Chapter XXVI - England Under Henry the Seventh

by Charles Dickens

　　King Henry the Seventh did not turn out to be as fine a fellow asthe nobility and people hoped, in the first joy of theirdeliverance from Richard the Third. He was very cold, crafty, andcalculating, and would do almost anything for money. He possessedconsiderable ability, but his chief merit appears to have been thathe was not cruel when there was nothing to be got by it.

　　The new King had promised the nobles who had espoused his causethat he would marry the Princess Elizabeth. The first thing hedid, was, to direct her to be removed from the castle of SheriffHutton in Yorkshire, where Richard had placed her, and restored tothe care of her mother in London. The young Earl of Warwick,Edward Plantagenet, son and heir of the late Duke of Clarence, hadbeen kept a prisoner in the same old Yorkshire Castle with her.This boy, who was now fifteen, the new King placed in the Tower forsafety. Then he came to London in great state, and gratified thepeople with a fine procession; on which kind of show he often verymuch relied for keeping them in good humour. The sports and feastswhich took place were followed by a terrible fever, called theSweating Sickness; of which great numbers of people died. LordMayors and Aldermen are thought to have suffered most from it;whether, because they were in the habit of over-eating themselves,or because they were very jealous of preserving filth and nuisancesin the City (as they have been since), I don't know.

　　The King's coronation was postponed on account of the general ill-health, and he afterwards deferred his marriage, as if he were notvery anxious that it should take place: and, even after that,deferred the Queen's coronation so long that he gave offence to theYork party. However, he set these things right in the end, byhanging some men and seizing on the rich possessions of others; bygranting more popular pardons to the followers of the late Kingthan could, at first, be got from him; and, by employing about hisCourt, some very scrupulous persons who had been employed in theprevious reign.

　　As this reign was principally remarkable for two very curiousimpostures which have become famous in history, we will make thosetwo stories its principal feature.

　　There was a priest at Oxford of the name of Simons, who had for apupil a handsome boy named Lambert Simnel, the son of a baker.Partly to gratify his own ambitious ends, and partly to carry outthe designs of a secret party formed against the King, this priestdeclared that his pupil, the boy, was no other than the young Earlof Warwick; who (as everybody might have known) was safely lockedup in the Tower of London. The priest and the boy went over toIreland; and, at Dublin, enlisted in their cause all ranks of thepeople: who seem to have been generous enough, but exceedinglyirrational. The Earl of Kildare, the governor of Ireland, declaredthat he believed the boy to be what the priest represented; and theboy, who had been well tutored by the priest, told them such thingsof his childhood, and gave them so many descriptions of the RoyalFamily, that they were perpetually shouting and hurrahing, anddrinking his health, and making all kinds of noisy and thirstydemonstrations, to express their belief in him. Nor was thisfeeling confined to Ireland alone, for the Earl of Lincoln - whomthe late usurper had named as his successor - went over to theyoung Pretender; and, after holding a secret correspondence withthe Dowager Duchess of Burgundy - the sister of Edward the Fourth,who detested the present King and all his race - sailed to Dublinwith two thousand German soldiers of her providing. In thispromising state of the boy's fortunes, he was crowned there, with acrown taken off the head of a statue of the Virgin Mary; and wasthen, according to the Irish custom of those days, carried home onthe shoulders of a big chieftain possessing a great deal morestrength than sense. Father Simons, you may be sure, was mightybusy at the coronation.

　　Ten days afterwards, the Germans, and the Irish, and the priest,and the boy, and the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in Lancashire toinvade England. The King, who had good intelligence of theirmovements, set up his standard at Nottingham, where vast numbersresorted to him every day; while the Earl of Lincoln could gain butvery few. With his small force he tried to make for the town ofNewark; but the King's army getting between him and that place, hehad no choice but to risk a battle at Stoke. It soon ended in thecomplete destruction of the Pretender's forces, one half of whomwere killed; among them, the Earl himself. The priest and thebaker's boy were taken prisoners. The priest, after confessing thetrick, was shut up in prison, where he afterwards died - suddenlyperhaps. The boy was taken into the King's kitchen and made aturnspit. He was afterwards raised to the station of one of theKing's falconers; and so ended this strange imposition.

