by S B Chrimes
Henry VII, who clearly knew the basic facts of the impersonation and plot, and had identified Perkin Warbeck’s origins by July 1493,2 if not earlier, went to considerable lengths to scotch the threat of a Yorkist incursion based upon the Netherlands. First he sent envoys3 to remonstrate with the archduke, whose council eventually evaded the issue by dissociating the archduke but blandly disclaiming any power to interfere in Margaret’s affairs. Henry’s response to this subterfuge was sharp. He prohibited commercial intercourse with Flanders, banished Fleming merchants, recalled the Merchant Adventurers from Antwerp, and moved the Staple to Calais.4
Map 2 Southern Scotland
At about this time Warbeck sought to extend the threads of his web by writing to Isabella of Spain to invite her support,5 and in November 1493 he was taken by Albert, duke of Saxony, to Vienna to attend the funeral of Emperor Frederick III, and met Maximilian, who received him as rightful king of England. By the summer of 1494 Maximilian was back in the Low Countries with Warbeck, who now sported a white rose and the arms of Richard, prince of Wales.6 According to Charles VIII, now eager to depart on his expedition into Italy and anxious both to oblige and to embarrass Henry VII, Maximilian was preparing to render material assistance to Warbeck. Henry expressed his thanks to Charles VIII, professed to treat the matter of ‘le gar¸on’ lightly, and sought to make diplomatic hay by asserting that Maximilian’s secret objective was to sow dissension between England and France.1
Henry could at least profess in his exchanges with Charles VIII to discount the threat from the Netherlands, for he need not suppose that Maximilian would ever be able to muster sufficient resources to stage any formidable incursion; but he was not treating the plot light-heartedly on the home front. When he heard of Warbeck’s appearance at Cork, he had sent in December 1491 a small military force to Ireland,2 and had absolved the Irish from obedience to the deputy, the earl of Kildare, who was dismissed on 11 June 1492. The Irish problem continued to occupy him for some time, until eventually the mission of Sir Edward Poynings could be prepared and sent over in October 1494, with large consequences for Anglo-Irish history.3 In the meantime, in England, he struck at persons whom his agents and spies had informed him were implicated in the Yorkist plots.
The first crop of attainders relating to treasonable acts connected with the Warbeck conspiracy came in the parliament of 1495 (14 October to 21 December),1 but a number of the accused had previously been arrested and some executed. By far the most eminent of these was Sir William Stanley, the chamberlain, Henry VII’s step-uncle, and the man whose intervention at Bosworth had saved the day, who was tried for treason in Westminster Hall on 30 and 31 January, and beheaded on 16 February 1495. It is quite clear that as early as 14 March 1493 Stanley had entered into an agreement with Sir Robert Clifford to the effect that the latter would go abroad, which he did on 14 June, to communicate with Warbeck at the court of Margaret of Burgundy.2 At what stage Clifford informed the king of what was afoot is uncertain, but it was on his information that Stanley was arrested and tried. Clifford may have been in Henry VII’s service all along, and at any rate received a pardon and rewards for his part in shattering the conspiracy at home.
For there can be little doubt that the effective work of Henry’s agents, the sudden arrests of Yorkist malcontents, and their speedy trial and conviction, and the downfall of so powerful a personage and one so near the king as Sir William Stanley broke the plot before it had reached any overt point at home. The result was that when Warbeck made his attempt at landing at Deal on 3 July, it proved to be a fiasco. After entering into grandiose agreement with Margaret of Burgundy and Maximilian,3 and Margaret had written to the pope for support,4 Warbeck had at length been equipped with a small expedition, which had appeared off the Kentish coast; some of his forces landed near Deal, but failed to gain any local support, were quickly captured, killed or executed.5 Warbeck abandoned them to their fate, and set sail for Ireland. Some more names were added to the attainted in the parliament at the end of the year.6
In Ireland Warbeck received a welcome from the earl of Desmond, and an attack was made on the town of Waterford, which resisted stoutly for eleven days (23 July to 3 August), and was relieved by Sir Edward Poynings from Dublin. Making no progress, and with no visible prospects in Ireland, Warbeck finally decided to retire to Scotland, to seek aid and comfort from James IV,1 who received him at Stirling on 27 November 1495. Until July 1497 Warbeck found himself befriended by James IV, who not only extended every favour to him, perhaps even believed in him for a time at least, but also was certainly eager to use him as a means of injuring Henry VII, if he could. The explanation of James IV’s conduct can be found only in the previous history of Anglo-Scottish relations.
