The threat was inherent in who Perkin Warbeck says he actually was. Understood at some point to be the remaining son of former King Edward IV by some, and therefore the rightful heir to his crown (instead of the current King Henry VII), Perkin began sending letters and touring Europe to greet the respective heads of various states. J.D. Mackie tells us it was in Cork that he was 'discovered' or announced by the mayor there, as either Warwick the son of Clarence (who was himself the brother-in-law of the former king), or an illegitimate son of Richard III (Edward's younger brother), or the son of Edward himself. This last possibility, and which is the one that caught hold of the public imagination, was last heard of in The Tower of London in the years after Richard III was killed. The young man claimed in Cork (as early as October 1491) not to be Warwick, the Plantagenet son of George, Earl of Clarence, but this did not reduce speculation.
The alarming concern for England was that this meant a possible return to the already seemingly never-ending Wars of the Roses, which only lately were thought to have come at last to an end in the person of Henry VII. The young man had excellent bearing and manners and in the next couple years he toured various Houses abroad as a guest, such that the stories of his origin and purpose became the stuff of legend. A number of conspirators and other usurpers again and again would turn up and be punished, but this one would remain elusive until he was at long last captured (in 1497) and hung in November 1499.
There remained subjects of the Tudor King Henry who questioned his order despite prevailing trends. In the years after the deaths of Edward IV and Richard III there remained Yorkist support in Ireland. Their brother George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence and Earl of Warwick had died some years before, but his son Edward turned sixteen in 1491. Perhaps it was Yorkist sympathizers, as Mackie thinks, that proposed the idea of positioning this young man as a suitable new Earl of Warwick.
After his capture, Warbeck is reported to have mentioned a John Taylor as one of his early supporters in Ireland. Mackie says there were Yorkists in England and France who wanted to overthrow Henry, citing the correspondence of John Taylor (in Rotuli Parliamentarum vi, 454). [n. 1, p.120] The young Warbeck was supported by both the Earls of Desmond and Kildare while in Ireland - and taught to speak English there.[p.119] He had apparently been raised in Tournai and knew only French. And a herald with this news was sent to James IV in Scotland who passed word on to Margaret in Burgundy. [p. 120]
A number of contemporaries, like the great historian Polydore Vergil assert the whole thing was set up in Burgundy. This is indeed where the young man would spend spend time after being welcomed and then turned out from the court of the young King Charles VIII, after the Treaty of Etaples. Somehow, between Ireland and France, however, Warbeck had become not the son of Warwick, but the son of Edward and saluted, says Mackie, by the French with honors due to a duke of York.
"It is just conceivable that Perkin was an illegitimate prince, fostered with decent folk in Tournai; but the great probability is that he was a conceited, ambitious youth with an engaging address, who became the tool of Yorkist malcontents and gained a European importance, because great princes sought eagerly for an instrument which would harass the Tudor king. His romance is an essay upon the uncertainties of Renaissance society, when new men were supplanting the old aristocracy, and when personal gifts would carry a bold adventurer very far." [p. 120]Perkin was invited to France and probably spent most of 1492 there and during the 'Mad War' over Breton, and also turned up as a point in the negotiations which were finalised in the Treaty of Etaples. France and England would cease hostilities, France would gain Anne of Brittany and Breton and, France would promise not to help young Perkin Warbeck, also paying England a huge yearly sum.
From here Warbeck went to Holland and on to the court of Margaret of Burgundy. She was the last of her Plantagenet siblings and desperate by this time to find a way back into power or influence in England. It was she who had been married to Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and since his death, needed a way to either placate or control her enemies. She had accepted Charles' daughter Mary as her own and the inheritor of Burgundy, and with the help of French King Louis XI, married the girl to the young German Archduke of Austria Maximillian. When Perkin arrived Margaret sent word of this along to Max (effectively her fellow co-regent of Holland and Burgundy) and there were rumors in April 1493 that Perkin might be paired with Max's daughter Margaret.
In August 1493, Emperor Frederick III died. There was more than the usual pageantry that needed to be dealt with after the loss of such an aged ruler. Nevertheless his heir Maximillian invited the young Warbeck to the funeral proceedings. Perkin handled himself so well that Maximillian rode with him on his way back to Holland afterward and installed the young man in Antwerp with twenty archers as a guard. There Warbeck took the House of the English Merchant Adventurers and, putting up the sign of the White Rose of York antagonized the English merchants still there. [p.121] That summer, Henry had sent word asking Phillip (Max's son, Margaret's grandson) to quell some mercantile disturbances within Burgundy, but Phillip refused saying he could not interfere where Margaret still ruled. The enraged Henry cut trade ties with Holland and ordered the removal of the Merchant Adventurers from Antwerp to Calais.
Later that year, Perkin must have sent a letter to his 'cousins' Ferdinand and Isabella, the dual monarchs of Spain claiming he was indeed Richard Plantagenet, spared by the murderers of his brother. They (at least later) did not believe him. [p. 117] By spring of the following year, Maximillian was spreading the tale to Venice and Milan at least. Ideas on how having this young man could force Henry to attack France were born. When Maximillian told the Milanese ambassador about Perkin and his standing, they understood it was a man named Robert Clifford who had offered up the truth of Perkin's origin. But Clifford became instrumental over the next few months providing information and helping Henry VII expose other conspirators. [p.122] His is a different tale.
Trade in Holland and England suffered as a result of the embargoes. The Hansa profited in the vaccuum. There were uprisings in the steelyards that had to be put down by force. When Henry tried to settle with Max and Phillip, they set an embargo in May 1494 on English iron and wool. [p.125]
A year went by. Italy had been invaded by France. With French occupation of Naples affirmed, and the slow retreat of French northwards again,, the Italian states had begun closing in. Max then decided this would be a good time to launch Perkin Warbeck against the English. In July, the not more than twenty-one year old Warbeck led fourteen ships to take England. Of those three that landed, most of those men were killed. Nearly eighty prisoners were captured by Sir John Peachey the sherriff of Kent, and these, harnessed in ropes, pulled carts to London where they were then hanged. Warbeck himself didn't go ashore and sailed on to Ireland.
Matters were at an upset in Ireland as well. Henry had sent forces under the command of Edward Poynings to put down the disturbances there. These had largely succeeded. When Warbeck approached southern Ireland by July 23 and made communications with his old ally the current Fitzgerald and Earl of Desmond, men were assembled on land and the town of Waterford was put to siege. The battle was joined in by the mayor and bailiffs of Dublin and lasted eleven days. Three of the marauding ships were taken, and on August 3, Perkin drew off and in time 'made his way to Scotland where he was well received'. [p. 132]
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quotes and pagination from J.D. Mackie: The Earlier Tudors 1485-1558 Oxford, UK 1957
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