Gairdner J. History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third: To which is Added the Story of Perkin Warbeck from Original Documents

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3IO PERKIN WARBECK.

deliver Berwick and pay 50,000 marks in two years.. Indentures

were drawn up to this effect, and on these terms the matter was

settled. No wonder James was dissatisfied when all ended in

a four days' raid and home again!

Shortly before this invasion the king and court had been at

St Andrews when an ambassador arrived from France. He

was the Sieur de Concressault, a man of Scotch extraction, the

same who, when Warbeck was in France three years before,

had been appointed captain of the guard of honour assigned

to him by the French king. Watchful of Henry's interests,

Bothwell took means to ascertain whether any mischief was

intended against England. There was, at least, no such

intention avowed; for, as we have seen, the French king was

particularly anxious not to stir up again the embers of English

hostility by anything that could justify resentment. Bothwell

therefore found that Concressault's commission contained

nothing in it prejudicial to England. It was in effect an

offer of mediation between England and Scotland. He was

to inquire into the causes of dispute, whether Henry or the

King of Scots was in fault, and get James, if possibly, to agree

to refer it to the French king's arbitration. But James took

the ambassador into counsel, and showed him that the injuries

all originated on the part of England, by whom he had lost

many ships and much cattle upon the borders. And notwith-

standing his professed impartiality, the ambassador soon

adopted the king's ex parte statement. He became much

more lukewarm in urging James to peace, and even went so

far as to tell Lord Bothwell it was no wonder the Scotch king

felt aggrieved. He also offered James 100,000 crowns if he

would send Perkin into France, with what view the Lord

Bothwell could not exactly say, but he knew from Concressault

that the French king was anxious to prevent James from

marrying any of Henry's daughters. The ambassador also

told Bothwell that the French admiral and he had been at a

great deal of pains to learn about Perkin's birth. On this

THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR. 311

Bothwell showed him a document he had received from

Meautes, the King of England's secretary; 'and he plainly

said he never understood it, but rather trowed the contrary.'

On the whole, Bothwell thinks the ambassador's coming had

done but little good, 'for he and the boy,' he says, 'are every

day in council

What was the document Bothwell had received from

Meautes? Without having.positive evidence on the subject,

we are enabled, from the information supplied by the Spanish

archives, to answer this question with tolerable confidence.

For we now know that shortly before this time, probably just

in the beginning of the same year, 1496, of which we are

treating, the King of France sent to Henry VII. a paper under

the seal of his council, showing that Warbeck was the son of a

barber

, and offering to send over his father and mother

. A

copy of this paper would have been the most complete answer

that could have been made to Concressault when he said he

had been trying to find out about Perkin's birth, and as Henry

probably caused many copies of it to be made and circulated

as widely as possible, Bothwell might have possessed one

without even appearing to be in the King of England's con-

fidence.

That Charles VIII. had so lately sent Henry a certificate

about Warbeck's birth is pretty good evidence of his strong

anxiety to keep friends with England. And no wonder he was

anxious; for, peace-lover as Henry always was, he was strongly

solicited at this time, especially by Ferdinand and Isabella of

Spain, to join the league for driving the French out of Italy.

With this object they were now actively endeavouring to

Ellis's Letters, First Series, i. 28.

Henry VII. himself had told the French king that he was the son of

a boatman. Has there been any confusion between barbier and butelierl

Under any circumstances the discrepancy counts for little. Lambert

Simnel was described by various authorities as the son of a baker, of a

shoemaker, of a joiner, and of an organ-maker.

Bergenroth, i. 92.

312 PERKIN WARBECK.

promote peace between England and Scotland, so as to

relieve Henry from any fear of attack by land while engaged

in foreign wars; for, to suit their interests, he could not be

too soon committed to hostilities with France. But to make

things right between England and Scotland required much

diplomacy; and the countenance given by James to Perkin

was a very serious hindrance to their praiseworthy efforts.

James, indeed, seemed amenable to one consideration. He

professed to be not altogether satisfied with his traditional ally

the French king and aspired to marry a Spanish princess.

