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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32O PERKIN WARBECK.

certain is that he reached Cork on the 26th July and apparently

remained in Ireland a month or more, for he only landed in

Cornwall on the 7 th September. Yet it is more than probable

that when he reached the haven of Cork he even there had it

in his mind to cross and land in Cornwall; for the citizens of

Waterford wrote to the king on the 1st August both of his

arrival at Cork and of his intention to sail to Cornwall, and

the king received the intelligence at Woodstock on the 6th

a full month before the date of Warbeck's actual landing in

Whitesand Bay. Thus it would seem to be beyond a doubt

that the messages from the disaffected population of Cornwall

by which he was induced to direct his course thither

did not

find him in Ireland, as Polydore Virgil says they did, but must

have reached him in Scotland before he set sail. There was

no time for him to have received any messages from them in

Ireland before the 1st August, unless they had known before-

hand that he was going to land there.

But our Spanish authority, Zurita, gives a very perplexing

account of Warbeck's adventures, which certainly looks quite

incompatible with all this. He tells us that Warbeck had

actually arranged with Ayala before sailing that he would

go,

not to England, but to Ireland in a fishing smack of

Spain and send from thence for a safe conduct to the King

Catholic; that the vessel ran aground and was wrecked on

the coast of Ireland; that he and some of his followers

landed—among them a young Spanish knight named Don

Pedro de Guevara; and that they crossed the mountains in

disguise to avoid detection and reached a small seaport where

three Spanish ships were ready for them, the place and date of

actually adopted, but looks as if the writer had also intended to bring

forward the consideration that Foulcart broke the contract by going to

Ireland first. If this was so, it was Warbeck who persuaded him to do so,

for reasons which we shall see presently.

» Calendar of Carew MSS., Book of' Howth, 468.

Rolls of Parl., vi. 545.

SOME DOUBTFUL POINTS. 321

Warbeck's embarkation for Spain having been arranged before-

hand with Ayala. The Captain of the little fleet, it is added,

was a Spaniard belonging to the neighbourhood of

San

Sebastian,

and carried the false duke and his wife and family over into

Cornwall

There is evidently some confusion here in which it is not

easy to see our way. Almost every statement seems to be in

contradiction to better established facts; but we cannot suppose

that the story is a pure invention. The Spanish historian,

of course, collected his information after date and probably

mistook the order of occurrences. That which looks not

improbable is that Warbeck made a secret compact with

Ayala to go to Ireland first, and that Ayala had planned to

have vessels ready at some Irish port by a particular day for

his deportation to Spain. It is also not improbable that the

young man himself would have liked this better than being

landed in England to renew civil war, with an absolute

certainty of falling ere long into the King of England's hands.

But as to the shipwreck and the crossing of the mountains,

what are we to say

It would appear not only from Foulcart's

letter but from other evidences that even if he did not go in

the Breton vessel which James had procured for him, it at

least accompanied him to Cornwall. Moreover there was

scarcely time for a shipwreck and adventures of the sort

described in the fortnight or so between his leaving Ayr

and arrival in Cork harbour.

But adventures of some kind no doubt occurred between

his appearance in Cork harbour and his landing in Cornwall;

and it is here that we could wish for a little more light. The

only narrative that seems to supply the gap is unfortunately

quite as confused as that of Zurita; but it is at least founded

upon local information. A description given in a Lambeth

MS.

of Warbeck's Siege of Waterford in 1495 mixes up

with that story some events which occurred in 1497 ; and it

Zurita, v. 133 b, 134.

See Carew Calendar, Miscellaneous, 472.