　　There seems reason to suspect that the Dowager Queen - always arestless and busy woman - had had some share in tutoring thebaker's son. The King was very angry with her, whether or no. Heseized upon her property, and shut her up in a convent atBermondsey.

　　One might suppose that the end of this story would have put theIrish people on their guard; but they were quite ready to receive asecond impostor, as they had received the first, and that sametroublesome Duchess of Burgundy soon gave them the opportunity.All of a sudden there appeared at Cork, in a vessel arriving fromPortugal, a young man of excellent abilities, of very handsomeappearance and most winning manners, who declared himself to beRichard, Duke of York, the second son of King Edward the Fourth.'O,' said some, even of those ready Irish believers, 'but surelythat young Prince was murdered by his uncle in the Tower!' - 'It issupposed so,' said the engaging young man; 'and my brother waskilled in that gloomy prison; but I escaped - it don't matter how,at present - and have been wandering about the world for seven longyears.' This explanation being quite satisfactory to numbers ofthe Irish people, they began again to shout and to hurrah, and todrink his health, and to make the noisy and thirsty demonstrationsall over again. And the big chieftain in Dublin began to look outfor another coronation, and another young King to be carried homeon his back.

　　Now, King Henry being then on bad terms with France, the FrenchKing, Charles the Eighth, saw that, by pretending to believe in thehandsome young man, he could trouble his enemy sorely. So, heinvited him over to the French Court, and appointed him a body-guard, and treated him in all respects as if he really were theDuke of York. Peace, however, being soon concluded between the twoKings, the pretended Duke was turned adrift, and wandered forprotection to the Duchess of Burgundy. She, after feigning toinquire into the reality of his claims, declared him to be the verypicture of her dear departed brother; gave him a body-guard at herCourt, of thirty halberdiers; and called him by the sounding nameof the White Rose of England.

　　The leading members of the White Rose party in England sent over anagent, named Sir Robert Clifford, to ascertain whether the WhiteRose's claims were good: the King also sent over his agents toinquire into the Rose's history. The White Roses declared theyoung man to be really the Duke of York; the King declared him tobe Perkin Warbeck, the son of a merchant of the city of Tournay,who had acquired his knowledge of England, its language andmanners, from the English merchants who traded in Flanders; it wasalso stated by the Royal agents that he had been in the service ofLady Brompton, the wife of an exiled English nobleman, and that theDuchess of Burgundy had caused him to be trained and taught,expressly for this deception. The King then required the ArchdukePhilip - who was the sovereign of Burgundy - to banish this newPretender, or to deliver him up; but, as the Archduke replied thathe could not control the Duchess in her own land, the King, inrevenge, took the market of English cloth away from Antwerp, andprevented all commercial intercourse between the two countries.

　　He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert Clifford tobetray his employers; and he denouncing several famous Englishnoblemen as being secretly the friends of Perkin Warbeck, the Kinghad three of the foremost executed at once. Whether he pardonedthe remainder because they were poor, I do not know; but it is onlytoo probable that he refused to pardon one famous nobleman againstwhom the same Clifford soon afterwards informed separately, becausehe was rich. This was no other than Sir William Stanley, who hadsaved the King's life at the battle of Bosworth Field. It is verydoubtful whether his treason amounted to much more than his havingsaid, that if he were sure the young man was the Duke of York, hewould not take arms against him. Whatever he had done he admitted,like an honourable spirit; and he lost his head for it, and thecovetous King gained all his wealth.

