Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/298

 de Werbecque,’ son of ‘Diericq de Werbecque,’ and the confession also mentions ‘Diryck Osbeck’ as the Pretender's grandfather. The same document names other family connections who were prominent citizens of Tournay. Early in his life Perkin's mother took him to Antwerp, where he remained half a year with a cousin, John Stienbeck, an officer of the town; but owing to the wars in Flanders he returned home probably about 1483. A year later a Tournay merchant named Berlo took him to the mart at Antwerp, where he had a five months' illness, then removed him to Bergen-op-Zoom, and afterwards put him in service at Middelburg. After some months he went into Portugal, in the company of Sir Edward Brampton's wife, an adherent of the house of York, and remained a year in that country, in the service of a knight named Peter Vacz de Cogna, who had only one eye. Then, leaving him, he took service with a Breton named Pregent Meno, with whom he sailed to Ireland.

He landed at Cork in 1491, arrayed in fine silk clothing which belonged to his master. Lambert Simnel [q. v.] had been crowned in Dublin four years before as the son of the Duke of Clarence, and the turbulent citizens would have it that Perkin was the same son of Clarence who had been so crowned. This he denied on oath before the mayor; but two other persons then maintained he was a son of Richard III. This also he denied, but, being finally assured of the support of the earls of Desmond and Kildare, he agreed to take upon himself the character of the Duke of York. He was accordingly put in training to speak good English and to act as became a son of Edward IV. On 2 March 1492 James IV of Scotland received letters from him out of Ireland as ‘King Edward's son.’ But he was immediately afterwards invited to France by Charles VIII, and was there in October 1492, when Henry VII made his brief invasion. On the peace of Étaples, however (3 Nov.), Charles was obliged to dismiss him, and he betook himself to Flanders, where Margaret, duchess dowager of Burgundy [q. v.], received him as her nephew. Under her his education as Duke of York was completed.

In July 1493 Henry VII sent Sir Edward Poynings [q. v.] and William Warham [q. v.] to Philip, archduke of Austria, Maximilian's son, to remonstrate against such support being given to him in Flanders. The archduke was then a lad of fifteen, and his council answered for him that while he wished to keep on good terms with England, he had no control over what the duchess did within the lands of her dowry. The king replied by a stoppage of trade with Flanders, which produced a riot in London. In November Perkin for a time left the Low Countries, and presented himself to Maximilian, king of the Romans at Vienna, at the funeral of his father, the Emperor Frederic III (, Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg, vol. viii., Verzeichniss der Urkunden, No. 2000). In the summer of 1494 Maximilian brought him down in his company to the Low Countries again, and recognised him as king of England. Garter king-of-arms was sent over to remonstrate against this, and to declare both to Maximilian and to Margaret that Henry had positive evidence of his being the son of a burgess of Tournay. Garter was not listened to, but, in spite of threats of imprisonment, he proclaimed the fact aloud in the streets of Mechlin, in presence of other heralds. In October Perkin was present at Antwerp when the Archduke Philip took his oath as Duke of Brabant, and he displayed the arms of the house of York on the house in which he stayed (, Nachlass, p. 228;, v. 15, 46).

Meanwhile secret conspiracies were formed in England in his favour. Henry, to learn the extent of these, sent spies over to Flanders, and offered pardons to Sir Robert Clifford and William Barley, two of the refugees who were among the leaders of the movement. Clifford at once accepted his pardon, and, coming over to England, received a reward of 500l. for supplying full information; but Barley deferred his submission to Henry for two years longer. Suddenly a number of Perkin's adherents in England were arrested, including Lord Fitzwalters, Sir Simon Mountford, and William Worsley, dean of St. Paul's, of whom the laymen were put to death. Clifford further accused Sir William Stanley [q. v.], to whose action at Bosworth Field Henry was indebted for his crown, and he, too, after trial was beheaded.

The Duchess Margaret, besides being animated against Henry by the feelings natural to a prominent member of the house of York, had lost on his accession all the revenues granted to her by Edward IV on her marriage. These her feigned nephew, by a deed dated 10 Dec. 1494, engaged to restore to her when he should get possession of his kingdom; and Maximilian, on similar frail securities, lent him pecuniary assistance for his expedition. Nor would Maximilian, notwithstanding a contemptuous refusal of the regents of Tyrol to contribute to the enterprise, admit that he had been deceived, and