G. 21

322 PERK.IN WARBECK.

is certainly curious that Warbeck should have appeared in

Southern Irish ports in both these years, exactly at the same

time of the year, almost to a day. The Lambeth MS. says

that the citizens of Waterford (in 1495) pursued Perkin "with

four vessels well manned to the city of Cork, where he was

received at the gates of the said City by one Walters, then

mayor, and by him privily kept till he perceived the Citizens

of Waterford to arrive in the haven of Cork in pursuit of the

said rebel. The said Walters conveyed the said Perkin by

night out of the said City in a small bark, and so went to sea

towards Kinsale. And the said ships of Waterford, perceiving

the false dealing of the said Walters, in that order pursued the

said Perkin to Leprous Island, near Kinsale, from whence he

departed privily in a Spanish bark, and landed him in Cornwall

in England, where the said four ships pursued him immediately

upon his landing."

Such are the very words of the Lambeth MS., from which

it would appear that all this happened just after the siege of

Waterford in 1495. And it is quite true that in that year

John Walters—or John a Water, as English Chronicles call

him—was mayor of Cork, having been elected in 1494 and

entered on office at Michaelmas

. But he was not mayor in

1497,

which was certainly the year of the pursuit to Cornwall,

if not of the previous pursuits to Cork and Kinsale; so the

words 'then mayor' may be a mistake as regards the events

recorded. But at what precise point does the writer pass from

the events of 1495 to those of 1497 ?

I am rather inclined to think that the first part of the

story, viz., the pursuit of Perkin to Cork by the men of

Waterford and his reception by Walters ' then mayor,' really

does belong to 1495, when Walters actually was mayor

. But

Smith's Ancient and Present State of Cork, i. 429.

Smith and Ryland, the local historians, both date the siege of Waterford

in 1497; but they know of only one visit of Perkin Warbeck to Ireland and

mix up the two accounts.

SOME DOUBTFUL POINTS. 323

as Warbeck sailed direct to Cork in 1497 (where he would

naturally reckon still on Walter's friendship), and as there is

no doubt the men of Waterford did their best in that year also

to take him prisoner (their loyalty quickened by the promise

of a reward of 1000 marks for his capture

) I am disposed to

place the escape to Kinsale with the rest of the story in the

latter year. In 1495, when he was beaten off from Waterford,

Perkin might very well have gone to Cork and been received

openly by the mayor. He had come to Ireland with eleven

ships,

though he lost more than one of them at Waterford, and

he was supported by the Earl of Desmond. But in 1497

he came apparently with only one ship besides his own—

that of the Bartons

, and Desmond, who had made his peace

with Henry, supported him no longer. Walters would therefore

have to smuggle his friend by night out of Cork into Kinsale;

and we may take it as true that it was from Kinsale, or Leprous

Island, that he sailed away ' privily' for Cornwall ' in a Spanish

bark' hotly pursued by four ships of Waterford. Here, more-

over, as to the Spanish bark, the tale is confirmed by Zurita.

As to the shipwreck story of the Spanish historian it is

probably misplaced in a like manner, only the opposite way.

It would help to fill up the gap in the record in 1495 between

August, when Perkin was beaten away from Waterford, and

November, when he appeared in Scotland. And this year

seems all the more probable as one of the shipwrecked

companions is stated to have been Don Pedro de Guevara,

who with two of his brothers had been in the service of the

King of the Romans and the Archduke Philip, but had been

handed over by them to that of Warbeck. So that it would

seem he came with Warbeck out of Flanders; and it was

probably another vessel of that ill-fated fleet which Maximilian

Carew Calendar, Miscellaneous, 468.

Indeed it is only a presumption, and perhaps not a very safe one, that

the Bartons reached Cork harbour along with him. They must have

deserted him some time or other, before he sailed for Cornwall.

21—2

324 PERKIN WARBECK.

had given him that ran ashore on the Irish coast. Add to this

that in 1497 a wife and at least two babes accompanied

Warbeck, and it is not conceivable that these crossed the

mountains along with him'.

