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He was beheaded on Tower Hill, and Perkin Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn. Such was the end of the pretended Duke of York, whose shadowy history was made more shadowy and ever will be by the mystery and craft of the King. If he had turned his great natural advantages to a more honest account, he might have lived a happy and respected life, even in those days.
Foiled both in England and Ireland, Perkin now betook himself to Scotland to obtain the help of the young King, James IV. The affair showed conclusively how small was the danger in England of a Yorkist rising in favour of the pretender a fact very fully recognised by Ferdinand and Isabella, though Maximilian clung pertinaciously to his protege.
The former says, that Perkin, roving up and down between Antwerp and Tournay and other towns, and living much in English company, had the English tongue perfect. Henry was so afraid of not ascertaining a good foundation of Perkin's English accent, that he makes him learn the language twice over.
It remains not only a secret but a doubt, whether the elder brother was murdered. If Perkin was the younger, and knew certainly that his brother was put to death, our doubt would vanish: but can it vanish on no better authority than this foolish oration! Did Grafton hear it pronounced? Did king James bestow his kinswoman on Perkin, on the strength of such a fable?
Perkin Warbeck was not heard of before 1495, when duke Richard would have been Twenty-one. Margaret of York, duchess dowager of Burgundy, and sister of Edward the Fourth, is said by lord Bacon to have been the Juno who persecuted the pious Aeneas, Henry, and set up this phantom against him.
It formed a dramatic end to the history of the fifteenth century, being the closing event in the wars of the White and the Red Roses, the death of the last Plantagenet and of the last White Rose aspirant to the throne. In conclusion, the question may be asked, Who was Perkin Warbeck?
His purposes were two the one to lay open the abuse, the other to break the knot of the conspirators. To detect the abuse there were but two ways the first, to make it manifest to the world that the Duke of York was indeed murdered; the other to prove that, were he dead or alive, yet Perkin was a counterfeit. For the first, thus it stood.
In short, what did Henry ever muffle and disguise but the truth? and why was his whole conduct so different in the cases of Lambert and Perkin, if their cases were not totally different?
This passage is, so very important, the whole story depends so much upon it, that if I can show the utter impossibility of its being true, Perkin will remain the true duke of York for any thing we can prove to the contrary; and for Henry, Sir Thomas More, lord Bacon, and their copyists, it will be impossible to give any longer credit to their narratives.
The pursuers, who had failed to overtake them, could only surround the sanctuary and wait orders from the king. The astute Henry pursued his usual course, employing policy instead of force. Perkin was coaxed out of his retreat, on promise of good treatment if he should surrender, and was brought up to London, guarded, but not bound.
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