Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton | Page 7

Ireland, he resolved to try the affections of the men of
Cornwall. No sooner did he land at Bodmin, than the people crowded
to his banners in such numbers, that the pretender, hopeful of success,
took upon himself for the first time the title of Richard IV., king of
England. Not to suffer the expectation of his followers to languish, he

laid siege to Exeter; but the men of Exeter, having shut their gates in
his face, waited with confidence for the coming of the king. Nor were
they disappointed. The Lords D'Aubeney and Broke were despatched
with a small body of troops to the relief of the city. The leading nobles
offered their services as volunteers, and the king, at the head of a
considerable army, prepared to follow his advanced guard. Perkin's
followers, who numbered about 7000 men, would have stood by him;
but the cowardly Fleming, despairing of success, secretly withdrew to
the sanctuary of Beaulieu. The Cornish rebels accepted the king's
clemency, and Lady Gordon, the wife of the pretender, fell into the
hands of the royalists. To Henry's credit it must be mentioned that he
did not visit the sins of the husband upon the poor deluded wife, but
placed her in attendance upon the queen, and bestowed upon her a
pension which she continued to enjoy throughout his reign, and even
after his death.
It was a difficult matter to know how to deal with the impostor himself.
It would have been easy to make the privileges of the church yield to
reasons of state, and to take him by violence from the sanctuary; but at
the same time it was wise to respect the rights of the clergy and the
prejudices of the people. Therefore agents were appointed to treat with
the counterfeit prince, and succeeded in inducing him, by promises that
his life would be spared, to deliver himself up to King Henry. Once a
captive, he was treated with derision rather than with extreme severity,
and was led in a kind of mock triumph to London. As he passed along
the road, and through the streets of the city, men of all grades
assembled to see the impostor, and cast ridicule upon his fallen fortunes;
and the farce was ended by the publication of a confession in which
Warbeck narrated his real parentage, and the chief causes of his
presumption to royal honours.
But although his life was spared, he was still detained in custody. After
a time he escaped from prison, and fled to the Priory of Sheen, near
Richmond, where he desired the prior, who was a favourite with the
king, to petition for his life and a pardon. If Henry had listened to the
advice of his counsellors he would have taken advantage of the
opportunity to rid himself of this persistent disturber of his peace; but

he was content to give orders that "the knave should be taken out and
set in the stocks." Accordingly, on the 14th of June 1499, Warbeck was
exposed on a scaffold, erected in the Palace Court, Westminster, as he
was on the day following at the Cross on Cheapside, and at both these
places he read a confession of his imposture. Notwithstanding this
additional disgrace, no sooner was he again under lock and key, than
his restless spirit induced him to concoct another plot for liberty and the
crown. Insinuating himself into the intimacy of four servants of Sir
John Digby, lieutenant of the Tower, by their means he succeeded in
opening a correspondence with the Earl of Warwick, who was confined
in the same prison. The unfortunate prince listened readily to his fatal
proposals, and a new plan was laid. Henry was apprised of it, and was
not sorry that the last of the Plantagenets had thus thrust himself into
his hands. Warbeck and Warwick were brought to trial, condemned,
and executed. Perkin Warbeck died very penitently on the gallows at
Tyburn. "Such," says Bacon, "was the end of this little cockatrice of a
king." The Earl of Warwick was beheaded on Tower Hill, on the 28th
of November 1499.

DON SEBASTIAN--THE LOST KING OF PORTUGAL.
King Sebastian of Portugal, who inherited the throne in 1557, seems,
even from his infancy, to have exhibited a remarkable love of warlike
exercises, and at an early age to have given promise of distinguishing
himself as a warrior. At the time of his accession, Portugal had lost
much of her old military prestige; the Moors had proved too strong for
her diminished armies; the four strongholds of Arzilla, Alcazar-Sequer,
Saphin, and Azamor, had been wrested from her; and Mazagan, Ceuta,
and Tangier alone remained to her of all her African possessions.
Consequently, the tutors of the boy-king were delighted to see his
warlike instinct,