And now let us continue the story of 1497. If we are right

that it was in that year that Perkin escaped from Cork to

Kinsale we are at no loss to account for the way he spent

the month of August. He was certainly a fugitive, lurking

about and seeking refuge somewhere until he found an oppor-

tunity to break away again and cross the Channel. It appears

that he had been invited to land in Ireland by the turbulent

Sir James Ormond, who was killed in this very year in a quarrel

with Sir Piers Butler

; but when he reached Cork harbour he

must have found all hope of support from any Irish chieftain

blighted. Kildare had been recently reappointed as Lord

Deputy and was doing his best for the king. Even Desmond was

loyal

, and Sir James Ormond had already met with his end

The adventurer had clearly made a mistake in revisiting

Ireland this time and he was glad to get away when he could.

Indeed, as the king reported shortly afterwards to Sir Gilbert

To this might be added even another argument for assigning the

incident to 1495 rather than to 1497- The shipwrecked friends after crossing

the mountains are said to have reached a small seaport, and sailed from

thence to Cornwall. Neither Cork nor Kinsale could properly be called a

small seaport (un

pequefto

puerfo demar); but a shipwrecked party in 1495

might very well have reached a small seaport from which they sailed, not to

Cornwall but to Scotland.

Letters, &>c, ii.

Pref.,

pp. xl.-xlii.; Graves and Prim's Hist, of

St Canice Cathedral, 193.

He and other Munster chieftains had just received pardons from the

king; also the Archbishop of Cashel with some of his suffragans, especially

the bishops of Cork and Waterford. The king had also of late confirmed

and amplified the liberties of the town of Youghal—an important seaport.

Thus the loyalty of the South of Ireland seems by this time to have been

well established. Ware's Annales, p. 59 (ed. 1658).

He was killed on 17 July (16th of the kalends of August). Annals of

the Four Masters, iv. 1240.

ESCAPES FROM IRELAND. 32$

Talbot, he would have been taken by Kildare and Desmond

if he and his wife had not secretly stolen away

. But the

citizens of Waterford, learning his intentions, gave notice to

the king that he was going to land in Cornwall, and fitting

out vessels at their own cost, gave him chase and nearly

captured him at sea.

Warbeck crossed the Channel 'with two small ships and

a Breton pinnace.' So Henry states in his letter to Sir

Gilbert Talbot above referred to. From Foulcart's allegations

we should naturally suppose that it was in his vessel that

Perkin himself made the passage, and the inference is easy

that it was his vessel that the king spoke of as 'a Breton

pinnace.' The designation may be taken to imply that it

was a still smaller vessel than the other two, attendant upon

them. And certainly there is nothing in the accounts of her

fitting out in Scotland to make us question King Henry's

statement in the letter just referred to that Perkin and his

wife were 'set full poorly to the sea by the King of Scots.'

But though it is possible to conceive that he may have

remained in the vessel in which he had come all the way

from Ayr, and in which, according to our supposition he

had been smuggled from Cork harbour to Kinsale, the fact

seems to be that he landed for a time on Irish soil—for this

also is stated in Henry's letter to Sir Gilbert—and all other

accounts say that he crossed to Cornwall in a Spanish vessel

Both the other vessels, in fact, were Spaniards, but they could

hardly, I think, have been the ships engaged beforehand by

Ayala—these would not have gone to the English coast at

all—they must have been engaged for him by Walters or

Ellis's Letters, First Series, i. 32.

Moreover, as pointed out by Busch (England under the Tudors,

Vol. I., Appendix, Note 12 to Ch. III.) there is a general agreement as

to the number of vessels which conducted him being three. Hall alone

says four, but doubtless by a mistaken reading of a Roman numeral, and he

has been followed by Grafton and Holinshed.

326 PERKIN WARBECK.

some other Irish friend as mere merchant ships on a plausible

mercantile errand

indeed, for aught we know, they may have

been freighted to Bristol, though they certainly had a sus-

picious number of men on board.

