The Pretender Prince

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. 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 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

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 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 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. 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 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, 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, 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 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 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

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, 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 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

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 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, 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

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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 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

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 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 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. 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

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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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

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, 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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, 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 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 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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.

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 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. 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 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, 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 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

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, at least according to this Lady in Waiting, would think that it was punishment for that death that she inadvertently caused.

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 Josh Thayne and executive producers Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and

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