Ashton, a ringleader in the Marian Conspiracy directed at “Bloody Mary” Tudor, was one of eight hundred men to flee England after the plot failed. Although there is no record of a pardon on the accession of Elizabeth I, he is thought to have slipped back into England and avoided attention by living in obscurity. There is a tradition that he was buried at Fyfield with Lady Catherine, but the date of his death is unknown.
In her will, Catherine describes Christopher Ashton as her “most intierlist2,3 beloved husband” and her third husband, Matthew Cradock, as her “dear and well-beloved” husband. Sir Matthew’s will evinces a high regard for his wife, whom he named as his executrix. It also suggests a coolness in his relationship with his daughter. That Catherine didn’t stay in Wales as she and Matthew had planned, and that she wasn’t buried there, shows a change of heart that came abruptly after his death. The reason has to lie with the Herbert family. Matthew’s grandson, George Herbert, enjoyed a violent reputation, and George’s grandmother Edith Mansell met with foul play. Catherine had problems with her Welsh inheritance, and since her stepgrandson was the ultimate beneficiary of her estate, she may have feared for her own life. In later years, Christopher Ashton is known to have harbored antipathy for Sir Matthew’s younger grandson, William Herbert, who, unlike his brother, survived his violent childhood to become Earl of Pembroke later in life. This may have stemmed from what Ashton learned about them from Catherine.
Little is known about James Strangeways, Catherine’s second husband. In her will, she describes herself in less than endearing terms as his “some tyme wife.” Twenty years after his death, when she herself died, she was still engaged in litigation with his relative, Giles Strangeways, and still trying to pay off his debts.
It is not known whether Catherine was ever reunited with her child, but certain clues suggest this was the case. The Perkins of Reynoldston and Rhossili-Gellis traced their descent back to the Pretender. If they knew their ancestry in the nineteenth century, they must have known it in the sixteenth. In a curious coincidence, Catherine settled ten miles away in Swansea. Such a remarkable coincidence cannot be insignificant.
Readers may be aware that Lady Catherine Gordon’s maternal descent is disputed, and historians are divided as to whether her mother was Huntly’s second wife, Princess Annabella Stewart, or Elizabeth Hay, his third. I have elected to choose Princess Annabella, daughter of James I, over Elizabeth Hay, who was descended from two daughters of Robert the Bruce.
A question to be addressed concerns Catherine’s marriage to Richard. The reader should know that detractors of Prince Richard deny the idea of a prearranged marriage. They believe Catherine and Richard fell in love on sight, and married from lust. Other historians—those who believe “Perkin Warbeck” was the younger prince in the Tower—regard the marriage as prearranged by James IV before Prince Richard’s arrival in Scotland, as behooves a royal contract. They base this belief on three things: the fifteen ells of velvet James sent Catherine on the eve of Richard’s arrival in Scotland; the fact that no sooner was Richard in Scotland than he was married; and the fact that the subject of a marriage with some undetermined royal princess had already been raised while Richard was still in Burgundy.
There are, however, two considerations that do not entirely support either of these arguments: the situation of Catherine’s father, the Earl of Huntly, which suggests he would not have favored the alliance, and Richard’s love letter to Catherine that suggests he had met Catherine and was in love with her when he wrote it. Regarding Huntly, historian Ann Wroe states:Huntly’s most famous son-in-law was to say, later, that Huntly had believed him to be Richard, Duke of York. The aged earl was in James’s privy council, and had therefore heard Richard’s heart-rending account of his life. Yet marriage was essentially a business and financial contract, made without emotion, especially by the brides’ fathers, and there was little in a marriage to Prince Richard of England to secure—let alone advance—Catherine’s position. Her husband-to-be was an exile and a wanderer. His kingdom was a dream, and his only income was the money James allowed him . . . He in turn offered nothing but his titles (on paper), and himself, the perfect image of a prince. From Huntly’s point of view there was nothing solid to be gained from this alliance, and everything to lose.3
Richard’s love letter to Catherine in which he calls her “the most beautiful ornament of Scotland” is preserved in the archives of Spain. As his biographer notes, this was “a work of maturity, passion and independence” that stands in sharp contrast to the love letters between Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon with their stilted expressions and their sense of hovering parents. Richard’s love letter expresses a prince’s desires, but is couched in the language of the heart. According to Wroe, if Richard hadn’t already met Catherine when he wrote it, he had “dreamed her to distraction.”4
Between these two positions in support of, or against, a prearranged match, lies a third that could explain the apparent conflicts in the evidence. The marriage may have been prearranged, but final approval was withheld until Richard came to Scotland. King James played Cupid, but there was to be no coercion. He gave his consent in principle before Richard left Burgundy, and arranged the meeting between Catherine and Richard on the understanding that his royal approval would be granted if his council found merit in the Pretender’s claim to be the Duke of York, and if Catherine herself desired the marriage. Huntly may have complied with the same understanding. When Richard and Catherine met, they fell in love at first sight. This would explain the emotional intensity of Richard’s love letter, their speedy marriage, and their life-long devotion to one another; all without compromising the Pretender’s claim to be the true prince, Richard of York.