Now Ferdinand and Isabella had at this time three marriage-

able daughters, the eldest Dona Isabella being the widow of

Don Alfonso, Infant of Portugal. She was married next year

to the reigning King of Portugal, Emmanuel; but for the

present she had expressed so strong a determination to remain

in widowhood, that the Spanish sovereigns had made up their

minds to give her sister Dona Maria to the King of Portugal

instead. There remained only Katharine of Arragon, who,

however, was destined for Arthur, Prince of Wales; and they

had no daughter left to give to James. But having breathed a

hope of such an alliance in James's ear they would not let him

despair, and resolved still to lead him on by a false lure,

trusting that when they had at last procured peace between

England and Scotland he would be induced to accept Henry's

daughter for a wife in place of theirs

With these bright hopes before him, James promised not to

assist "him of Ireland," as Warbeck is called in a Spanish

despatch, till his ambassadors returned from Spain. The

Spanish sovereigns, however, in" their intercourse with him

were particularly anxious to avoid all appearance of partiality

towards England, and certainly did not wish him to know that

the long projected marriage of the Prince of Wales to their

youngest daughter Katharine was now an object of serious

Bergenroth, i. 85, 88, 91, 96, 97, 115. Compare Zurita, v. 103 b.

HENRY'S ALLIES. 313

negotiation

. Of this, however, the French king must have

been in considerable dread, when, apparently about November

1495,

he sent over some clerical ambassadors to England to

negociate in great secrecy a marriage between the Prince of

Wales and a daughter of the Duke of Bourbon". Henry was

not to be won by such an offer; he gave the ambassadors but

a cold reception, and distinctly told them that unless Charles

abandoned Naples and restored Ostia to the Pope, his relations

towards him would be different from what they had been since

the conclusion of the peace of Etaples. The

rebuff,

followed,

as it was in England, by some positive preparations for war,

only made Charles the more anxious to conciliate Henry and

pay him all that was due by treaty. But he sent, as we have

seen, Concressault as his ambassador to Scotland, of whose

mission Henry knew quite well in advance, and knew also that

its main object was to get Perkin Warbeck into the French

king's hands.

Ferdinand and Isabella, on the other hand, though they

would do nothing to entice Warbeck to Spain, would not have

been sorry to get him into their hands, and gave De Puebla,

their ambassador in England, an intimation to that effect

. At

the same time they desired to outbid the offers of France to

Henry, and give far more satisfactory proof of the adventurer's

parentage than Charles VIII. had done. ' We can send him,'

they wrote, ' the declarations of many persons who know him,

amongst whom is a Portuguese knight of the name of Ruy

de Sosa. He is acquainted with the whole matter, and is a

person of authority and good faith. Having been Portuguese

ambassador in England, he knew* the Duke of York very well,

Bergenroth, 116, 119.

Id. 83, in. It is probably the same embassy that is referred to

at pp. 88, 91, 94.

Ib. 91.

Not ' knows,' as in Bergenroth. The original word in the Spanish is

conostio.

314 PERKIN WARBECK.

and has seen him there. Two years later he saw this other

person in Portugal

.' Then was added a clause which was

afterwards struck out, and which certainly at first sight suggests

some doubt of the value of such testimony:—'

So,

if it will be

of any use to the king, we could manage to send him his father

and mother, who, they tell us, are in Portugal and are our

subjects.'

Could parents be found for Warbeck with equal ease in

any quarter of the world

I believe there was nothing in the

political morality of the age to prevent it. But it would have

been little use giving testimony contrary to known facts, and

even when Perkin attempted to land in Kent people were

aware that his father and mother lived in France. Ferdinand

suppressed the passage, which I believe was written under a

temporary misapprehension of the information he had received.

As to the testimony of the Portuguese knight who had seen

the true Duke of York in England, I see no good reason to

distrust it.

But the negociations of the Spanish sovereigns with Scotland

at this time were no less important than those which they

carried on with England. In August, 1496, a Scotch ambas-

sador to Spain embarked to return to his own country

furnished with letters from Queen Isabella by which he might

make it appear that he was her ambassador in case he should

fall into the hands of the English. This was a month before

the Scotch raid in England in behalf of Perkin Warbeck, and

it shows how little expectation there was in Spain of peaceful

relations between the two countries. But with the Scottish

ambassador sailed one despatched by the Spanish sovereigns

themselves to Scotland for the express purpose of bringing

about, if possible, a better state of things. His name was

Pedro de Ayala, and he was clearly one preeminently fitted

for the task

. The raid, unhappily, had taken place before he

Bergenroth, p. 92.

