March 21, 2023 • 29 mins
The mystery of the fate of the two princes who dissapeared into the Tower of London during the Wars of the Roses has captivated historians, and the public, for years. What if one of the princes managed to survive? In 1491, a charismatic man with a handsome face gathered supporters around him, claiming to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the younger of the two boys. Was he a prince, or an imposter? Either way, he spelled trouble.
Support Noble Blood:
— Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon
— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Listener Discretion advised Henry Tudor,
the newly crowned King Henry the seventh, was in a
(00:24):
very delicate position. King Richard the Third had been killed
in battle, the Yorks were defeated, and Henry Tudor the
Victor had married Elizabeth of York to unite the families
under the banner of the new House of Tudor. He
was king after the extremely costly and deadly Wars of
(00:47):
the Roses. Finally it was over, except Henry's claim to
the throne wasn't all that secure. Historian J. E. Cussin
frames it well, writing quote, Henry the Seventh claimed the
crown of England by three titles, dissent, alliance, and conquest.
(01:11):
Let's work backwards on those three. Shall we conquest? While
that was inarguable, Henry had defeated Richard the Third at
the Battle of bosworth Field. But the problem with claiming
a throne through conquest meant that anyone else could come
along and beat him, giving them as much of a
(01:33):
claim as he had in terms of alliance. Number two
Henry's marriage to Elizabeth of York had been a smart move.
Elizabeth was the daughter of King Edward the seventh, the
older sister of the two princes lost in the Tower,
the princes who were allegedly killed by their uncle, also
(01:55):
Elizabeth's uncle, Richard the third. But the other title that
Henry was claiming the Crown of England descent. While that
was a shaky claim at best, Henry was the illegitimate
great great grandson of John of Ghent, and it was
(02:17):
an even weaker claim because it was through the female line.
But who cares about that? If everyone agreed that he
was king, he was king, and who was going to
challenge him? In September of fourteen ninety seven, a man
was leading an army east from Cornwall toward Taunton. He
(02:40):
was supported by thousands of troops, mainly cornishmen who were
upset at King Henry the seventh high taxes and poor treatment,
and they were throwing their lot behind someone else, someone
with a much much more legitimate claim to the throne.
(03:00):
If you believed he was who he said he was,
history would come to call the man who led that
army Perkin Warbeck. But Warbeck claimed he had another name,
a secret name. He wasn't just the son of a
Belgian bureaucrat. That was all a cover story. Really, he
(03:24):
had once been a prince, the younger son of King
Edward the Fourth, locked inside the Tower of London while
his uncle Richard the third claimed the throne for himself.
He had seen his older brother Edward killed, but because
of his youth, the murderers had allowed him to escape. Well,
(03:47):
he was back and he was here to take the throne.
Perkin Warbeck was really Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York,
the younger of the two princes in the tower, and
he had six thousand men marching behind him, ready to
help him take what was rightfully his. I'm Dana Schwartz,
(04:12):
and this is noble blood. The problem with telling the
story of a man who is known to history as
a pretender is you'll never know for sure which story
(04:33):
to tell. There are lies on both sides and no
actual proof one way or the other. Let's get that
out of the way before we go any further. Perkin
Warbeck claimed to be Richard, Duke of York. At the time,
some people believed him in earnest. Some people believed him
(04:55):
because it was convenient, and some people thought he was
a phony. Now nowadays, plenty of historical fiction has had
fun exploring the possibility that Warbeck really was the Duke
of York, And to that, I say, why not. Historical
fiction is fun, and that certainly is the most fun
(05:17):
version of the story. But the unfortunate truth is, there
really is no proof that he was the lost Prince.
That said, there is no concrete proof that he wasn't
the lost Prince. So you're free to hold on to
your favorite story if you really want. With this one,
(05:38):
most historians do agree that the real Duke of York,
the younger son of King Edward the fourth and nephew
of Richard the third, died around summer fourteen eighty three,
when he was nine or ten years old. Perkin Warbeck
claimed he didn't. In fourteen ninety one, he began to
(06:00):
make his claim public in the Duchy of Burgundy, saying
that he witnessed his older brother get murdered. But the assailants,
whoever they were Warbeck never actually specified, were struck by
how young and innocent he was. They told him to
run away to continental Europe and keep the secret of
(06:21):
his true identity for his own safety. But nearly a
decade later he claims he had been kept safe by
Yorkist sympathizers, and now he couldn't hide the truth anymore.
He was a young man by this point. Almost every
source recounts how handsome he was, how much he resembled
(06:45):
the former King Edward the fourth, his supposed father, and
how charismatic he was. On a brief trip to Ireland,
prominent Yorkists declared that he was in fact the son
of King Edward the fourth. Those irishmen began writing letters
to French nobles, and so Warbeck, with his brand new pedigree,
(07:11):
set out for Europe to find some international allies. There
was something about Warbeck that convinced people. He was handsome, yes,
but also courtly, well acquainted with the habits and the
practices of the York family. He spoke several languages, he
(07:33):
was charming. Surely this couldn't be a common nobody. Charles
the eighth of France kept Perkin in France until Henry,
back in England, loudly reminded his French counterpart that they
had signed a treaty not to shelter English rebels to
(07:54):
drive home the point England laid siege on a French city.
