France,

earl of Desmond, formerly the great supporters of the white rose. The latter declared in favour of Perkin : the former, who had lately been disgraced by Henry, returned an ambiguous but courteous answer. The adventurer had yet no apparent reason to be displeased with his reception : when he suddenly accepted an invitation from the ministers of Charles VIII., to visit He is acknowledgFrance, and place himself under the protection of that ed in monarch. He was received by the king as the real duke of York, and the rightful heir to the English throne. For his greater security a guard of honour was allotted to him under the command of the lord of Concressault and the English exiles and outlaws, to the number of one hundred, offered him their services by their agent sir George Nevil. Henry was perplexed and alarmed. He hastened to sign the peace with the French monarch; and Charles instantly ordered the adventurer to quit his dominions. This order betrays the real object of the countenance which had been given to his pretensions : perhaps it may explain why he made his appearance at that particular period.

:

2

dutchess of

Leaving France he solicited the protection of Mar- and by the garet, the dowager dutchess of Burgundy, who received Burgundy. him with joy, appointed him a guard of thirty halberdiers, and gave him the surname of « The white rose of England. » Her conduct revived the alarm of the king, and the hopes of his enemies. Could the aunt, it was

' Of a Scotch family of the name of Monipeny. If I understand rightly a letter of Ramsay lord Bothwell, Concressault told him, that he and the admiral of France had made many inquiries respecting the birth of the adventurer, but to no purpose. See the letter in Pinkerton's Scotland, ii. 438.

asked, be deceived as to the identity of her nephew? Or would so virtuous a princess countenance an impostor? Henry spared neither pains nor expense to unravel the mystery. His agents were distributed through the towns and villages of Flanders, and valuable rewards were offered for the slightest information. The Yorkists were equally active, Their secret agent sir Robert Clifford, was permitted to see «the white rose,» and to hear from the pretender and his aunt the history of his adventures. He assured his employers in England that the claim of the new duke of York was indisputable: while the royal emissaries reported that his real name was Perkin Warbeck: that he was born of respectable parents in the city of Tournay; that he had frequented the company of the English. merchants in Flanders; and had some time before sailed from Middleburgh to Lisbon in the service of lady Brompton, the wife of one of the outlaws. '

With this clue Henry was satisfied, and immediately dispatched sir Edward Poynings, and Dr. Warham, as his ambassadors to the archduke Philip, the sovereign of Burgundy. Their ostensible object was to renew the treaties between England and the Netherlands : but their secret instructions commissioned them to demand the surrender, or, if that could not be obtained, the expulsion of Warbeck. The ministers of the archduke were divided, some maintaining the identity, others the imposture of the pretender. An answer was ultimately returned, that Philip, through friendship for the king, would abstain from affording aid to his enemy, but that he could not control the dutchess, who was absolute mistress within the lands of her dower. Henry, ' Hall, 31, 31.

to manifest his displeasure, withdrew the mart of English cloth from Antwerp to Calais, and strictly prohibited all intercourse between the two countries. '

are betray

1494.

Clifford, and Barley his associate, had gone to His designs Flanders, as the envoys of the Yorkists: their fidelity ed. was soon corrupted by the promises and presents of Henry; and the moment they had wormed themselves into the confidence of the adventurer, they betrayed to the king all his secrets, with the names of his partizans. On the same day the lord Fitz-Water, sir Simon Mountford, sir Thomas Thwaites, Robert Ratcliffe, William Dawbeney, Thomas Cressemer, Thomas Atwood, and several clergymen, were apprehended on the charge of high treason. Their correspondence with the friends of the pretender in Flanders was considered a sufficient proof of their guilt; and all received judgment of death. Mountford, Thwaites, and Ratcliffe, suffered immediately lord Fitz-water was imprisoned at Calais, where three years later he forfeited his life by an unsuccessful attempt to escape. The rest were pardoned: but this act of vigour astonished and dismayed the unknown friends of the adventurer, many of whom, conscious of their guilt, and sensible that their associates had been betrayed, fled for security to different sanctuaries. 2

There remained, however, one, who, while he flattered himself that he possessed a high place in the royal favour, had been secretly marked out for destruction. After the festivities of Christmas, Henry repaired with his court to the Tower. Clifford arrived from Flanders, was introduced to the king in council, and on his knees obtained a full pardon. Being exhorted to prove his Rym. xii. 544. Hall, 33.

Rot. Parl. vi. 503, 504. Hall, 34.

His parti.

sans exe

cuted.

1495. Jan. 7.

repentance by discovering what he knew of the conspiracy, he accused the lord chamberlain, sir William Stanley. The king started with affected horror, and refused to give credit to the charge. To si® William he was indebted both for his crown and his life. At the battle of Bosworth, when he was on the point of sinking under the pressure of the enemy, that nobleman had rescued him from danger, and had secured to him the victory. But Clifford repeated the accusation with greater boldness, and Henry, out of apparent tenderness for his friend, desired sir William to confine himself to his apartment in the square tower, and to reserve his defence till his examination on the following morning. Whether it arose from consciousness of guilt, or from confidence in his past services, the prisoner confessed the truth of the charge; on that confession he was arraigned and condemned at Westminster and after a decent interval suffered the pu Feb. 15. nishment of decapitation. His death gave rise to contradictory reports. By some it was said that he had supplied the pretender with money: by others, that when he was solicited to declare for him, he had replied: « Were I sure that he was the son of Edward, I would « never fight against him ». But the indictment states that he had consented to the employment of Clifford, and had engaged to receive and aid all such persons as Clifford should send to him with a private sign'. This at least is probable, that unless he had been really entangled in the conspiracy, Henry would never have proceeded to the execution of a nobleman, to whom

Polyd. Virg. 593. Howell, State Trials, iii. 366. André says that he not only sent money to the pretender, but illum tutari et in regnum adducere promiserat. MS. Dom. A. xviii.

he was under so many obligations: but the king's avarice provoked a suspicion that the enormous wealth of the prisoner was the chief obstacle to his pardon. By his death, plate and money to the value of forty thousand pounds, with lands to the amount of three thousand pounds a-year, devolved to the crown.

1

of the Irish.

In the mean time, as the natives of Ireland had Submission long been warmly attached to the rival family, Henry had devoted a part of his attention to the pacification of that island. He nominally intrusted the government, with the title of Duke of York, to his second son Henry but as the prince was only four years old, sir Edward Poynings was appointed his deputy, and took possession with a small army of one thousand men. Poynings was soon called into the field by the turbulence of O'Hanlan, an Irish chieftain : but the natives retired before him into their woods, and thence by sudden and repeated sallies inflicted severe injuries on their opponents. The deputy, attributing his bad success to the jealousy or perfidy of the earl of Kildare, arrested that nobleman, sent him to England, and summoned a parliament. In that assembly several statutes were enacted to free the lower classes of inhabitants from the grievous impositions of coyne and livery; to break the power of the great lords by the prohibition of maintenance; to preserve the English ascendency within the pale by the revival of the statutes of Kilkenny 2, and to provide for the good government of the English domains by giving to

Rot. Parl. vi. 504. Fab. 530. Hall, 35. Bacon, 76-78. Speed, ex MS. Bern, Andreæ, 974.

2 That forbidding the use of the Irish language was excepted : a proof that the English settlers had by this time generally adopted it.