by Michael Hone
Richard, Duke of York, second son of Edward III, and his brother Edward were smothered by their uncle, their father’s brother, Richard III, in the most vile murder England has known, the murder of two children. Little Richard and his brother Edward V had been locked in the Tower of London. As Edward was the older he guessed the fate awaiting them both, and despite Richard’s trying to entice him into play, he grew each day more saturnine. When the end did come, in the midst of the night, it was Edward who was thankfully asleep, while Richard, seizing immediately the purpose of the men who stole into the boys’ chambers, begged them to take him and permit his brother the king to live. The assassins took both. Richard III was later killed in battle, his soul brought to rot each time one opens Shakespeare to read of his dastardly deed, the robbing of two boys of their precious lives.
Perkin, the boy who would be chosen by Yorkists to replace the smothered Richard, was spotted, in Ireland, during a festival on which the usual sumptuary laws did not apply. Decked out in superb doublet and beautiful black gown, news of his beauty and countenance brought his attention to those who wished to undo the King of England in favor of the Yorkists, in battle against the Lancastrians for generations. The boy refused his being taken for royalty, refusal upon refusal until the awe and respect of those who had approached him--he whose parents had set him on his own like a wandering gypsy from childhood--gradually succumbed to their impressments. The task was herculean in its vastness: He would have to learn manners and princely comportment. He would need the Latin learned as a child by the real Richard and the English language the real Richard had spoken since birth. He would need to know the daily lives of his father, King Edward IV, and his mother, as well as those of their advisers and his and his brother’s servants. He would need to know his daily routine from the moment he awoke to the moment he retired.
It was the sitting king, Henry VII, who would have to unmask the lad, a lad already accepted by the French king Charles VIII who was about the same age and who received the boy at his court and shared his mistresses with him, no big affair for Charles who prided himself on never having the same woman twice, even if he was the most ugly monarch in living memory. The lad was recognized by the Roman Emperor Maximilian and his son Philip, also about the same age as the pretender, and on friendly terms with him.
Henry VII was the monarch who founded the Tudors, ending--with the death of Richard III at Bosworth--the War of the Roses that had bled England white for generations. He would impose 24 years of relative peace, followed by his son Henry VIII. He married Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth, unifying his red rose to her white rose. An act of genius immediately followed. He declared himself king a day before the Battle of Bosworth, thus allowing him to proclaim that those who had fought against him had been traitors, allowing him to confiscate their lands, castles and their goods. Then, after his coronation, he decreed that any of the traitors who would swear fealty to him could have their possessions back. Edward IV had had two bothers, Richard who became Richard III, now dead, and Clarence. Clarence had been convicted of treason and executed. But Clarence had a son, Edward, a possible threat to Henry VII because of blood more noble than Henry’s. He was put away in the tower.
The plot thickened when a lad named Simnel appeared to claim that he was Edward, Clarence’s son. As the real Edward was being held in secret, a prisoner in the Tower, no one could dispute his claim.
No one knows Simnel’s real name, but around age 10 he was taken under the wing of a priest, Richard Simon, who decided to make the handsome boy a king. At first Simon decided that the boy would be Edward IV’s son Richard, especially as their ages matched, but then switched to Edward, Clarence’s son. The priest Simon was exceedingly erudite and taught the boy everything he would need to know about courtly behavior. Simon contacted Yorkists who found in Simnel the perfect tool to overthrow Henry VII. They began by spreading the rumor that Edward had escaped from the Tower and made his way to Dublin. It was in Dublin that Simnel was crowned King Edward VI (Edward IV’s son, killed in the Tower by Richard III, had been Edward V). (Later Henry VIII’s son would be crowned the true Edward VI.) An army was mounted and various Yorkists went to Burgundy where Margaret of Burgundy, Edward’s aunt, held power. She furnished 2,000 men who returned to England and met Henry’s troops at the Battle of Stoke Fiend where they were defeated. Those not killed were executed except for Simons, saved due to his being a priest, although he was imprisoned for life. Incredibly, Henry felt that Simnel himself had been nothing more than a lad manipulated by adults. He made the boy a spit-turner in the royal kitchen, and later a falconer! The boy married and fathered a priest who exercised under Henry VIII.