Maxim Million the First, the Holy Roman Emperor, invited Warbeck
to attend the funeral of Frederick the Third, his father,
the previous Holy Roman Emperor. It was there that Warbeck
was officially recognized as the rightful King of England Richard
(08:16):
the Fourth. But by far Warbeck's greatest ally and supporter
would be a woman named Margaret of Burgundy. Margaret of
Burgundy was the widow of the Duke Charles of Burgundy,
but she was English born. She was the sister of
the former York kings Edward the fourth and Richard the Third,
(08:38):
which made the two princes in the tower her nephews.
Even though she hadn't actually seen the two princes since
they were babies, she declared that Perkin Warbeck was legitimate.
She was miraculously reunited with her nephew, thought dead, the
son of her brother. It was a side from God.
(09:01):
The Yorks would return to the throne of England, and
so Margaret began to put forth the money for Perkin
Warbeck to raise an army. It wasn't purely family loyalty
on her part. A gesture out of love for a
nephew thought dead, Warbeck made a deal with Margaret that
(09:23):
in exchange for the funds and aid she was providing
when he became king, he would restore her trade licenses,
pay the remainder of her dowry off, and return her
manners and castle in England that had been forfeited. The
stakes were raised now with his international allies, and word
(09:44):
reached England that this Perkin Warbeck fellow might be for real,
or at least a real threat. Those nobles who had
opposed Henry the Seventh in the Wars of the Roses
now had someone new to rally behind. Henry tried to
eliminate the domestic treason, gathering up a group of conspirators
(10:07):
and sentencing them to death. A few were pardoned, but
some were beheaded. Henry the Seventh would not be taking
treason lightly, not after he had already dealt with a
pretender to the throne so recently. Perkin Warbeck wasn't the
first young man to appear claiming to be a long
(10:31):
lost member of the York family. In fourteen eighty seven,
three years before Perkin Warbeck began claiming to be a
lost prince, there was a young boy named Lambert Simnel
who challenged Henry the Seventh for the rightful claim to
the throne. According to the story, there was an Oxford
(10:52):
trained priest named Richard Simmonds who found a young, humble
boy with an incredible resemblance to the York family. The
cynical explanation here is that Simmons knew that there were
many in England who were not happy with Henry the
seventh victory, and the York loyalists needed a rightful heir
(11:15):
to rally behind. Simmons didn't claim that Lambert Simnol was
one of the two princes who disappeared in the tower. Instead,
they said that he was Edward Plantagenet, their cousin. Apologies
for the family tree here. I know the Wars of
the Roses is famously complicated, but it's not super important.
(11:37):
So if I lose you here, don't worry about it.
But Richard the Third and Edward the Fourth had another brother,
George Plantagenet, who actually sided against them in the Wars
of the Roses, siding with his father in law. Then,
when Edward the Fourth won and became king, he had
his brother executed for treason, according to the legend, drowned
(12:02):
in a butt of malmsey wine. But this trader brother George,
had had a son, Edward Plantagenet. But you know, years forward,
when Richard the third was claiming that he was the
rightful king, this young boy Edward got passed over because
of his father's treason, which invalidated his claim. When Henry
(12:24):
the seventh defeated Richard the third and he became king,
he put little ten year old Edward in the Tower
of London for safekeeping because he realized sure his dad
was a trader, which made his claim a little nebulous,
but he still was a threat, especially considering how nebulous
Henry the Seventh's own claim was. Anyway, there was a
(12:48):
rumor going around that Edward Plantagenet, the young boy, escaped
from the tower, and the Yorkists were eager for an
excuse to try to overthrow Henry Tudor, and they declared
that this boy, Lambert Simnel, was him Edward Plantagenet, and
he was the rightful king. Of course, as soon as
(13:09):
Henry heard about that, he gets the real Edward out
of the tower, who never escaped, and paraded him through
the streets, but that did nothing to stop the rebellion
because one news traveled slowly in the fifteenth century. Two
they just claimed that Henry got a random impostor, and
(13:29):
three the Yorkists didn't really care if Lambert Simnel was
real or not. They just wanted to challenge Henry the Seventh,
and they did. Simnel's army of Flemish and Irish soldiers
challenged the Tutor army at the Battle of stoke Field
and they were defeated, but not without a rousing fight.