Relations between England and Scotland had taken a turn for the worse some six years before Henry VII came to the throne.2 A truce which had endured for thirteen years was broken in 1479 largely as a result of Louis XI’s intrigues, who sought to embarrass Edward IV by fomenting trouble on the Border. But Scotland itself was to be for many years embroiled by internal factions and bedevilled by the ambitious hostility of Alexander, duke of Albany, towards his brother, James III. Edward IV and Richard III both tried to take advantage of the situation by aiding Albany against the king, and Albany was able to dangle before them the prospect of the return to England of Berwick, which had been ceded to Scotland by Queen Margaret of Anjou as the price for assistance in 1461. James III himself, although a man of many good personal qualities and cultivated tastes, was somewhat ineffectual as a ruler, made many mistakes and was as little able to dominate his turbulent and violent relatives and magnates as Henry VI of England had been. Little impediment therefore confronted Albany and Richard, duke of Gloucester, whom Edward IV sent up to help the faction, and Richard was able to take Berwick, which has remained part of England ever since. Albany was enabled to secure the person of James III, and became the effective governor of Scotland in the king’s name.3 His extremism and obvious ambition, with Edward IV’s aid, to obtain the crown for himself, led to a reaction among a number of the malcontent barons, who rallied to James III, forcing Albany to come to terms with his brother, and obliging him to give up his offices. His flight to England in March 1483 brought no comfort, for Edward IV died on 9 April. Richard III could not afford adventures in Scotland, dropped Albany, and sought to improve relations with James III, and entered into negotiations for a truce, which was eventually agreed upon in September 1484, for three years.1 But in all the circumstances it is not surprising that James III should have favoured and welcomed Henry Tudor when the time came, and it is possible that a small Scottish contingent from France participated at Bosworth.2 But although relations between the two kings were cordial, tension between the two countries was not relaxed, for the opponents of the Scots king in Scotland did not scruple to threaten the Border territories,3 and renewed bitter struggles with James III. In this struggle, Henry VII did not remain neutral, as has sometimes been supposed. He maintained his agents in Scotland, who kept him fully informed of the course of events,4 entered into negotiations with James III, and made with him in June 1486 a treaty for a three-year truce.5 James III, it seems, would have liked to make a more permanent peace, but dared not avow his purpose publicly. Further negotiations were arranged, however, early in 1487, and even a threefold matrimonial alliance considered, whereby James III was to marry Edward IV’s widow, and his two sons, two of Queen Elizabeth’s sisters. Nothing, however, came of this startling project, partly at least because of the Scots parliament’s opposition to a marriage alliance which made no provision for the return of Berwick to Scotland. The most that could be achieved was an extension of the truce until 1 September 1489.6 But before that date was reached, the struggles between James III and his factious nobles reached a ferocious climax. In February 1485, James III’s son and heir was purloined by the opposition and made to serve its ends, and the culmination came with the battle of Sauchieburn, 11 June 1488, ending in James III�
��s defeat and murder.
For Henry VII these events were disastrous to his policy of patiently building up good relations with the Scottish government. He could show sympathy and give aid to some of James III’s faithful adherents, and by suitable distribution of pensions could secure the continued service of well-placed agents. He could, very soon, agree to a further truce for three years with James IV,7 still only fifteen years of age and badly shocked by the murder of his father and the unwitting part he had played in the plot which had so culminated. But it was not to be thought that the new king of Scots either would or could adopt the attitudes towards the English government which his father had favoured.