　　Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three years; but, as the Flemingsbegan to complain heavily of the loss of their trade by thestoppage of the Antwerp market on his account, and as it was notunlikely that they might even go so far as to take his life, orgive him up, he found it necessary to do something. Accordingly hemade a desperate sally, and landed, with only a few hundred men, onthe coast of Deal. But he was soon glad to get back to the placefrom whence he came; for the country people rose against hisfollowers, killed a great many, and took a hundred and fiftyprisoners: who were all driven to London, tied together withropes, like a team of cattle. Every one of them was hanged on somepart or other of the sea-shore; in order, that if any more menshould come over with Perkin Warbeck, they might see the bodies asa warning before they landed.

　　Then the wary King, by making a treaty of commerce with theFlemings, drove Perkin Warbeck out of that country; and, bycompletely gaining over the Irish to his side, deprived him of thatasylum too. He wandered away to Scotland, and told his story atthat Court. King James the Fourth of Scotland, who was no friendto King Henry, and had no reason to be (for King Henry had bribedhis Scotch lords to betray him more than once; but had neversucceeded in his plots), gave him a great reception, called him hiscousin, and gave him in marriage the Lady Catherine Gordon, abeautiful and charming creature related to the royal house ofStuart.

　　Alarmed by this successful reappearance of the Pretender, the Kingstill undermined, and bought, and bribed, and kept his doings andPerkin Warbeck's story in the dark, when he might, one wouldimagine, have rendered the matter clear to all England. But, forall this bribing of the Scotch lords at the Scotch King's Court, hecould not procure the Pretender to be delivered up to him. James,though not very particular in many respects, would not betray him;and the ever-busy Duchess of Burgundy so provided him with arms,and good soldiers, and with money besides, that he had soon alittle army of fifteen hundred men of various nations. With these,and aided by the Scottish King in person, he crossed the borderinto England, and made a proclamation to the people, in which hecalled the King 'Henry Tudor;' offered large rewards to any whoshould take or distress him; and announced himself as King Richardthe Fourth come to receive the homage of his faithful subjects.His faithful subjects, however, cared nothing for him, and hatedhis faithful troops: who, being of different nations, quarrelledalso among themselves. Worse than this, if worse were possible,they began to plunder the country; upon which the White Rose said,that he would rather lose his rights, than gain them through themiseries of the English people. The Scottish King made a jest ofhis scruples; but they and their whole force went back againwithout fighting a battle.

　　The worst consequence of this attempt was, that a rising took placeamong the people of Cornwall, who considered themselves too heavilytaxed to meet the charges of the expected war. Stimulated byFlammock, a lawyer, and Joseph, a blacksmith, and joined by LordAudley and some other country gentlemen, they marched on all theway to Deptford Bridge, where they fought a battle with the King'sarmy. They were defeated - though the Cornish men fought withgreat bravery - and the lord was beheaded, and the lawyer and theblacksmith were hanged, drawn, and quartered. The rest werepardoned. The King, who believed every man to be as avaricious ashimself, and thought that money could settle anything, allowed themto make bargains for their liberty with the soldiers who had takenthem.

　　Perkin Warbeck, doomed to wander up and down, and never to findrest anywhere - a sad fate: almost a sufficient punishment for animposture, which he seems in time to have half believed himself -lost his Scottish refuge through a truce being made between the twoKings; and found himself, once more, without a country before himin which he could lay his head. But James (always honourable andtrue to him, alike when he melted down his plate, and even thegreat gold chain he had been used to wear, to pay soldiers in hiscause; and now, when that cause was lost and hopeless) did notconclude the treaty, until he had safely departed out of theScottish dominions. He, and his beautiful wife, who was faithfulto him under all reverses, and left her state and home to followhis poor fortunes, were put aboard ship with everything necessaryfor their comfort and protection, and sailed for Ireland.

　　But, the Irish people had had enough of counterfeit Earls ofWarwick and Dukes of York, for one while; and would give the WhiteRose no aid. So, the White Rose - encircled by thorns indeed -resolved to go with his beautiful wife to Cornwall as a forlornresource, and see what might be made of the Cornish men, who hadrisen so valiantly a little while before, and who had fought sobravely at Deptford Bridge.