(13:53):
Some historians actually claim it's this battle that is the
end of the Wars of the Roses Simmons. The mastermind
behind this whole scheme was a priest, so he got
jail for life instead of execution, and Lambert Simnel, who
was really just a kid who had been used as
a pawn, is actually pardoned by King Henry. But back
(14:17):
to Perkin Warbeck, funded by Margaret of Burgundy, his maybe
aunt and maybe someone who just wants to take Henry
the Seventh down, Warbeck arrives on the southeast coast of
England at deal. The King's army is there in full force,
and Perkin doesn't even get off his boat before he
(14:39):
realizes he made a terrible mistake and should try to
take England through Scotland. King James the fourth of Scotland
is more than happy to have him. It's while he's
in Scotland that Perkin Warbeck marries the daughter of a
minor Scottish noble, a woman named Lady Catherine Gordon. It
(15:01):
seems it was a love match, but some take the
arrangement as proof that no one actually thought that Warbeck
was a lost prince, or he wouldn't have had such
a lowly marriage. I mean, it was a fine marriage,
but not the type of match one would have made
if you were actually the son of a king and
(15:23):
the rightful King of England. Warbeck stayed in Scotland for
two years, and he was actually an incredibly valuable political pawn,
if nothing else. The ambassador from France actually offered the
King of Scotland money to send warback back to France,
(15:43):
but James the fourth was ready to fight against England
and he wanted Perkin Warbeck by his side to help
rally Yorkist support. Unfortunately, they didn't get far about four
miles into England. The support that they had hoped would
rally for Perkin Warbeck in Northumberland didn't, and when the
(16:08):
English army started coming up from Newcastle, Perkin and the
King of Scotland realized that they were cooked. James of
Scotland recognized that he had bet on the wrong horse,
and so while he frantically tried to make a peace
treaty with England, he ditched Warbeck as fast as he could.
(16:31):
James got Warbeck passage to Waterford after Warbeck was forced
to pawn a horse for cash. The name of the ship,
fittingly enough for one claiming a birthright that may not
have been his, was the Cuckoo. Cuckoo chicks are notorious
(16:51):
for hiding themselves in another family's nest, and so nursing
the defeat from his attack with Scotland, and nursing the
speed with which James wanted to get rid of him,
Perkin Warbeck rode away on the Cuckoo. Warbeck was practically
chased by English loyal ships to Ireland. There's a possibly
(17:15):
apocryphal story where a Spanish ship allied with England shouted
to the captain of the Cuckoo telling them to surrender
Perkin Warbeck for a reward of one thousand marks. I've
never heard of that man, the captain shouted back. Meanwhile,
Perkin Warbeck was crouched inside a vat of wine. Warbeck's
(17:37):
support and his numbers were dwindled, but he hadn't lost faith.
He hadn't given up. His last rebellion would be his largest.
Perkin Warbeck would finally make his stand. There had already
been a rebellion in Cornwall just a few months before
(17:58):
Perkin Warbeck arrived. It had been unsuccessful, but Warbeck was
hoping to capitalize on the Cornish discontent with the king.
In front of a crowd of cornishmen and women, he
promised that he would put an end to the outrageous
taxes that King Henry the seventh had levied in order
to fund his war against Scotland, ironically a war which
(18:22):
just weeks before, Warbeck himself had been fighting alongside of
on the side of Scotland. His words were effective, and
atop a craig on what is now Bodman Moore, Perkin
Warbeck was crowned King Richard the Fourth. Six thousand men
were behind him. All of the failed uprisings against Henry
(18:45):
Tudor had led to this moment, the moment that all
of the Yorkist sympathizers and all of the people who
hated Henry had found their champion. Unfortunately for everyone, Perkin
Warbeck wasn't quite as brave as his men might have hoped.
Almost as soon as he got word that the King's
(19:08):
scouts were nearby and that the King would be fighting
with the full force of his army, Warbeck panicked and ran.
In the middle of the night. He gathered sixty horsemen
and fled from battle. He raced to Bailou Abbey to
try to get sanctuary, but they were soon surrounded. Perkin
(19:30):
Warbeck was captured and his six year run as the
missing Prince was over. While London citizens shout and hooted
at him in the street, Warbeck was led on horseback
to the Tower of London, where he was imprisoned for
the first or, if you believe he was actually Richard
(19:52):
of Shrewsbury, the second time. During interrogation, Perkin Warbeck gave
his true life story a full confession or I suppose,
depending on your perspective, and invented story to appease the tutors.
Given under duress. Warbeck was born to a comptroller in Belgium,
(20:14):
and he learned Dutch when he was ten and got
a job with a local cloth merchant in Antwerp. He
learned English when a Breton merchant brought him to Ireland
when he was about seventeen, and it was there that
he first got the idea or inspiration that he would
impersonate a Prince Cork, Ireland was filled with Yorkists, and
(20:37):
when they saw Perkin Warbeck, a handsome young boy wearing
the fine silk clothes of his merchant master, probably just
advertising his master's skill, they declared that he must be
the missing Prince. That's when Perkin Warbeck says he began
making the claim in earnest aim, which became easier when
(21:01):
he made his way to Burgundy and made the acquaintance
of Margaret of York. He also met a man named
Edward Brampton, who had been King Edward the Fourth's godson.