It is possible that James IV was apprised of a pro-Yorkist conspiracy, as early as November 1488, when he received a number of English visitors, at the request of Margaret of Burgundy,1 from whom he received letters in December ofthat year and in September 1489.2 In February 1490 he received a herald from Ireland,3 whom he sent on to Margaret. In the summer of 1491 he renewed a treaty with France, whereby he was to attack England if Henry VII made war on France.4 The truce he had made with Henry VII expired in October 1491, and its renewal was not ratified.5
In November of that year Perkin Warbeck had revealed himself in Ireland and sent his message to James IV in March 1492.6 But, thereafter Warbeck had repaired to the Court of Charles VIII until the Treaty of Ëtaples obliged him to travel elsewhere for some three years. In the circumstances James IV eventually succumbed to Henry VII’s prolonged blandishments and agreed to a formal truce from 3 November 1492 (the same date as the Treaty of Étaples was sealed) to 30 April 1494,7 still further extended for seven years, from June 1493.8 The immense trouble and expense undertaken by Henry VII’s envoys in the course of these prolonged negotiations indicates the gravity with which he viewed the possibility of an active alliance between James IV and the Warbeck plotters.
But the threat was not averted. By November 1495 Warbeck was in Scotland, had been acknowledged as Richard, duke of York, and by December had been given to wife James’s kinswoman Katherine Gordon, sister of the earl of Huntly – a match which would scarcely have been conceded unless James, for the moment at least, had not genuinely believed Warbeck was what he pretended to be.9
Henry VII, although now on the throne for ten years, found himself confronted with a situation of menacing possibilities. The presence of a potential Richard IV across the Border, backed by the unfriendly and calculating James IV, supported by Margaret of York and any pro-Yorkist malcontents who might show their hand in England, was not a prospect that he could view with equanimity. It not only endangered his government, but threatened the most cherished objective in his foreign policy - to conclude a marriage alliance between his son and heir and a daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who would not conclude any such proposal whilst a pretender could threaten Henry’s position and dynastic hopes, and who, moreover, at this time were anxious above all to get Henry into the Holy League as an additional means of tarnishing Charles VIII’s triumphs in Italy. Much depended upon the outcome of Henry’s handling of the situation, and international interest in the unfolding of the drama was acute. No one could at first predict that the drama would soon turn out to be a farce.
Henry VII lost no time in preparing to resist invasion, but at the same time commissioned his ablest diplomatic negotiator, Richard Fox, strategically located at this time in the episcopal see of Durham, to treat for a marriage alliance between James IV and his daughter Margaret.1 Other diplomatic commissions were issued and even a scheme to kidnap Warbeck was apparently mooted.2 In the meantime the possibility of additional complications with Ireland had largely been removed by the earl of Desmond’s having been brought to terms,3 and by other measures.
James IV’s attitude soon became somewhat equivocal. He hoped, it seems, to agree satisfactory terms with Richard Fox, but if he did not, he proposed to honour his pledges with Warbeck and to invade by 17 September 1496, on terms with Warbeck which as finally agreed included the return of Berwick and a substantial refund of costs should Warbeck be successful.4 But he declined Charles VIII’s offer to buy Warbeck off him.5
The very small reinforcement which Margaret sent to Warbeck at this stage was not encouraging, though the pretender no doubt made much of it and of letters he received from his ‘aunt’.6
The invasion of England started on 17 September as threatened. But it proved an utter failure. Not even the banner of Richard IV evoked any response south of the Border, and a penetration of four miles and the capture of a couple of watch-towers, with some devastation of the countryside, which, to his credit, shocked the unwarlike Warbeck, ended in retreat back to Scotland. The alarm served Henry VII’s turn by enabling him to raise considerable financial aid in England and to make military preparations which, although not needed to repel the incursion from Scotland, could be adapted next year to suppress the formidable Cornish rebellion at the battle of Blackheath on 17 June.