　　To Whitsand Bay, in Cornwall, accordingly, came Perkin Warbeck andhis wife; and the lovely lady he shut up for safety in the Castleof St. Michael's Mount, and then marched into Devonshire at thehead of three thousand Cornishmen. These were increased to sixthousand by the time of his arrival in Exeter; but, there thepeople made a stout resistance, and he went on to Taunton, where hecame in sight of the King's army. The stout Cornish men, althoughthey were few in number, and badly armed, were so bold, that theynever thought of retreating; but bravely looked forward to a battleon the morrow. Unhappily for them, the man who was possessed of somany engaging qualities, and who attracted so many people to hisside when he had nothing else with which to tempt them, was not asbrave as they. In the night, when the two armies lay opposite toeach other, he mounted a swift horse and fled. When morningdawned, the poor confiding Cornish men, discovering that they hadno leader, surrendered to the King's power. Some of them werehanged, and the rest were pardoned and went miserably home.

　　Before the King pursued Perkin Warbeck to the sanctuary of Beaulieuin the New Forest, where it was soon known that he had takenrefuge, he sent a body of horsemen to St. Michael's Mount, to seizehis wife. She was soon taken and brought as a captive before theKing. But she was so beautiful, and so good, and so devoted to theman in whom she believed, that the King regarded her withcompassion, treated her with great respect, and placed her atCourt, near the Queen's person. And many years after PerkinWarbeck was no more, and when his strange story had become like anursery tale, she was called the White Rose, by the people, inremembrance of her beauty.

　　The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the King's men;and the King, pursuing his usual dark, artful ways, sent pretendedfriends to Perkin Warbeck to persuade him to come out and surrenderhimself. This he soon did; the King having taken a good look atthe man of whom he had heard so much - from behind a screen -directed him to be well mounted, and to ride behind him at a littledistance, guarded, but not bound in any way. So they enteredLondon with the King's favourite show - a procession; and some ofthe people hooted as the Pretender rode slowly through the streetsto the Tower; but the greater part were quiet, and very curious tosee him. From the Tower, he was taken to the Palace atWestminster, and there lodged like a gentleman, though closelywatched. He was examined every now and then as to his imposture;but the King was so secret in all he did, that even then he gave ita consequence, which it cannot be supposed to have in itselfdeserved.

　　At last Perkin Warbeck ran away, and took refuge in anothersanctuary near Richmond in Surrey. From this he was againpersuaded to deliver himself up; and, being conveyed to London, hestood in the stocks for a whole day, outside Westminster Hall, andthere read a paper purporting to be his full confession, andrelating his history as the King's agents had originally describedit. He was then shut up in the Tower again, in the company of theEarl of Warwick, who had now been there for fourteen years: eversince his removal out of Yorkshire, except when the King had hadhim at Court, and had shown him to the people, to prove theimposture of the Baker's boy. It is but too probable, when weconsider the crafty character of Henry the Seventh, that these twowere brought together for a cruel purpose. A plot was soondiscovered between them and the keepers, to murder the Governor,get possession of the keys, and proclaim Perkin Warbeck as KingRichard the Fourth. That there was some such plot, is likely; thatthey were tempted into it, is at least as likely; that theunfortunate Earl of Warwick - last male of the Plantagenet line -was too unused to the world, and too ignorant and simple to knowmuch about it, whatever it was, is perfectly certain; and that itwas the King's interest to get rid of him, is no less so. He wasbeheaded on Tower Hill, and Perkin Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn.

　　Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose shadowyhistory was made more shadowy - and ever will be - by the mysteryand craft of the King. If he had turned his great naturaladvantages to a more honest account, he might have lived a happyand respected life, even in those days. But he died upon a gallowsat Tyburn, leaving the Scottish lady, who had loved him so well,kindly protected at the Queen's Court. After some time she forgother old loves and troubles, as many people do with Time's mercifulassistance, and married a Welsh gentleman. Her second husband, SirMatthew Cradoc, more honest and more happy than her first, liesbeside her in a tomb in the old church of Swansea.