It's plausible that the two of them, Margaret and Edward Brampton,
could have taught Warbeck the details of Richard of Shrewsbury's
(21:23):
childhood and details of the York family dynamics. This is
the scene in the movie version where they're teaching him
how to be a prince and comport himself with courtly
manners for someone who had just marched with an army
to try to usurp the King of England. As soon
(21:46):
as Warbeck confessed that he was an impostor all along,
Henry the seventh treated him with almost shocking grace. Warbeck
is brought to court, and even though he is kept
under guard, he's brought along to royal banquets. It seemed
that Henry was trying to keep his enemies close, and
(22:06):
as long as Warbeck was continuing to openly and loudly
declare that he was an impostor, then he Henry was
content to keep Warbeck around as something of a peculiarity.
But then Warbeck tried to escape again, and when Henry
recaptured him, he's less merciful. The King put Warbeck in
(22:31):
stocks on a scaffold in front of Westminster Hall and
forced him to loudly declare his confession that he was
an impostor in front of a crowd of people. He
would be in the stocks for five or six hours.
Henry made sure that the whole story was written down,
(22:52):
and that it was printed and spread widely so that
everyone would know exactly who Perkin Warbeck said he was.
He confessed there would be no more descent in Perkin
Warbeck's name. In fact, the name Perkin Warbeck would become
so synonymous with pretender to the Throne that one hundred
(23:14):
and fifty years after Warbeck's death, anti Jacobite propaganda would
refer to the Bonnie Prince Charlie, a claimant to the throne,
also called the young pretender as Perkin. After Warbeck's public
metaphorical flogging, he was sent back to the Tower of
(23:36):
London to chambers alongside Edward Plantagenet, the real Edward Plantagenet,
the one that Lambert Seminole that young boy a long
time ago, had impersonated. Warbeck may have been a cowardly soldier,
but when it came to his freedom, he was willing
(23:58):
to risk it all. We don't know the exact details
of how involved he was, who spoke to who about what,
but together Perkin Warbeck was planning an escape with Edward
Plantagenet to put Edward Plantagenet on the throne. The plan
was a little silly. The idea was that they would
(24:20):
blow up the Tower of London, and they never made
it out, and at this point the king had no
mercy left and no patience for any one who might
be a threat to his throne. Both men were hanged
in fourteen ninety nine Edward Plantagenet, who had been a
(24:42):
genuine royal, the nephew of two Kings of England, and
Perkin Warbeck. Perkin Warbeck, once celebrated as the son of
a king, once called a king himself, was buried in
an unmarked grave. Some maintained that Warbeck actually was Richard,
(25:05):
Duke of York. Another theory that some positive was that
Warbeck was one of King Edward the Fourth's illegitimate children
from a period of debauchery in the Low Countries. This
is one of those historical situations that will never have
a real resolution one way or another. You can't prove
(25:27):
a negative. A king is a king because he says
he is, and when he has the strongest army behind him,
people have to believe him. Perkin Warbeck was temporarily a king,
and it led him to the end of a noose.
Warbeck's wife, Catherine, the Scottish noble, would fare much better.
(25:50):
She would live another thirty eight years and would remain
a prominent member of the Tudor court for the rest
of her life. And another slight happy note to end
the story on do you recall that other impostor, the
child Lambert Simnel, who had been so young when Irish
forces rose up behind him and declared that he was
(26:12):
Edward Plantagenet. After King Henry the seventh pardoned him, his
life actually wouldn't be that bad. He went on to
become a scullion in the Palace and eventually the Royal Falconer.
(26:35):
That's the story of Perkin Warbeck. But keep listening after
a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit about
how Warbeck's execution connects with one of our favorite tutor queens.
It must have been a genuine relief for Henry the
(26:58):
Seventh to have a reason to hang both Perkin Warbeck
and the real Edward Plantagenet. Henry was trying to marry
his eldest son, Arthur, to a Spanish Princess, Katherine of Aragon,
and in order for her parents to agree to the match,
they wanted to be certain that he wouldn't be usurped,
(27:20):
so Henry had to convince Spain that he was the
legitimate king of England, beyond all doubt and beyond all threats.
Eliminating those threats through execution was a helpful step. Catherine
of Aragon knew that the hanging was distantly a result
(27:41):
of pressure that her parents were putting on England on
her behalf, and she felt incredibly guilty about it. A
Lady in waiting, Jane Dormer, would write in her memoir
that Catherine would feel responsible for the death of the
innocent Edward Plantagenet, and Catherine would experience tragedies later in
(28:03):
her life. There would be the young death of her
husband Arthur, the sort of no man's land that Henry
the Seventh kept her in after the death of her husband,
her inability to bear male children for Arthur's brother, her
next husband, King Henry the Eighth, Henry the Eighth's affair
with Anne Boleyn, Katherine's banishment, plenty of tragedies, and Catherine,
(28:27):
at least according to this Lady in Waiting, would think
that it was punishment for that death that she inadvertently caused.
