The Flemish Boatman's Son Who Convinced Half of Europe He Was the Younger Prince in the Tower for Eight Years

Henry VII had been on the English throne for six years when, in November 1491, a 17-year-old in Cork, Ireland, was identified by local Yorkist sympathisers as Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York — the younger of the two Princes in the Tower who had disappeared in 1483 and were presumed murdered by Richard III.

The young man was actually Perkin Warbeck, son of a Tournai boatman called Jehan Werbecque. He had been working as a servant for a Breton silk merchant when the Yorkist contact party identified him in Cork. He had the right age, the right complexion, the right facial bone structure, and (within a few months of coaching) the right court etiquette.

The European tour

Margaret of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV and Richard III, recognised Warbeck as her nephew in 1493. Her recognition was politically decisive. Margaret had known both real princes personally. If she said this was Richard of Shrewsbury, then for diplomatic purposes he was Richard of Shrewsbury.

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, recognised him in 1494 at the funeral of Maximilian’s father Frederick III; Warbeck attended as official mourner for “his uncle Edward IV.” Charles VIII of France gave him a Paris household until forced to expel him under the 1492 Peace of Étaples. James IV of Scotland received him in November 1495, married him to the king’s own cousin Lady Catherine Gordon, and provided a small Scottish invasion force in September 1496.

The Scottish invasion failed. James continued to support Warbeck through 1497 but began to look for an exit.

Cornwall, September 1497

Warbeck landed at Whitsand Bay in Cornwall on 7 September 1497. The timing was opportunistic: Cornwall had revolted against Henry VII’s Scottish-war taxation earlier that summer (the Cornish Rebellion of 1497) and the local population was hostile to the Tudor regime. About 8,000 Cornishmen joined Warbeck within two weeks.

The campaign collapsed at Exeter. Henry’s army arrived on 27 September. Warbeck’s troops besieged the city without success; news of the royal advance produced mass desertion. Warbeck fled to sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire and surrendered on 5 October 1497.

The confession and the execution

Henry treated him initially with calculated lenience. Warbeck signed a public confession at Taunton on 5 October 1497 admitting that he was Jehan Werbecque’s son from Tournai. He was paraded through London but allowed to remain at court as a sort of decorative prisoner, attending Henry’s dinners while sleeping under guard.

The arrangement broke in June 1498 when Warbeck escaped, was recaptured at Sheen, and was committed to the Tower of London proper. In autumn 1499 he became implicated — possibly by entrapment, possibly genuinely — in a conspiracy with the imprisoned Earl of Warwick (the same real Yorkist claimant whose substitute had been Lambert Simnel twelve years earlier).

Warbeck was hanged at Tyburn on 23 November 1499 after being permitted to read aloud his October 1497 confession at the foot of the gallows. The Earl of Warwick was beheaded at the Tower five days later. Henry had eliminated both the Yorkist substitute and the Yorkist original in the same week.

His widow Catherine Gordon lived in Henry’s court as an honoured pensioner until her own death in October 1537, having outlived her impostor husband by thirty-eight years and married three further English husbands.