Perkin Warbeck
What were the Cause and Consequences of Perkin Warbeck in 1489-99 in the reign of Henry VII and to what extent did it pose a problem or threat to the Crown.
Perkin Warbeck was extremely interesting character, who’s period of as a pretender is looked at with much diversity. In a sense to understand him we have to look at many different areas and the different sections of his activities to see if he can be labelled a true threat. We are going to look at the true effect of Warbeck to the Tudor dynasty and analyse his different actions to see the consequences of him, and how he emerged in the first place.
First we are going to look at how Warbeck managed to rise in the first place. As the story goes, he was working for a cloth merchant from Flanders and arrived in Cork where he was showing off the goods. When people saw how finely dressed he was, they immediately took upon him and told him that he was the ‘Earl of Warwick’, who was Edward IV’s great nephew. However knowing that this threat could easily be tackled by Henry VII who had the actual Earl of Warwick in the tower of London, he quickly changed his identity to Richard, Duke of York. This is where it becomes a threat to Henry, with a very weak claim to the throne himself, a Duke of York imposter would be highly difficult to disprove as the priest who had buried the bodies of the children was dead so could not justify their identity. In reality, the plot had probably been pre planned by Margaret of Burgundy, who looked to avenge Richard III, her brother.
With it being established that Warbeck had a secure (In the minds of many people at the time anyway) claim to the throne, he could begin his conquests in attempt to take England from the Tudors. We must now look at the ever important aspect of his supporters. For any true Pretender, they must have a secure backing from other Kings if they wished to fund and organise any true rebellion. He initially had several different countries looking to support him.
Perkin Warbeck was extremely interesting character, who’s period of as a pretender is looked at with much diversity. In a sense to understand him we have to look at many different areas and the different sections of his activities to see if he can be labelled a true threat. We are going to look at the true effect of Warbeck to the Tudor dynasty and analyse his different actions to see the consequences of him, and how he emerged in the first place.
First we are going to look at how Warbeck managed to rise in the first place. As the story goes, he was working for a cloth merchant from Flanders and arrived in Cork where he was showing off the goods. When people saw how finely dressed he was, they immediately took upon him and told him that he was the ‘Earl of Warwick’, who was Edward IV’s great nephew. However knowing that this threat could easily be tackled by Henry VII who had the actual Earl of Warwick in the tower of London, he quickly changed his identity to Richard, Duke of York. This is where it becomes a threat to Henry, with a very weak claim to the throne himself, a Duke of York imposter would be highly difficult to disprove as the priest who had buried the bodies of the children was dead so could not justify their identity. In reality, the plot had probably been pre planned by Margaret of Burgundy, who looked to avenge Richard III, her brother.
With it being established that Warbeck had a secure (In the minds of many people at the time anyway) claim to the throne, he could begin his conquests in attempt to take England from the Tudors. We must now look at the ever important aspect of his supporters. For any true Pretender, they must have a secure backing from other Kings if they wished to fund and organise any true rebellion. He initially had several different countries looking to support him.