Simnel
What happened next was stranger still. A lad by the name of Perkin Warbeck (among other names, but we’ll stick with that one, although from the age of about 17 onwards he’ll be known to one and all as the boy who pretended to be Richard, the younger of the two lads imprisoned and executed by Richard III, and so I, too, will call him Richard until his capture by Henry VII). His mother supposedly sent him to Antwerp to learn Dutch and from there he was taken on by merchant ships that may have taken him as far as Portugal. But eventually he turned up in Ireland where his love of sumptuous clothing brought him to the attention of Yorkists who convinced him to play the role of the smothered Richard, as mentioned. From Ireland he went to Margaret of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV and Richard III, who wanted the Yorkists back on the throne with such intensity that she undertook the education of Perkin. He learned the ways and the secrets of the court of England, and his aptitude for languages and personal beauty did the rest. Margaret sent him to James of Scotland.
What followed next can only be described as a love affaire between Richard and King James IV. A true love affaire, albeit not necessarily in a physical sense. We do know that both Richard and James were ardent lovers of the opposite sex. Richard had wandered through Europe as a child and his early adolescence had taken place in Portugal and the royal court of Portugal, known for its liberality in matters sexual, and the ardor of its boys and girls in the sharing of their bodies. James was insatiable, sexually, as were so many males of position throughout Europe, satisfying himself with the girls--from servants to courtesans to ladies of royalty--who expected and desired his attention. As Henry VIII was to learn, thanks to Anne Boleyn and her sister, whom Henry had ‘’known’’ long before Anne, girls brought up at French court, as had both girls been, could pass afternoons and nights in endless sexual pleasure, while still maintaining an intact hymen. Fingers, tongues and back passages were of no secret to even the youngest demoiselles in France and Portugal. Boys adored ornamenting themselves in skin-tight trousers, leaving nothing of their muscular buttocks to the imagination, and, in front, held in place by strings or buttons, were cod pieces of immense dimensions, as alluring to maidens as were the boys’ gestures, their hands stroking the immense bulges.
As so often with boys at that time, James had lost his father to battle when very young, and literally went from man to man, afterwards, with the heart-breaking question, ‘’Are you my father, sir?’’ Richard had been set free from his father far too young, as had Henry VII whose father died in battle even before his birth. These men were drawn to their own through an absence that nothing in the world, nothing but one’s only true father, can fill. This indelible emptiness was felt even when a father was physically alive but physically absent, called away, perhaps, by war, or simply not present to assuage the needs of his boy. This was the case with Maximilian whose father, the Roman Emperor Frederick III, lived to old age but was away at war, during which his son Maximilian was so neglected that he had at times to beg for bread.
James, at 22, was just a few months older than Richard. From the moment of Richard’s arrival James took him in hand, literally in hand in the sense that at every possible occasion, and especially in church, James entwined his hands in those of Richard, hands joined in the worship and the presence of God. They ate toge
ther, perhaps not from the same plate as Richard Coeur de Lion and Philippe II, and they slept in the same bed, without the intimacy of the young and futures kings of England and France--Richard Coeur de Lion and Philippe--but in a tradition even known to President Lincoln, and common in the American Far West.
James was generous to a fault and far from rich, but Richard had nothing. After the mass, it was James who would make a contribution in the name of his friend. James was an athlete, but too trusting, as even his closest advisor, John Ramsay, was a spy in the pay of Henry VII. He was so concerned about his people that he would roam the countryside dressed as they, and seek lodging for the night amidst the most humble, all in an effort to learn what they needed and what they thought of their king.
And lastly, James provided for his guest’s needs by giving him the daughter of the wealthiest man in Scotland, Katherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntly. She was young, beautiful and virgin, and James saw to it that the marriage took place rapidly so that Richard and she could enter into union. Later, a captive of Henry VII, Perkin was denied access to Katherine, the reason for his ill-considered actions, while Henry lusted for her but apparently did not take advantage of his limitless powers to seduce her. James and Katherine would remain loyal to the boy to the end, even if James was forced to make certain concessions to Henry in order to save his country.