Memorials of Henry VII., 401, 403. Bergenroth, i. 120. After the

DON PEDRO DE AYALA. 315

arrived

, and there was a strong belligerent feeling already

aroused on both sides. But Don Pedro had a most winning

manner and obtained such influence over James

as to prevent

him for some time from doing further

mischief;

while De

Puebla, the Spanish ambassador in England, endeavoured,

according to his instructions, to restrain Henry from active

measures of vengeance. Henry's pacific disposition was,

indeed, severely tried, and he told De Puebla that Ayala had

shown himself over credulous in believing what the Scots told

him

. But though he sent out commissions of array for the

Borders and for manning ships to be sent against Scotland

he delayed the decisive blow to allow of some negociations.

For owing, doubtless, to the activity of Ayala as a mediator,

the raid was treated merely as an unpleasant incident, for

which it ought to be possible to make satisfaction without

proceeding to extremities, and some time in the spring a

meeting was held at a place called Jenyn Haugh where the

Earl of Angus and Lord Home made some offers on James's

behalf.

But these proposals not being considered satisfactory,

Henry at length commissioned Lord Daubeney to lead an

army against the Scots. Scarcely had he given the order,

however, when he was obliged to countermand it and send

Daubeney to quell the Cornish insurrection occasioned by the

heavy taxation for the war.

The Cornish insurrection was subdued at Blackheath on

the

7th June. But that the rebels should have advanced all

the way from Cornwall till they were actually within sight of

statement that Ayala and the Scotch Ambassador were on the point of

embarking, Bergenroth inaccurately adds ' for Spain.' There is also an

error of my own in the translation at p. 403 of the Memorials, 1. 8, where

'return from Scotland,' should be ' return to Scotland.'

Bergenroth, 135.

' The King of Scots esteems him like a father,' wrote the Subprior of

Santa Cruz. Bergenroth, 165.

Bergenroth, 141.

Letters, &*c, ii. 376 (24 Jan. and 13 Feb. 1497).

316 PERKIN WARBECK.

London was a warning of deep significance; and the result is

visible in Henry's subsequent diplomacy. On the 20th he

published an amnesty to the insurgents, and on the 24th

issued a proclamation for men in the counties North of Trent

to be ready at an hour's warning to serve against the Scots

But far from refusing counsels of peace and mediation,

especially as James had, no doubt by Ayala's persuasion,

discreetly refrained from troubling England further at the

time of the rebellion, he on the 4th July commissioned Fox,

Bishop of Durham, De Warham (afterwards Archbishop of

Canterbury) and John Cartington to treat for peace with

James

. Fox received his instructions next day, in which he

was to demand, as a first requisite, the delivery of Perkin

Warbeck, who had been the occasion of the breach. This, he

was to insist on, saying that James might very well give him

up without derogation to his own honour, seeing that Warbeck

was not the person he professed to be when he obtained

James's safe conduct. But if James declined to deliver him

he was to be urged first to send a solemn embassy to Henry,

and then to come himself in person to Newcastle or further,

where a final conclusion could be made at a personal interview

between the two kings, James binding himself under ecclesias-

tical censures to perform the conditions agreed upon at Jenyn

Haugh, and make compensation for the raid, giving hostages

meanwhile for their fulfilment. This was to appear in the

eyes of the Scots as the utmost limit of Fox's commission; but

if he could not get James to consent to such conditions, he

might fall back on another set of instructions, permitting him,

in order to avoid bloodshed, simply to accept the offers made

at Jenyn Haugh, with the best securities he could obtain

Warbeck, however, left Scotland only a day or two after

these instructions were penned, and so the demand for his

Bain's

Calendar,

iv. 328.

Rymer, xii. 676-7.

Letters,

dr'c, i. 104-tn.