(29:01):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me
Danish Swartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston,
hannah's Wick, Miura Hayward, Courtney Sunder, and Laurie Goodman. The
show is produced by rema Il Kayali, with supervising producer
(29:21):
Josh Thayne and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and
Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim
and Mild from Aaron Mankie. Listener Discretion advised Henry Tudor,
the newly crowned King Henry the seventh, was in a
(00:24):
very delicate position. King Richard the Third had been killed
in battle, the Yorks were defeated, and Henry Tudor the
Victor had married Elizabeth of York to unite the families
under the banner of the new House of Tudor. He
was king after the extremely costly and deadly Wars of
(00:47):
the Roses. Finally it was over, except Henry's claim to
the throne wasn't all that secure. Historian J. E. Cussin
frames it well, writing quote, Henry the Seventh claimed the
crown of England by three titles, dissent, alliance, and conquest.
(01:11):
Let's work backwards on those three. Shall we conquest? While
that was inarguable, Henry had defeated Richard the Third at
the Battle of bosworth Field. But the problem with claiming
a throne through conquest meant that anyone else could come
along and beat him, giving them as much of a
(01:33):
claim as he had in terms of alliance. Number two
Henry's marriage to Elizabeth of York had been a smart move.
Elizabeth was the daughter of King Edward the seventh, the
older sister of the two princes lost in the Tower,
the princes who were allegedly killed by their uncle, also
(01:55):
Elizabeth's uncle, Richard the third. But the other title that
Henry was claiming the Crown of England descent. While that
was a shaky claim at best, Henry was the illegitimate
great great grandson of John of Ghent, and it was
(02:17):
an even weaker claim because it was through the female line.
But who cares about that? If everyone agreed that he
was king, he was king, and who was going to
challenge him? In September of fourteen ninety seven, a man
was leading an army east from Cornwall toward Taunton. He
(02:40):
was supported by thousands of troops, mainly cornishmen who were
upset at King Henry the seventh high taxes and poor treatment,
and they were throwing their lot behind someone else, someone
with a much much more legitimate claim to the throne.
(03:00):
If you believed he was who he said he was,
history would come to call the man who led that
army Perkin Warbeck. But Warbeck claimed he had another name,
a secret name. He wasn't just the son of a
Belgian bureaucrat. That was all a cover story. Really, he
(03:24):
had once been a prince, the younger son of King
Edward the Fourth, locked inside the Tower of London while
his uncle Richard the third claimed the throne for himself.
He had seen his older brother Edward killed, but because
of his youth, the murderers had allowed him to escape. Well,
(03:47):
he was back and he was here to take the throne.
Perkin Warbeck was really Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York,
the younger of the two princes in the tower, and
he had six thousand men marching behind him, ready to
help him take what was rightfully his. I'm Dana Schwartz,
(04:12):
and this is noble blood. The problem with telling the
story of a man who is known to history as
a pretender is you'll never know for sure which story
(04:33):
to tell. There are lies on both sides and no
actual proof one way or the other. Let's get that
out of the way before we go any further. Perkin
Warbeck claimed to be Richard, Duke of York. At the time,
some people believed him in earnest. Some people believed him
(04:55):
because it was convenient, and some people thought he was
a phony. Now nowadays, plenty of historical fiction has had
fun exploring the possibility that Warbeck really was the Duke
of York, And to that, I say, why not. Historical
fiction is fun, and that certainly is the most fun
(05:17):
version of the story. But the unfortunate truth is, there
really is no proof that he was the lost Prince.
That said, there is no concrete proof that he wasn't
the lost Prince. So you're free to hold on to
your favorite story if you really want. With this one,
(05:38):
most historians do agree that the real Duke of York,
the younger son of King Edward the fourth and nephew
of Richard the third, died around summer fourteen eighty three,
when he was nine or ten years old. Perkin Warbeck
claimed he didn't. In fourteen ninety one, he began to
(06:00):
make his claim public in the Duchy of Burgundy, saying
that he witnessed his older brother get murdered. But the assailants,
whoever they were Warbeck never actually specified, were struck by
how young and innocent he was. They told him to
run away to continental Europe and keep the secret of
(06:21):
his true identity for his own safety. But nearly a
decade later he claims he had been kept safe by
Yorkist sympathizers, and now he couldn't hide the truth anymore.
He was a young man by this point. Almost every
source recounts how handsome he was, how much he resembled
(06:45):
the former King Edward the fourth, his supposed father, and
how charismatic he was. On a brief trip to Ireland,
prominent Yorkists declared that he was in fact the son
of King Edward the fourth. Those irishmen began writing letters
to French nobles, and so Warbeck, with his brand new pedigree,
(07:11):
set out for Europe to find some international allies. There
was something about Warbeck that convinced people. He was handsome, yes,
but also courtly, well acquainted with the habits and the
practices of the York family. He spoke several languages, he
(07:33):
was charming. Surely this couldn't be a common nobody. Charles
the eighth of France kept Perkin in France until Henry,
back in England, loudly reminded his French counterpart that they
had signed a treaty not to shelter English rebels to
(07:54):
drive home the point England laid siege on a French city.