Regarding the Pretender’s claim: Was the so-called “Perkin Warbeck” the younger prince in the Tower, or not? Volumes have been written on the subject and a select bibliography is provided for those interested in pursuing the subject further.5 Pale Rose of England presents the Pretender’s case, but in this note I wish to address some points in more depth and highlight a few considerations not raised in the story, or missed in the historical texts, or not enhanced by them.
At this great distance in time, there can be no definitive answer to the mystery of the survival of the princes. My research and review of the facts and the inconsistencies surrounding the Pretender have convinced me that he was the lost prince in the Tower. Francis Bacon, writing in the 1620s, expressed the general bewilderment of his contemporaries, and called the case of the Pretender “one of the strangest examples of a personation that ever was.” 6
The official narrative of the Pretender given under torture contains many elements applicable to the life of the real prince, Richard, Duke of York. The two worlds of the Pretender, so far apart, should never have touched, yet they did, time and again. Here is a child who resembled King Edward IV and bore the marks of Plantagenet royalty in his strangely defective eye and drooping eyelid; whose name meant “real” and “orphan”7; who was of no known address or clear parentage; who moved all over Europe, always in the company of English people (to explain his fluency in the English language); and who lived for a time in Portugal, somehow managing to attach himself to the wife of one of Edward IV and Richard III’s most loyal retainers—the Portuguese Jew, Duarte Brandeo, known as Sir Edward Brampton. Even Edward IV makes an appearance in “Perkin’s” tale, acting as his godfather.8 Both princes are linked by a common thread of wandering, jeopardy, and sorrow.
That Henry VII allowed Brampton to be named in “Perkin’s” confession is evidence that this information was well known, could not be suppressed, and therefore had to be explained away. In order to denigrate the connection to Edward IV’s loyal retainer, Brampton’s wife was substituted as the contact, but the tale is startling nevertheless. The child, whoever he was, went to Portugal in the company of Sir Edward Brampton’s wife in 1487, after the Battle of Stoke and the failure of the rebellion against Henry VII led by John de la Pole, Earl of
Suffolk—a most curious coincidence at the very least. At the time, Bruges was infested with plague and seething with political unrest and would not have provided safe refuge for a fugitive prince.
According to Brampton’s testimony given in 1496 to Henry Tudor’s man in Portugal, he didn’t wish to keep the boy, for he had nothing to offer except a talent for music. This talent was so extraordinary that, in later years, it drove John Skelton to a fever pitch of jealousy. Most remarkably, this talent for music was shared by the younger prince in the Tower and noted by a variety of observers who had met King Edward’s younger son.9 It is also a talent that seems to have run in the family, since Elizabeth of York was musically gifted.
As noted by a chronicler unfriendly to the Yorkist cause, the Pretender passed as Prince Richard for a very long time, and without a mistake, deceiving everyone.10 The probability that a false prince could be found who not only resembled Edward IV and bore the marks of Plantagenet royalty, but could play the part of a prince with aplomb, and who also shared with the younger prince in the Tower a talent for music, is so small that it surely deserves little credence.