Perkin
James and Richard recognized in each other the brother neither had ever had, the shared resemblance of two boys of the same age, the need of masculine affection that no woman can ever fulfill in a man, the reason men defend each other to the death in war, the indestructible nature of friendship we find in today’s Australia where a man would die for his mate.
Naturally, everyone thought that with Richard on the English throne they could, one and all, gain something of priceless value. Margaret would have more say in the running of her Burgundy. The Roman Emperor Maximilian would have an English ally he could order around, as he could no longer do even his son Philip. And James would enjoy increased trade and more fluid relations with his neighbor England. But all said and done, James’s chief motivation may well have been the beauty of his friendship with the boy-who-would-be-king.
James IV of Scotland.
James eventually waged war against Henry VIII, on the side of French Louis XII. He was killed during the Battle of Flodden, 1513, at age 40, having exchanged his royal garb for the clothes of a common solider. The man who recuperated the king’s robes, also killed, was thought to be James and was royally buried, although the body was lost during the Reformation.
It was James who insisted on invading England, and Ramsay reported to Henry that James, who loved joists and fighting with axes and swords and crossbows, was pushing the boy forward. But Richard was not enthusiastic about an invasion because he knew the truth behind his right to the throne of England. And anyway, he had a new wife with lands and nobility and in September he would have a son. What was the chimera of England now to him? He most resembled the Trojan Prince Paris, ensconced with Helen behind the impregnable walls of Troy. And like Troy, the Greeks were coming in the form of Henry VII (3).
One is nonetheless amazed by the backing Richard benefited from: Maximilian and Burgundy under Maximilian’s boy Philip; Margaret capable of offering vast sums of money; and a huge number of Yorkists and other supporters, all furnishing troops, horses and finances. A great number of Yorkists from England sent their seals to Richard as proof of their adherence to his plan of conquest. Alas, the seals were intercepted and forwarded to Henry who had most of the men, the cream of English nobility, beheaded. Only the very young were spared, if imprisonment for life can be so judged. (Although some did buy their way out). The sums invested by Henry in his fight against those who favored Richard were absolutely colossal. This was especially painful to a man who was one of history’s original misers, amassing the greatest fortune England had ever known, money that would go to his son Henry VIII, making the boy, already lucky in looks and lucky in advisors, the richest lad in the world--until the gods decided to tip the scales, but only at the end of his reign.
On the sidelines of all of this were Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain, a couple who had loved each other the moment their eyes met. Their intelligence, in the sense of brainpower and spies, was such that they knew the truth about the boy, and spent every hour trying to convince the world, and thereby avoid useless wars. They brought order to government, they saved Spain from bankruptcy, they reduced crime for the first time in the country’s history, and, icing on the cake, they sent Columbus on an excursion that would double the surface of the known world and enrich it beyond the grasp of the imagination.
At age six Isabella had been promised to Ferdinand but later it was suggested that she marry Edward IV of England or his brother the future Richard III, killer of infants. For unknown reasons she held strong to her desire to wed Ferdinand. An obstacle to their union was their consanguinity, but this was overcome by the Spanish Cardinal Borgia, the future Alexander VI. Her brother the king nevertheless disapproved, forcing her to escape to the wedding site, Valladolid, where she was joined by and married to Ferdinand who had been disguised as a servant to avoid the king’s army. When the king died she was crowned, but for the first years she had to wage war against those who thought they had a better claim to the throne. Even Portugal invaded in an attempt to seize power. Her place finally became legitimized with the birth of a son.
Slavery was forbidden--hundreds of years before Lincoln--under Ferdinand and Isabella, but the interdict was little applied. The Inquisition was given full power and Jews were allowed three months to leave Spain with neither gold nor silver nor money nor arms nor horses. Half are thought to have converted, perhaps cosmetically. Muslims too were ordered to convert or to get out.