Maxim Million the First, the Holy Roman Emperor, invited Warbeck
to attend the funeral of Frederick the Third, his father,
the previous Holy Roman Emperor. It was there that Warbeck
was officially recognized as the rightful King of England Richard
(08:16):
the Fourth. But by far Warbeck's greatest ally and supporter
would be a woman named Margaret of Burgundy. Margaret of
Burgundy was the widow of the Duke Charles of Burgundy,
but she was English born. She was the sister of
the former York kings Edward the fourth and Richard the Third,
(08:38):
which made the two princes in the tower her nephews.
Even though she hadn't actually seen the two princes since
they were babies, she declared that Perkin Warbeck was legitimate.
She was miraculously reunited with her nephew, thought dead, the
son of her brother. It was a side from God.
(09:01):
The Yorks would return to the throne of England, and
so Margaret began to put forth the money for Perkin
Warbeck to raise an army. It wasn't purely family loyalty
on her part. A gesture out of love for a
nephew thought dead, Warbeck made a deal with Margaret that
(09:23):
in exchange for the funds and aid she was providing
when he became king, he would restore her trade licenses,
pay the remainder of her dowry off, and return her
manners and castle in England that had been forfeited. The
stakes were raised now with his international allies, and word
(09:44):
reached England that this Perkin Warbeck fellow might be for real,
or at least a real threat. Those nobles who had
opposed Henry the Seventh in the Wars of the Roses
now had someone new to rally behind. Henry tried to
eliminate the domestic treason, gathering up a group of conspirators
(10:07):
and sentencing them to death. A few were pardoned, but
some were beheaded. Henry the Seventh would not be taking
treason lightly, not after he had already dealt with a
pretender to the throne so recently. Perkin Warbeck wasn't the
first young man to appear claiming to be a long
(10:31):
lost member of the York family. In fourteen eighty seven,
three years before Perkin Warbeck began claiming to be a
lost prince, there was a young boy named Lambert Simnel
who challenged Henry the Seventh for the rightful claim to
the throne. According to the story, there was an Oxford
(10:52):
trained priest named Richard Simmonds who found a young, humble
boy with an incredible resemblance to the York family. The
cynical explanation here is that Simmons knew that there were
many in England who were not happy with Henry the
seventh victory, and the York loyalists needed a rightful heir
(11:15):
to rally behind. Simmons didn't claim that Lambert Simnol was
one of the two princes who disappeared in the tower. Instead,
they said that he was Edward Plantagenet, their cousin. Apologies
for the family tree here. I know the Wars of
the Roses is famously complicated, but it's not super important.
(11:37):
So if I lose you here, don't worry about it.
But Richard the Third and Edward the Fourth had another brother,
George Plantagenet, who actually sided against them in the Wars
of the Roses, siding with his father in law. Then,
when Edward the Fourth won and became king, he had
his brother executed for treason, according to the legend, drowned
(12:02):
in a butt of malmsey wine. But this trader brother George,
had had a son, Edward Plantagenet. But you know, years forward,
when Richard the third was claiming that he was the
rightful king, this young boy Edward got passed over because
of his father's treason, which invalidated his claim. When Henry
(12:24):
the seventh defeated Richard the third and he became king,
he put little ten year old Edward in the Tower
of London for safekeeping because he realized sure his dad
was a trader, which made his claim a little nebulous,
but he still was a threat, especially considering how nebulous
Henry the Seventh's own claim was. Anyway, there was a
(12:48):
rumor going around that Edward Plantagenet, the young boy, escaped
from the tower, and the Yorkists were eager for an
excuse to try to overthrow Henry Tudor, and they declared
that this boy, Lambert Simnel, was him Edward Plantagenet, and
he was the rightful king. Of course, as soon as
(13:09):
Henry heard about that, he gets the real Edward out
of the tower, who never escaped, and paraded him through
the streets, but that did nothing to stop the rebellion
because one news traveled slowly in the fifteenth century. Two
they just claimed that Henry got a random impostor, and
(13:29):
three the Yorkists didn't really care if Lambert Simnel was
real or not. They just wanted to challenge Henry the Seventh,
and they did. Simnel's army of Flemish and Irish soldiers
challenged the Tutor army at the Battle of stoke Field
and they were defeated, but not without a rousing fight.