In the account of his life given before his capture, the Pretender said that he hid in various countries with two men who were sent to guard and govern him. These guards disappeared from his life when one died and the other was sent back to his own country (suggesting that this man was not English). As noted by Wroe, Brampton received a reward from Richard III in 1484 for services rendered. A similar reward on the same day was also given to Christopher Coleyns, Esquire. He, like Brampton, had been a gentleman usher to King Edward IV, and was also a seaman who would know how to get goods—or a child—out of London. Like Brampton, he was granted a pardon by Henry VII, but disappeared from the historical record, perhaps owing to his death. Meanwhile, Brampton returned to his own country, Portugal.11
One striking feature of the Pretender’s life is the loose connection between him and his family in Tournai. The Pretender’s confession is riddled with errors in family names, occupations, and general information, as if it had been a memorized account, and neither the Pretender nor the Werbecques exhibited any great affection or concern for one another such as would be expected from a family in these circumstances. “Perkin’s” letter to his mother written in captivity is notable for its stiff courtesy and lack of feeling. Furthermore, and most curiously, Henry’s obsessive spy-work never established, to anyone’s satisfaction, including Henry’s own, that “Perkin Warbeck” was the son of the boatman, Jehan Werbecque, or even that Jehan Werbecque had a son named Perkin.12 There is no record or evidence of his birth except a reference that was drawn up after his death that said his parents were poor and suggested they were unknown. The child, “Perrequin,” simply appeared in Tournai at the age of ten, was soon sent away to fend largely for himself, and never returned.13 His parents weren’t interested in him and seemed to play no part in his upbringing.14 To explain the loose family bonds, some surmised that the Werbecques had played foster parents to a fugitive prince.15
Among the many inconsistencies in the tale of “Perkin Warbeck” is Henry VII’s own ambiguity about the Pretender. The Pretender was someone whose real name and real parents the best labors of Henry’s spies could never quite uncover. The city of Tournai never claimed him, and Henry never asked for confirmation.16 As Henry noted himself, nothing explained the endurance of the Pretender’s reputation as the true prince or the unwavering support of the great names that backed him, such as James IV of Scotland; Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy; Maximilian, King of the Romans; Philip the Handsome, King of Castille; and Charles VIII, King of France. Both he and his backers seemed to feel themselves under an obligation to one another that had not been invented and that the confession did not change.17
Henry VII lived in terror of the reappearance of the younger prince in the Tower, suggesting that he knew both princes had not perished. Sir Thomas More admits, “Some remain yet in doubt whether they were in (Richard III’s) days destroyed or no.”18 Polydore Vergil, Henry’s own historian, records, “It is generally reported and believed that the sons of Edward IV were still alive, having been conveyed secretly away and obscurely hidden in some distant region.” Francis Bacon, another faithful Tudor supporter, also records these doubts regarding the death of the princes: “It was still whispered everywhere, that at least one of the children of Edward the Fourth was living.”19
Today’s informed reader may point to the bones that were found at the foot of the Tower stairs and put into an urn at Westminster as proof of the murder of the two princes. It should be borne in mind, however, that there has been a human presence at the Tower of London for over two thousand years and finding skeletal remains is neither surprising nor uncommon. The bones in the urn could date from Roman times, or they could be female. Until a DNA study is conducted, they can be given no validity. The 1934 forensic examination was flawed and didn’t even check for gender.20
The subject of “Perkin Warbeck” is fraught with controversy in England, where he tends to be dismissed as a fraud, so much so that Ann Wroe’s biography The Perfect Prince was entitled Perkin: A Story of Deception for the UK market. Yet Wroe states that no explanation or piece of evidence offered up by Henry and his spies could explain who “Perkin” was, and Henry knew it.21 Many contemporaries of the Pretender agreed. The poet and chronicler Jean Molinet found his English, his manners, and his knowledge of the Yorkist court formidable.22
Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, also believed in the Pretender. In the preface to her novel The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, A Romance, she states:It is not singular that I should entertain a belief that Perkin was, in reality, the lost Duke of York. For in spite of Hume, and the later historians who have followed in his path, no person who has studied the subject but arrives at the same conclusion. Records exist at the Tower, some well known, others with which those who have access to those interesting papers are alone acquainted, which put the question almost beyond a doubt. This is not the place for a discussion of the question. The principal thing that I should wish to be impressed on my reader’s mind is, that whether my hero was or was not an imposter, he was believed to be the true man by his contemporaries.23