WARBECK LEAVES SCOTLAND. 317

deliverance was fruitless. He sailed from Ayr in a vessel

procured for him by the King of Scots, and accompanied by

the renowned sea captains or pirates Andrew and Robert

Barton in their own ship. Whither did they propose to sail

and with what object? It is not so easy to give a positive

answer to these questions as might be supposed. According

to the generally received account, James had by this time

found out Perkin to be an impostor, and was willing to make

peace with England, but felt that he could not in honour give

up to his enemies one whom he had entertained as a guest and

made his own kinsman by marriage; so that finally he dismissed

him honourably. But it is certain that he did not act like one

who showed much inclination for peace when he sent Warbeck

away; for he immediately afterwards went and laid siege to

Norham, and it was not till the end of September that peace

was established between the two countries by the treaty of

Ayton. The state of war, in short, still continued between the

two countries, and James meant to keep it up—for the present

at least. On the other hand, we may well believe that Ayala's

persuasions to peace were not altogether without influence on

James's mind; also that Warbeck had fallen considerably in

his estimation since the raid, and that he felt whether war or

peace was to ensue it would be a relief to get rid of an

unprofitable guest when he could do so with honour. Ayala,

moreover, if we may believe the Spanish historian Zurita, had

been addressing arguments to Warbeck himself which made

the young man rather glad to leave—telling him that peace

was certain to be made ere long, and that his delivery would

assuredly be insisted on by the English king as one of its

essential conditions

. If so, it was not unlikely at his own

request that Perkin was sent away

; and Zurita further states

Zurita, Anales de la Corona de Aragon, v. 133 b.

Trevisan, the Venetian Ambassador in England, says that he quitted

Scotland on hearing of the proposed treaty of peace. Venetian Calendar,

i. No. 755.

318 PERKIN WARBECK.

that Ayala interceded with James for the payment of the

pension he had assigned to him at the usual terms. The

amount was ^112 a month—Scotch money, of course, but

not far, perhaps, from the value of the same amount in sterling

money now. And a month's payment in advance was actually

made to him on the 27th June

, not much more than a week

before his embarkation. Still, it must be confessed, this was

no very magnificent allowance for a supposed prince.

As a matter of fact we know that Warbeck sailed to Ireland

and landed again there. But it may have been, if not his own

plan—which there is some reason to think it was not—yet the

plan of James that he should sail direct to England, perhaps

to Cornwall, as he afterwards did, trusting for support to the

disaffected population there. And this view is probably the

best explanation of a letter written by James, some years after

the time of which we are at present speaking, to Anne of

Brittany, Queen of France, in answer to a complaint by one

Guy Foulcart. Foulcart appears to have been a merchant of

Brittany; for he is spoken of as the subject, not of Louis XII.,

King of France, but of his consort Anne, who was Duchess of

Brittany. He had sustained some losses and injuries, and

considered that he had a claim against James IV. for com-

pensation; for James, he said, had on a former occasion

compelled him to convey the Duke of York into England in

a merchant vessel in which he himself had come to Scotland,

but the enterprise had turned out disastrous to him. He was

taken prisoner by the English, and having with some difficult)'

got released, he returned home with the entire loss of his

goods, and was compelled besides to pay a heavy fine to his

partner for the miscarriage of the enterprise. In answer to

this claim the Scotch king says that Foulcart was supplied by

him with money, and embarked in the enterprise, not under

compulsion as he pretended, but with perfect good-will; that

Letters,

&=c,

ii. 331.

TO LAND IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 319

he had, it was true, given him letters by which he might make

a pretence of compulsion to.shield himself from injury, but

that in reality Foulcart had readily undertaken the venture

on his own responsibility; that, besides, the old alliance of

Scotland with France and Brittany allowed either power to

make use of the ships and sailors of the other for a reasonable

hire;

and that it was everywhere received for law that princes

might make such use of vessels that had been driven on their

coasts. Moreover, James insisted, it was quite competent for

Foulcart to have sued for redress in Scotland, which would

never have been denied him according to law and justice

It thus appears that Warbeck sailed from Scotland in a

Breton vessel hired by James for the very purpose, and that

the Captain was instructed to land him in England, which he

ultimately did, though he landed him in Ireland first. War at

sea could not have been contemplated; the Bartons and their

ship only accompanied the Breton for protection; and even

in the event of capture by the English, Foulcart had hoped

to save his ship and goods by pleading that he had acted

under compulsion in taking the Pretender along with him.

It was not a war vessel, and Perkin went on board accom-

panied by his wife and children, for it appears that already he

had more than one child

; so that the presumption is, his

marriage took place almost immediately after his arrival in

Scotland in November, 1495.

Moreover the letter above referred to would naturally lead

us to suppose that a landing in Ireland was not contemplated

at the time Warbeck sailed from Ayr. And this was probably

the case so far as James was concerned, though as we have

hinted, Warbeck seems to have had different views

. What is

Letters,

&>c,

Richard III. and Henry VII. ii. 185, 186.

Memorials of Henry VII., 70; Venetian Calendar, i. No. 755.

The letter states that James in hiring the vessel made a compact with

Foulcart, ' ut ducem Anglo littori dumtaxat redderet.' The use of the

word dumtaxat here is curious, as it is not necessary to the line of argument