(13:53):
Some historians actually claim it's this battle that is the
end of the Wars of the Roses Simmons. The mastermind
behind this whole scheme was a priest, so he got
jail for life instead of execution, and Lambert Simnel, who
was really just a kid who had been used as
a pawn, is actually pardoned by King Henry. But back
(14:17):
to Perkin Warbeck, funded by Margaret of Burgundy, his maybe
aunt and maybe someone who just wants to take Henry
the Seventh down, Warbeck arrives on the southeast coast of
England at deal. The King's army is there in full force,
and Perkin doesn't even get off his boat before he
(14:39):
realizes he made a terrible mistake and should try to
take England through Scotland. King James the fourth of Scotland
is more than happy to have him. It's while he's
in Scotland that Perkin Warbeck marries the daughter of a
minor Scottish noble, a woman named Lady Catherine Gordon. It
(15:01):
seems it was a love match, but some take the
arrangement as proof that no one actually thought that Warbeck
was a lost prince, or he wouldn't have had such
a lowly marriage. I mean, it was a fine marriage,
but not the type of match one would have made
if you were actually the son of a king and
(15:23):
the rightful King of England. Warbeck stayed in Scotland for
two years, and he was actually an incredibly valuable political pawn,
if nothing else. The ambassador from France actually offered the
King of Scotland money to send warback back to France,
(15:43):
but James the fourth was ready to fight against England
and he wanted Perkin Warbeck by his side to help
rally Yorkist support. Unfortunately, they didn't get far about four
miles into England. The support that they had hoped would
rally for Perkin Warbeck in Northumberland didn't, and when the
(16:08):
English army started coming up from Newcastle, Perkin and the
King of Scotland realized that they were cooked. James of
Scotland recognized that he had bet on the wrong horse,
and so while he frantically tried to make a peace
treaty with England, he ditched Warbeck as fast as he could.
(16:31):
James got Warbeck passage to Waterford after Warbeck was forced
to pawn a horse for cash. The name of the ship,
fittingly enough for one claiming a birthright that may not
have been his, was the Cuckoo. Cuckoo chicks are notorious
(16:51):
for hiding themselves in another family's nest, and so nursing
the defeat from his attack with Scotland, and nursing the
speed with which James wanted to get rid of him,
Perkin Warbeck rode away on the Cuckoo. Warbeck was practically
chased by English loyal ships to Ireland. There's a possibly
(17:15):
apocryphal story where a Spanish ship allied with England shouted
to the captain of the Cuckoo telling them to surrender
Perkin Warbeck for a reward of one thousand marks. I've
never heard of that man, the captain shouted back. Meanwhile,
Perkin Warbeck was crouched inside a vat of wine. Warbeck's
(17:37):
support and his numbers were dwindled, but he hadn't lost faith.
He hadn't given up. His last rebellion would be his largest.
Perkin Warbeck would finally make his stand. There had already
been a rebellion in Cornwall just a few months before
(17:58):
Perkin Warbeck arrived. It had been unsuccessful, but Warbeck was
hoping to capitalize on the Cornish discontent with the king.
In front of a crowd of cornishmen and women, he
promised that he would put an end to the outrageous
taxes that King Henry the seventh had levied in order
to fund his war against Scotland, ironically a war which
(18:22):
just weeks before, Warbeck himself had been fighting alongside of
on the side of Scotland. His words were effective, and
atop a craig on what is now Bodman Moore, Perkin
Warbeck was crowned King Richard the Fourth. Six thousand men
were behind him. All of the failed uprisings against Henry
(18:45):
Tudor had led to this moment, the moment that all
of the Yorkist sympathizers and all of the people who
hated Henry had found their champion. Unfortunately for everyone, Perkin
Warbeck wasn't quite as brave as his men might have hoped.
Almost as soon as he got word that the King's
(19:08):
scouts were nearby and that the King would be fighting
with the full force of his army, Warbeck panicked and ran.
In the middle of the night. He gathered sixty horsemen
and fled from battle. He raced to Bailou Abbey to
try to get sanctuary, but they were soon surrounded. Perkin
(19:30):
Warbeck was captured and his six year run as the
missing Prince was over. While London citizens shout and hooted
at him in the street, Warbeck was led on horseback
to the Tower of London, where he was imprisoned for
the first or, if you believe he was actually Richard
(19:52):
of Shrewsbury, the second time. During interrogation, Perkin Warbeck gave
his true life story a full confession or I suppose,
depending on your perspective, and invented story to appease the tutors.
Given under duress. Warbeck was born to a comptroller in Belgium,
(20:14):
and he learned Dutch when he was ten and got
a job with a local cloth merchant in Antwerp. He
learned English when a Breton merchant brought him to Ireland
when he was about seventeen, and it was there that
he first got the idea or inspiration that he would
impersonate a Prince Cork, Ireland was filled with Yorkists, and
(20:37):
when they saw Perkin Warbeck, a handsome young boy wearing
the fine silk clothes of his merchant master, probably just
advertising his master's skill, they declared that he must be
the missing Prince. That's when Perkin Warbeck says he began
making the claim in earnest aim, which became easier when
(21:01):
he made his way to Burgundy and made the acquaintance
of Margaret of York. He also met a man named
Edward Brampton, who had been King Edward the Fourth's godson.