The Cornish insurrection was ostensibly not against the king but against the counsellors who had advised him to raise the taxation voted in the parliament of January 1497, largely for preparations to resist the threatened invasion by James IV and Warbeck. The most serious feature of the insurrection was the ease with which a large number of rebels were able to march up from Cornwall to near London, with no opposition until they reached Kent, in spite of insignificant leadership. The explanation no doubt lies in the circumstance that Henry VII’s preparations at that time were directed towards Scotland, and the Cornish rising was no part of a preconceived plot, or any pro-Yorkist conspiracy, so that no advance warning of it could have been obtained. The quick diversion southwards of forces already engaged under Lord Daubeney ensured a speedy conclusion to the rising, which can scarcely be said ‘to have shaken Henry VII’s throne’. The battle on Blackheath was decisive; some thousand rebels were killed, and the rest surrendered or fled. Only the three ringleaders, a local lawyer and a blacksmith, and James Touchet, Lord Audley, were executed. The main consequence of the episode was to induce Henry VII to try to come to terms with James IV so as to avoid the costs and preoccupations of a war on the Borders.1
But Henry’s urgent preoccupation with his truculent Cornishmen was not taken advantage of by James IV, who by then was clearly preparing to drop ‘Richard IV’. Whether he had become disillusioned as to Warbeck’s pretensions and potentiality, or appreciated that Henry VII would not be easily displaced, or whether he now seriously believed that his best interests would be served by marrying Henry’s daughter Margaret, cannot be told. Certainly he counted the cost of pressing Warbeck’s pretensions, and decided to cut it. The wily Fox was commissioned with elaborate instructions to negotiate once again,2 and on 6 July Warbeck departed from Scotland in a Breton vessel hired by James IV for the purpose.3 With that stumbling-block out of the way, long and tortuous though the negotiations proved to be, at last a seven-year truce was agreed in September 1497, at Ayton, renewed in 1499, leading on to the first full peace treaty with Scotland since 1328.1 By the Treaty of Ayton, January 1502, James IV was to marry Princess Margaret, which he did in August 1503. For Henry VII this triumph of his diplomacy was both rewarding and most opportune. For in April the previous year his son and heir Prince Arthur had died and in so doing had brought to naught the hard-won marriage with Catherine of Aragon, and now only his younger son Henry stood between the queen of Scots and the succession to the throne of England. But a hundred years was to pass before the union of crowns was to occur, and then only because by then all Henry VII’s English grandchildren were dead without lineal descendants, a catastrophe which he could have neither predicted nor contemplated without horror. Yet it was his astute diplomacy which in the long run protected England, in 1603, from calamities which would have proved worse than the succession of a king of Scots to its throne.
For Warbeck the departure from Scotland began the last phase of his pretension. He appeared at Cork on 26 July, but finding that Irish support was not forthcomi
ng, he set sail with two small ships and a pinnace, and a hundred or so men to land at Whitesand Bay, near Land’s End on 7 September, in the hope that in Cornwall, the only region now in England which might be expected to show hostility to Henry VII, substantial aid might be rendered to ‘Richard IV’. But within a fortnight all was over. A few thousand countryfolk joined him. But Exeter drove him and them off, and Taunton did not want him. The rapidly mobilized forces of the king soon terminated any further hopes. Warbeck fled, surrendered; made a full confession as to his real name and origins; soon wrote to his real mother giving an account of his adventures and touted her for money, and was now at the king’s mercy.2 Henry VII could by now afford to be generous to his humiliated and no doubt winsome and charming captive. Besides, Warbeck was not a subject of his, and it might have been difficult at this stage to pin charges of treason upon him. No restraint was put upon him, and he was treated as a member of the court. But there were to be no more wanderings, and it was folly indeed for Warbeck to try to flee from Henry’s silken shackles. On 9 June 1498 Warbeck was arrested at Sheen, brought back to London, made to repeat publicly his confession, to sit in the stocks twice, and to repair to the Tower. What exactly happened in that fortress during the following months, we shall probably never know. Whether he was ‘framed’, or whether he was given or merely took an opportunity to initiate a hare-brained plot with the earl of Warwick, who was still a prisoner, one cannot tell.1 In any case, it can hardly be doubted that he abused the leniency shown him, and by 16 November 1499 he was tried on a charge of trying to escape and on 21 November was hanged. Two days previously, the court of the lord high steward (John de Vere, earl of Oxford, for the occasion) in Westminster Hall considered the findings of a grand jury returned against Edward, earl of Warwick, found him guilty of treason, which he admitted. A week later he was beheaded on Tower Hill. The most innocent sprig of the white rose was thus lopped off. Tudor reason of State had claimed the first of its many victims.