Mary Shelley’s novel covers the fugitive prince’s story until his arrival on the shores of England. Pale Rose of England picks up the tale from there. To my knowledge, Pale Rose of England is the first fictional exploration of Lady Catherine Gordon’s four marriages. Along with Mary Shelley and some professional historians and scholars, I believe that Richard III did not murder his nephews; that he did indeed send the younger prince abroad for safety; that the child survived to adulthood and that the so-called “Perkin Warbeck” was this prince, the son of King Edward IV. The Rose of York: Fall from Grace gives the scenario for how his survival may have been accomplished using a page-boy substitution for the younger prince in the Tower.24 English novelist Philippa Gregory, who holds a doctorate in history, agrees and comes to a similar conclusion in her novel, The White Queen. She explains her reasons:Then there is the historical evidence. A very interesting book by Ann Wroe, Perkin, suggested to me that the so-called pretender Perkin Warbeck might well have been the surviving prince, Richard. Her case for it is very compelling, as others have suggested too. There is other persuasive evidence that both boys were not killed as the traditional history (and Shakespeare) suggests. Even the traditional history—of them being suffocated in their beds in the Tower and buried beneath a stair—is filled with contradictions. If Perkin was Richard—and this is speculative history, as indeed all history around this genuine mystery must be—then Richard must have somehow survived.25
That Henry VII believed the Pretender was genuine seems to be the case. As late as September 1497, he still referred to him as the Duke of York.26 He would not give him up even for the astounding terms offered by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian, which included renouncing—in perpetuity—for himself and “his cousin of York, and all their heirs and successors
” all rights in the kingdom of England. Although plagued by massive financial troubles, Maximilian offered enormous riches to anyone close to Henry VII who could persuade Henry to surrender the Pretender. When these efforts failed, Maximilian hoped to launch an invasion of England to free him. He abandoned his plans only when civil war broke out in his own kingdom.
In spite of these threats and offers, Henry VII would not relinquish the Pretender, even when the Pretender, broken, beaten, and exposed as a coward, no longer posed any viable threat to him. Nor would Maximilian abandon his efforts to gain the Pretender’s release long after he could gain any political advantage for himself, and even at his great personal expense.
Fearing a second generation from the Pretender, Henry did not allow him to sleep with his wife. The Pretender’s escape from the Tower caused Henry genuine distress, and on his recapture, he engaged in a strange drama of sending him to “Purgatory” for two days, and delivering him to “Hell” on the third.
In reference to the Pretender’s escape, it is interesting to note that he chose to escape from the Tower.27 This may have been due to the proximity of that fortress to the sea, but if he were the true prince, it may have owed more to the psychological terrors that the Tower held for him.28 In the end, the Tower proved to be the Pretender’s “Hell” in many ways, not least of which was the punishment he suffered within its walls. The idea of castration as set out in this novel is profoundly repulsive, but not gratuitous. I was driven to suggest it for several reasons.
Castration was a horrific punishment commonly practiced in ancient times against the captured enemy, and Henry VII would have been aware of this. Given the vengeful nature of the Tudor monarchs, it would have provided a fitting end to the little drama of “Hell” that Henry VII devised for the captive who was his rival both in love and war. Whether or not Henry castrated the Pretender can never be known, but Henry VII’s agony of mind during the Pretender’s escape from the Tower was noted at the time. The disfigurement mentioned by the Spanish ambassador and the ambassador’s shock that anyone could change so dramatically in so short a time also suggests some great violence. Henry’s fear of the Pretender politically led him to break the bones of his face so he would not resemble his father when he was brought out for execution. In the same vein, his need to eliminate the danger of a second generation in the event of a future escape, and his jealousy of the Pretender’s claim on Lady Catherine’s affections, might have driven him to complete the Pretender’s “Hell” in this manner. Another frightful consideration is that here might lay the reason why the Pretender was not eviscerated alive. To do so would have meant exposing his private parts to the view of the crowd and raising questions Henry VII preferred to leave dormant, such as why a king would need to castrate a boatman’s son when the fraud Lambert Simnell was permitted to lead a normal life.
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