Their daughter Joanna was married to the Roman Emperor Maximilian’s son Philip, opening the door for Roman rule over Spain. Their youngest daughter Catherine married Henry VIII’s brother but he died, supposedly before consuming the marriage. Catherine went to Henry VIII himself, sowing the seeds for the destruction of the Catholic Church in England.
At Isabella’s death she was entombed in a sepulcher built by the Roman Emperor Charles V, the new Charles I of Spain, Joanna and Philip’s son. Ferdinand followed her, in the same chapel, a few years later.
James’s plan seems to have been to cross the border into England, grab a few border towns, and thanks to the uprising of the English people--especially Yorkists from the north--he would return home and let Richard continue on to glory. Before setting off, both friends had signed an agreement under which certain English lands and towns would be given to Scotland, and 100,000 marks forwarded to James’s coffers once the lad was on the throne.
The border was crossed and James initiated a burned-earth policy that left Richard in tears, claiming that James would leave him no one and nothing over which he could govern. Richard rode off to the safety of Scotland and as Henry’s troops approached, James did likewise.
Following the collapse of James’s army, Maximilian kept doggedly at Richard’s side. Ferdinand and Isabella tried everything in their power to get the boy to Spain where they could pension him off, thereby neutering him. Maximilian’s son Philip had long given up on the lad. Margaret had spent her last cartridges in his favor. Charles of France desperately wanted Richard as a joker to play in his wars with Henry. And Ireland took Henry’s bribes and turned its back on the boy.
Henry’s troops approached Scotland. Henry offered James his daughter, age 6, in marriage, a peace offering. Although Henry did not hesitate to put traitors to death, he had a very enticing side, one that had forgiven Simnel, had paid for his marriage and had set the boy up as a falconer. And despite the hundreds of deaths occasioned by Richard/Perkin, despite the cost in today’s money of millions to Henry and a hunt that had gone on for six long years, despite all that Henry took the lad to his side, when finally captured, not as a son, but not far from b
eing one either. And now here Henry VII was, offering his daughter, his own flesh and blood, to his enemy. But James refused to surrender his friend Perkin to what he believed was certain death. Yet as the wolves closed in on all sides, from Spain and especially from England, James had no choice but to ask his friend to leave, at the head of a small army, on an ill-named ship, the Cuckoo, destination England where Richard would become king. No one was present at their goodbyes, but they were certainly worthy of the sincere love and wondrous moments they had shared. Then the Cuckoo and a few other vessels left to land and reconquer England for Richard.
But Richard was intercepted by Henry and captured, and Richard became Perkin.
Henry VII
As I stated at the beginning of this chapter, this is a tale of five unhappy people. Henry VII had been an only son, his father dead before his birth and no noble men to show him the route to manhood, let alone kinghood. He had no real pedigree, no real royal blood, and until the rise of Henry VIII such would remain the case. Affable, he was nonetheless a loner and would stay so until the end of his life. Perkin Warwick had stood alone from an early age, and the story of the conditions of his passing from one adult to another, as he passed from one country to another, will remain unknown, but was certainly trying and forlorn. His thirst for betterment was mirrored in his choice of clothes, which in turn brought him to the attention of others who used him as he had always, in one way or another, been used. He lost to Henry but in so doing he gained a wife and child, was welcomed to Henry’s court, one lonely man in the service of another, and there he could have risen to heights less than a kingly Richard IV, but to an unimaginable prosperity, given his lowly birth. It was perhaps Henry’s own lowly birth, in comparison with other Yorkists and Lancastrians, that allowed him an intimacy--albeit limited--with humbler lads such as Simnel and Perkin. In his own gauche way he tried to make friends of them both, but it is the Fates, not men, the ultimate arbiters of one’s destiny. Henry was 41, the boy, as he called him, 22. Perkin confessed all, totally astonished at the king’s leniency. Maximilian and Margaret had known of the conspiracy, Perkin admitted to Henry, no one else knew, and certainly not James. On bended knee the boy confessed, but his manner was unweeping and noble. His wife was brought before Henry who was said to have lusted for her but had kept himself in check by sending Katherine to serve his queen, Elizabeth. Order had returned to the world, the planets again in their rightful place.