Perkin, in fact, lay hid while these Biscayan vessels were

pursued, and one of them at least was actually boarded, most

probably by one of the ships sent from Waterford. The

commander of the pursuing squadron called the captain and

crew of the Spanish vessel before him and demanded the

fugitive in the name of the alliance between Spain and

England, which he said was now confirmed by the marriage,

already celebrated by proxy, of Arthur Prince of Wales with

Katharine of Arragon. He further showed them letters signed

by the king containing the offer of 2000 nobles (or 1000 marks)

for Perkin's capture, which, if he were indeed on board, they

would earn by his surrender. But captain and crew swore they

had never heard of such a man, while Perkin all the while was

hidden in a barrel in the hold of the ship

. Did the captain

really believe in the impostor and think the game would pay

Or was it a high Spanish sense of honour that forbade him and

his men to yield to sordid motives? They had to sue for

pardon of their own Sovereigns later; which, it is to be hoped,

was the more easily granted as they had lost a thousand marks

by their chivalry.

The remainder of Perkin's history is better known than his

preceding adventures, and need not be related with so much

detail. On the 7th September he landed at Whitesand Bay

near the Land's End, with about 100 or 120 men*. But the

country people, unarmed though they were, joined them with

enthusiasm, and by the time he reached Bodmin his following

was believed to have increased to 3000 or 4000. There he

proclaimed himself King Richard the Fourth, as he had done

Bergenroth, i. p. 186. The Spanish is: "escondido en la corra (fit.

corva?) de la nao en una pipa."

Rotuli Parliament, vi. 545;

MS.

Cott. Vitell. A., xvi. f. 166.

IN THE WEST OF ENGLAND. 327

before in Northumberland. He and his rustic company came

on to Exeter, where, on the 17 th, they assaulted the North and

East gates of the city, but the citizens drove them off with the

aid of the Earl of Devonshire. Next day, although they set

fire to the gates, they were repulsed again, and withdrawing

went on to Taunton. There on the 20th they were said to

have mustered 8000 men, 'howbeit they were poor and naked,'

as an old chronicle reports, ' naked' being understood to mean

unarmed. Disciplined forces under Lord Daubeney, the Lord

Chamberlain, were hasting to meet them from the king, followed

by the king

himself,

the Duke of Buckingham (a young man of

great courage and ability) and some of the best knights and

warriors of the land. The king at the same time sent Lord

Willoughby de Broke, the lord steward, to secure the seaports,

to prevent the adventurer escaping abroad once more. At

Taunton Perkin's courage failed him, for Lord Daubeney's

forces were at Glastonbury, scarce twenty miles off. On

Thursday the 21st at midnight he stole away from his men

with sixty followers on horseback

, who must have been, in

fact, his principal captains, leaving the host entirely without

leaders.

When the news of his escape reached Lord Daubeney he

despatched at once 500 spears in pursuit of him; but they

were successful only in arresting his mounted captains. Perkin

himself succeeded in reaching the sanctuary of Beaulieu in

So the MS. City Chronicle, Vitellius A., xvi. (f. 166 b.) distinctly

says;

and though at first it seems strange that so large a number—no doubt

all the mounted men in his host, should have joined him in a night escapade,

the statement becomes intelligible in the light of what Polydore and Hall

tell us, that Perkin saved himself in Sanctuary, but that his captains who

also took flight, were caught and brought to the king. Hall, indeed,

modifies somewhat Polydore's statement: 'at non item ejus duces, qui in

fuga capti ad regem ducuntur;' his version being only that ' the most part

of them were apprehended,' &c. Apparently Perkin and his captains first

deserted the host and then Perkin deserted his captains. Not exactly what

we should have expected of a true Plantagenet!

328 PERKIN WARBECK.

Hampshire, where he and three worthy Councillors' registered

themselves as sanctuary men and claimed the benefit of

asylum.

Some of the king's household, soon after, happened to

reach Beaulieu, and Perkin and his friends, feeling their case

desperate, begged them to intercede with the king for them.

Perkin promised that if he were assured of his life he would

go to the king and make a full confession as to who he was.