It's plausible that the two of them, Margaret and Edward Brampton,
could have taught Warbeck the details of Richard of Shrewsbury's
(21:23):
childhood and details of the York family dynamics. This is
the scene in the movie version where they're teaching him
how to be a prince and comport himself with courtly
manners for someone who had just marched with an army
to try to usurp the King of England. As soon
(21:46):
as Warbeck confessed that he was an impostor all along,
Henry the seventh treated him with almost shocking grace. Warbeck
is brought to court, and even though he is kept
under guard, he's brought along to royal banquets. It seemed
that Henry was trying to keep his enemies close, and
(22:06):
as long as Warbeck was continuing to openly and loudly
declare that he was an impostor, then he Henry was
content to keep Warbeck around as something of a peculiarity.
But then Warbeck tried to escape again, and when Henry
recaptured him, he's less merciful. The King put Warbeck in
(22:31):
stocks on a scaffold in front of Westminster Hall and
forced him to loudly declare his confession that he was
an impostor in front of a crowd of people. He
would be in the stocks for five or six hours.
Henry made sure that the whole story was written down,
(22:52):
and that it was printed and spread widely so that
everyone would know exactly who Perkin Warbeck said he was.
He confessed there would be no more descent in Perkin
Warbeck's name. In fact, the name Perkin Warbeck would become
so synonymous with pretender to the Throne that one hundred
(23:14):
and fifty years after Warbeck's death, anti Jacobite propaganda would
refer to the Bonnie Prince Charlie, a claimant to the throne,
also called the young pretender as Perkin. After Warbeck's public
metaphorical flogging, he was sent back to the Tower of
(23:36):
London to chambers alongside Edward Plantagenet, the real Edward Plantagenet,
the one that Lambert Seminole that young boy a long
time ago, had impersonated. Warbeck may have been a cowardly soldier,
but when it came to his freedom, he was willing
(23:58):
to risk it all. We don't know the exact details
of how involved he was, who spoke to who about what,
but together Perkin Warbeck was planning an escape with Edward
Plantagenet to put Edward Plantagenet on the throne. The plan
was a little silly. The idea was that they would
(24:20):
blow up the Tower of London, and they never made
it out, and at this point the king had no
mercy left and no patience for any one who might
be a threat to his throne. Both men were hanged
in fourteen ninety nine Edward Plantagenet, who had been a
(24:42):
genuine royal, the nephew of two Kings of England, and
Perkin Warbeck. Perkin Warbeck, once celebrated as the son of
a king, once called a king himself, was buried in
an unmarked grave. Some maintained that Warbeck actually was Richard,
(25:05):
Duke of York. Another theory that some positive was that
Warbeck was one of King Edward the Fourth's illegitimate children
from a period of debauchery in the Low Countries. This
is one of those historical situations that will never have
a real resolution one way or another. You can't prove
(25:27):
a negative. A king is a king because he says
he is, and when he has the strongest army behind him,
people have to believe him. Perkin Warbeck was temporarily a king,
and it led him to the end of a noose.
Warbeck's wife, Catherine, the Scottish noble, would fare much better.
(25:50):
She would live another thirty eight years and would remain
a prominent member of the Tudor court for the rest
of her life. And another slight happy note to end
the story on do you recall that other impostor, the
child Lambert Simnel, who had been so young when Irish
forces rose up behind him and declared that he was
(26:12):
Edward Plantagenet. After King Henry the seventh pardoned him, his
life actually wouldn't be that bad. He went on to
become a scullion in the Palace and eventually the Royal Falconer.
(26:35):
That's the story of Perkin Warbeck. But keep listening after
a brief sponsor break to hear a little bit about
how Warbeck's execution connects with one of our favorite tutor queens.
It must have been a genuine relief for Henry the
(26:58):
Seventh to have a reason to hang both Perkin Warbeck
and the real Edward Plantagenet. Henry was trying to marry
his eldest son, Arthur, to a Spanish Princess, Katherine of Aragon,
and in order for her parents to agree to the match,
they wanted to be certain that he wouldn't be usurped,
(27:20):
so Henry had to convince Spain that he was the
legitimate king of England, beyond all doubt and beyond all threats.
Eliminating those threats through execution was a helpful step. Catherine
of Aragon knew that the hanging was distantly a result
(27:41):
of pressure that her parents were putting on England on
her behalf, and she felt incredibly guilty about it. A
Lady in waiting, Jane Dormer, would write in her memoir
that Catherine would feel responsible for the death of the
innocent Edward Plantagenet, and Catherine would experience tragedies later in
(28:03):
her life. There would be the young death of her
husband Arthur, the sort of no man's land that Henry
the Seventh kept her in after the death of her husband,
her inability to bear male children for Arthur's brother, her
next husband, King Henry the Eighth, Henry the Eighth's affair
with Anne Boleyn, Katherine's banishment, plenty of tragedies, and Catherine,
(28:27):
at least according to this Lady in Waiting, would think
that it was punishment for that death that she inadvertently caused.
(29:01):
Noble Blood is a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and
Mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble Blood is hosted by me
Danish Swartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston,
hannah's Wick, Miura Hayward, Courtney Sunder, and Laurie Goodman. The
show is produced by rema Il Kayali, with supervising producer
(29:21):
Josh Thayne and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and
Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Dana Schwartz
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.