year, called a Year Book. The one dating to January 1486 reveals that Henry VII’s first parliament planned to annul the Titulus Regis, that Act of Succession placing Richard III on the throne, and destroy the parliamentary copy. There are orders to either destroy or return other documents to the Chancellor on pain of imprisonment. This was around a week after his marriage to Elizabeth of York, Richard’s niece. The most likely explanation is because he wanted legitimate heirs, and he couldn’t have a wife who wasn’t legitimate herself.

It was only after the repeal of the Titulus Regis and the official bastardy of Edward’s children reversed that the two claimants for the throne appeared. These men are known to posterity as Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck. Perkin only really entered the stage after the death of Lambert Simnel at the Battle of Stoke.

Henry made his statement for any claimants to the throne to come forward in September 1485, four months before he repels the official bastardy of Edward IV’s children in January 1486. Of course if the boys were alive, they wouldn’t have come to him. They were legally illegitimate. After this repeal, their rights to the throne would have taken precedence over Henry’s right by conquest, as he’d claimed.

Henry Tudor’s securing of the throne doesn’t make sense when you lay it out chronologically. For this reason, it’s of no surprise he gets two young men of the right age and appearance coming to claim the throne in the name of the House of York. First, we’re asking for the official bastards to come forward a month after your armies won a battle for you. Then we’re waiting four months to marry the oldest niece of the last legitimate Yorkist king. And only then do we repeal the official bastardy and destroy all evidence your predecessor came to the throne above board.

The Execution of Perkin Warbeck

In light of everything, it’s natural for us to question if this was just another way of removing anyone who could contest Henry’s claim to the throne.

And once Henry had captured the man he was calling Perkin Warbeck, he didn’t immediately execute him. As soon as he’d admitted to being an impostor, Henry released Perkin from the Tower and gave him accommodation at his court.

Henry VII kept Perkin under guard. As much as I dislike Henry, he wasn’t a total idiot. He didn’t allow Perkin to see the wife he had, but Henry allowed him to attend royal banquets. After eight months at court, the man called Perkin Warbeck escaped, got recaptured, and re-imprisoned in the Tower.

When he attempted to escape again, this time with the 17^th Earl of Warwick, he was led to the gallows, made to read out a confession, and hanged. He was buried in an unmarked grave, presumably in the Dutch Church in Austin Friers in London.

Many sources say Perkin Warbeck greatly resembled the late Edward IV. There was speculation of a genuine link to the York family. When combined with the only surviving portrait thought to be of him, Henry had to at least have known none of his actions make sense. A copy of this portrait has a different hand inscribing the name Perkin Warbeck under it. And the original was placed among portraits of the Scottish and English royal families in the Recueil d’Arras collection by Jaques le Boucq dating from the 1570s.

It seems rather counterproductive to have a man you’ve paraded around as a pretender to the throne attend royal banquets and live in your court. Why would you do this? It’s like saying you’ve captured the other pretender, Lambert Simnel, and shoved him in your kitchens for the rest of his life. What reason do you keep alive someone who may very well be one of Edward IV’s many illegitimate children?

European Monarchs On Perkin Warbeck

So Henry Tudor did not immediately execute someone he’s forced into a confession of treason. And the powerful rulers of continental Europe backed this supposed pretender in his superior claim to the throne.

In fact, Maximilian I, King and later Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, writes to Pope Alexander VI on Richard of England’s behalf in 1495. In his letter, Maximilian says the previous claims of Richard’s death were false. He’s writing to re-examine Henry’s right to the throne in light of this, as his “very dear mother-in-law did appeal forthwith against those confirmatory letters.” His mother-in-law is none other than Margeret of York.

Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy was the sister of Edward IV and Richard III. She was the aunt to the Princes in the Tower, and stepmother-in-law to Maximilian I. By all accounts other than the Tudors, Margaret was studious, religious, and involved in charitable work. She was buried with great honour in the choir of the Greyfriars Church at her court in Malines, now Mechelen.

The Burgundian nobles were open in their support of Richard of England’s claim to the English throne. They lent large sums of money, in excess of around £2,000,000 today (around €2,500,000 or $2,500,000) to back his claim.

In 1493, Margaret sent Queen Isabella of Spain a letter, known as part of the Dendermonde letters. Margaret says that when she eventually met Richard in person, she recognised him as her nephew through many different signs. She wasn’t just relying on remembered conversations. In a letter thought to have come from Maximilian I, part of the reason for this positive confirmation was that Richard of England had three physical distinguishing features. Maximilian says these are his mouth, one of his eyes, and a mark on his thigh.

No-one would write to the Pope unless they honestly believed in what they were saying. No-one would spend that much of money backing a rival claimant to someone they loathed. And while most correspondence would no doubt find its way to the ears of people it wasn’t meant to reach, personal correspondence was a place more secret. So why would a woman known for her love of knowledge lie to a queen as powerful as Isabella of Spain? Particularly over a nephew she hadn’t seen for a decade.

Conclusion

This episode hopes to have shed some light on the identity of the man known as Perkin Warbeck. With a lot of things not making sense in terms of historical context, it’s safe to say Henry VII was not in the most secure of positions on his throne. He spent considerable time, resources and people ridding England of anything which could contest his claim to the throne.

There must have been something about Perkin Warbeck for the particular treatment. Why would someone who confessed treason to a king of a foreign nation then be invited to dine at royal banquets? Why allow free access to the royal residence with a few guards for company? And why would a dowager duchess known for her brains lie in a personal correspondence when confirming an identity using distinguishing features on his body? For what other reason would a king not immediately execute a foreign prisoner who’s conspired against him?

If we consider that by reversing the Titulus Regis in order to legitimise Elizabeth of York, and that the rumours of the murder of the Princes in the Tower began with Henry’s campaign to become king, then Henry set himself up for those sons to demand their throne back. Perkin had the support of powerful European royals. They had no good reason to spend that much money on a false claimant.

Taken on its own, the signed confession is pretty damning. But when compared to evidence beyond the borders of England, it doesn’t hold up well. We can conclude, then, that Henry VII knew something about the man known as Perkin Warbeck that he didn’t make public. This wasn’t just a simple case of the execution of a Flemish man for treason against an English king.

Resources and Links

• “The Princes in the Tower: Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case” by Philippa Langley (2023). Langley is treating the Princes’ story as a cold case missing person’s report, summing up five years of research.
• “Perkin: A Story of Deception” by Ann Wroe (2003). Written to compare the confession to the contemporary evidence, where each differs and shares similarities.

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