The king's servants advised them to depart without making

any conditions and throw themselves upon the king's mercy;

and this they agreed to do. Perkin accordingly went to the

king and made his humble submission to him at Taunton,

declaring his real name to be Piers Osbeck, or Warbeck, of

Their names were John Heron, Edward Skelton, and Nicholas

Astelay. The first was a bankrupt London merchant who had fled the

city for debt, the third was a scrivener. It is curious that the Vitellius MS.

speaks of their arrival at 'Bewdeley' (meaning Beaulieu), and their being

registered there as sanctuary men, but says not a word about Perkin's

arrival there, although it mentions his flight. And this is the more

perplexing because it says they arrived on the Friday (i.e. the 22nd Sept.)

just after Perkin's escape, which letters written at the time say took place

on Thursday night (Ellis's Letters, First Series, i. 37, 38); whereas this MS.

says the host mustered at Taunton on Wednesday (the 20th), 'and the night

following at midnight' Perkin fled. Apparently this chronicle dates his

flight at midnight between Wednesday and Thursday; and if his three

companions started with him (as indeed would appear by a letter of the

king to the city of Waterford, see Calendar of Carew MSS., Miscell., 468,

and Halliwell's Letters, i. 176), one would think they must all have required

to start then in order to reach such a distant point as Beaulieu on Friday.

We have referred on this subject to two letters printed by Ellis, which

are really different forms of the same circular, the text of the two being

identical except that the one letter is written in the king's name and begins

' Cousin,' the second is from the Bp of Bath, and begins ' My Lord,' and

contains one brief sentence more. The date of the king's letter 'from

Knaresburgh' is certainly due to a transcriber's error in the MS. (Dodsworth

MS.,

vol. i. in the Bodleian library) which is a mere modern copy. Both

letters must have been dated at Woodstock, though the one may have been

written on the 23rd and the other on the 25th as printed.

HIS SURRENDER. 329

Tournay, and who his father was

. The king then took him

on to Exeter and sent for his wife, whom he- had left at

St Michael's Mount. When she arrived Henry condoled

with her on having been the victim of a shameful fraud and

made her husband relate in her presence the whole story of

his imposture

. He then sent her up, honourably accompanied

with ladies, to his queen; and she seems to have been treated

well from that time forward

. She was brought to the queen,

who had just returned from Walsingham, on Saturday the

21st Oct

From Exeter Perkin wrote a very remarkable letter to his

mother, which has never till now seen the light, but of which

two copies in MS. have been discovered by Mr James Weale

in the Low Countries, the one at Courtray and the other at

Tournay

. To Mr Weale's kindness I am indebted for per-

mission to print this document, which it will be admitted must

be,

if genuine, the most absolute and conclusive proof of the

falsehood of Perkin's pretensions and the truth of his con-

fession :—

' Ma mere,—Tant humblement comme faire je puis, me recom-

mande a vous. Et vous plaise sgavoir que par fortune, soubz

couleur de une chose controuve"e, que certains Engletz me ont faict

faire et prendre supz moi que je estoie le filz du Roi Edouart

d'Engleterre, appelle" son second filz, Richart due d'Yorck, je me

trouve maintenant en tele perplexity que se vous ne me estes a

ceste heure bonne mere je suis taillie de estre en grand dangier et

inconvenient, a cause du nom que je ay a leur instance prins supz

moi,

et de l'entreprinse que je aye faicte. Et afin que entendez et

cognoissiez clerement que sui vostre

filz

et non aultre, il vous plaira

Carew Calendar, Miscell., 469.

Memorials of Henry VII, 73.

For her subsequent history see my note appended to the English

translation of Busch's England under the Tudors, vol. i. p. 440.

' Saturday before St Simon and Jude.' MS. Vitell. A., xvi. f. 168.

Courtray, Goethals MS. c. 4, s. 2, No. 13; and Tournay, MS.

Fief,

13,762, ch. 67.