　　The ill-blood between France and England in this reign, arose outof the continued plotting of the Duchess of Burgundy, and disputesrespecting the affairs of Brittany. The King feigned to be verypatriotic, indignant, and warlike; but he always contrived so asnever to make war in reality, and always to make money. Histaxation of the people, on pretence of war with France, involved,at one time, a very dangerous insurrection, headed by Sir JohnEgremont, and a common man called John a Chambre. But it wassubdued by the royal forces, under the command of the Earl ofSurrey. The knighted John escaped to the Duchess of Burgundy, whowas ever ready to receive any one who gave the King trouble; andthe plain John was hanged at York, in the midst of a number of hismen, but on a much higher gibbet, as being a greater traitor. Hunghigh or hung low, however, hanging is much the same to the personhung.

　　Within a year after her marriage, the Queen had given birth to ason, who was called Prince Arthur, in remembrance of the oldBritish prince of romance and story; and who, when all these eventshad happened, being then in his fifteenth year, was married toCatherine, the daughter of the Spanish monarch, with greatrejoicings and bright prospects; but in a very few months hesickened and died. As soon as the King had recovered from hisgrief, he thought it a pity that the fortune of the SpanishPrincess, amounting to two hundred thousand crowns, should go outof the family; and therefore arranged that the young widow shouldmarry his second son Henry, then twelve years of age, when he tooshould be fifteen. There were objections to this marriage on thepart of the clergy; but, as the infallible Pope was gained over,and, as he must be right, that settled the business for the time.The King's eldest daughter was provided for, and a long course ofdisturbance was considered to be set at rest, by her being marriedto the Scottish King.

　　And now the Queen died. When the King had got over that grief too,his mind once more reverted to his darling money for consolation,and he thought of marrying the Dowager Queen of Naples, who wasimmensely rich: but, as it turned out not to be practicable togain the money however practicable it might have been to gain thelady, he gave up the idea. He was not so fond of her but that hesoon proposed to marry the Dowager Duchess of Savoy; and, soonafterwards, the widow of the King of Castile, who was raving mad.But he made a money-bargain instead, and married neither.

　　The Duchess of Burgundy, among the other discontented people towhom she had given refuge, had sheltered Edmund de la Pole (youngerbrother of that Earl of Lincoln who was killed at Stoke), now Earlof Suffolk. The King had prevailed upon him to return to themarriage of Prince Arthur; but, he soon afterwards went away again;and then the King, suspecting a conspiracy, resorted to hisfavourite plan of sending him some treacherous friends, and buyingof those scoundrels the secrets they disclosed or invented. Somearrests and executions took place in consequence. In the end, theKing, on a promise of not taking his life, obtained possession ofthe person of Edmund de la Pole, and shut him up in the Tower.

　　This was his last enemy. If he had lived much longer he would havemade many more among the people, by the grinding exaction to whichhe constantly exposed them, and by the tyrannical acts of his twoprime favourites in all money-raising matters, Edmund Dudley andRichard Empson. But Death - the enemy who is not to be bought offor deceived, and on whom no money, and no treachery has any effect- presented himself at this juncture, and ended the King's reign.He died of the gout, on the twenty-second of April, one thousandfive hundred and nine, and in the fifty-third year of his age,after reigning twenty-four years; he was buried in the beautifulChapel of Westminster Abbey, which he had himself founded, andwhich still bears his name.

　　It was in this reign that the great Christopher Columbus, on behalfof Spain, discovered what was then called The New World. Greatwonder, interest, and hope of wealth being awakened in Englandthereby, the King and the merchants of London and Bristol fittedout an English expedition for further discoveries in the New World,and entrusted it to Sebastian Cabot, of Bristol, the son of aVenetian pilot there. He was very successful in his voyage, andgained high reputation, both for himself and England.