Duke of Clarence and nephew of Edward IV., offered a tempting opportunity to anyone having sufficient audacity to declare himself the prisoner escaped. One Lambert Simnel was persuaded to take the name of Richard, Duke of York, younger son of Edward IV., then to abandon it, and finally to substitute for it the name of Edward, Earl of Warwick. He found some support abroad among the enemies of England, and headed an invasion with a few German mercenaries. He was never formidable, and after his followers had been worsted in battle, he was, with quiet contempt, taken into the service of Henry himself. But false personation was one of the familiar devices of the age, and the title of Richard IV., King of England, was so great a temptation that it brought another claimant into the field. For many years the reign of Henry VII. was disturbed by the pretensions of a young man who succeeded in persuading a great number not only of foreigners but even of Englishmen that he was the younger son of Edward IV. There is good reason to believe that he really was the son of a Flemish Jew who seems to have been called Warbeck. The pretender, Peter, familiarly known by the diminutive Peterkin or Perkin, at length had the temerity to appear in England, was taken prisoner, and confessed himself an impostor more than once. His wife was generously treated by Henry; and he might, perhaps, have escaped, like his predecessor Simnel, with no more punishment than humiliation and a temporary imprisonment, had he not possessed a restless temperament and a resolute will, and had he not met with a new impulse to intrigue. It happened that when he was a prisoner in the Tower of London the chamber assigned to him was Perkin War beck. immediately below that which was occupied by the real Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, and last male representative of the House of York, whose Edward Planname had been assumed by Lambert Simnel. tagenet and The earl, it seems, was not in solitary confinement, but was visited by two gentlemen, Thomas Astwode and Robert Cleymond, who apparently held some office in the Tower, and who kept him in communication with the outer world. The three, it is alleged, formed a plan for the escape of the earl and for the deposition of the king. The gunpowder in the Tower was to have been fired, and in the confusion the conspirators were to have seized all the money and jewels in the treasury there, and to have proclaimed that a shilling a day would be paid to all who joined their standard. From the indictment against the earl it is not clear what was supposed to be the precise object of the plot, as it is stated in one place that he, and in another that Perkin Warbeck, was to have been made king. There appears, however, to be no doubt that a hole was made in the floor of the earl's chamber through which he could speak to his fellow-prisoner below, and that some of the last days of the last of the Plantagenet princes were spent in intimate converse with the bold and clever but unscrupulous son of the renegade Jew of Tournay. Many gentlemen had already been brought to the block for the support which they had given to Warbeck; the intrigue in the Tower was fatal to him and to the unfortunate Plantagenet also. For Perkin there need be little sympathy, as he again confessed himself an impostor before his execution. But for the young and inexperienced nephew of Edward IV. it is impossible not to feel some compassion. When arraigned before the Lord High Steward, and the dukes and earls summoned to try him as his peers, he said not a word in defence, but simply pleaded guilty. In our time he would have obtained the mercy for which he had taken the most dignified manner of asking; at that time it seemed only a matter of course that judgment should be passed upon him, to be taken back to the Tower, and thence drawn through London to the gallows at Tyburn, and there hanged, cut down, disembowelled, and quartered, like any other traitor. It was a display of mercy, if he was simply beheaded on Tower Hill. cruelty under Henry VII. Much obloquy has been heaped upon Henry VII. for permitting the execution of Warwick. From a Abatement of modern point of view, no doubt, the king's conduct appears utterly inconsistent with even the feeblest impulse of generosity. But from the point of view of the fifteenth century, which was now closing, it was strange, not that the first Tudor king sanctioned the death of the last male of the Plantagenets, but that he had suffered so dangerous an enemy to live during fifteen years of his reign. To grant Lambert Simnel his life, and to give an honourable provision to Lady Catharine Gordon, whom Perkin Warbeck had married, were acts of the soundest policy, but they were acts of which none of the Plantagenet kings had shown themselves capable. The reason was not that they were Plantagenets and Henry was a Tudor, but that a Tudor happened to ascend the throne at a time when the intellects of Englishmen had somewhat expanded, and when their hearts were beginning to beat in sympathy with the promptings of a somewhat less limited understanding. It could not yet be said that generosity had become a common virtue; it could not yet be said that justice was commonly tempered with mercy; but it could be said with truth that there were indications of a slight abatement of cruelty, though they were soon to disappear under the influence of fanaticism. It was remarkable, indeed, that a change in the features of the times was to be observed in the very midst of the resemblance borne by the attempts of Simnel and Warbeck to the events which followed the depositions of Edward II. and Richard II. The pretenders showed the old reliance upon the credulity of the age, and their supporters showed that credulity—a natural consequence of difficult communication and want of publicity—was by no means exhausted. But Henry maintained his position with comparative ease; and no series of vindictive executions followed the downfall of the rival claimants. No king of England with so bad a title had ever before held his throne with so little bloodshed. His accession may, therefore, be in many ways most justly regarded as a turning-point in the history of our nation. policy against retainers, and Nothing indicated more clearly that the elements of society were about to be thrown into new combinations than the perseverance with which previous The Tudor statutes against giving liveries and tokens were liveries, tokens, enforced, and with which their deficiencies forcible entries. were made good by new enactments. All the considerable landholders, inheriting the barbarous traditions which had been handed down by the invaders who established themselves upon the ruins of Roman civilisation in Britain, still regarded themselves as chieftains. All their inferiors in their neighbourhood were their retainers, to whom they gave liveries and tokens, or who, in other words, wore their uniform and rallied to their standard. It was impossible that a settled and peaceful government could exist so long as every gentleman believed he had a hereditary privilege to make war on his neighbour whenever he pleased. Henry VII. has earned the thanks of posterity for the skill with which he discerned. that the time had come when one of the greatest remaining obstacles to civilisation could be successfully attacked, and for the resolution with which he attacked. it. Statute followed statute and prosecution prosecution; and though no statute and no policy can be so strong as an inveterate national habit, the policy and the statutes which make the reign of the first Tudor memorable had, with other causes, perceptibly changed the aspect of English society before the last Tudor died. The task was difficult and the process long, but no statesman who has studied history and character could expect that it would be otherwise. A common gift from chief to retainer seems to have been a badge to be worn in the cap. Thus one of the Stanleys was in the habit of giving to his followers 'the Eagle's Foot,' and one of the Darcies the Buck's Head.' These tokens were sometimes of silver and sometimes gilt, and were, no doubt, highly prized by those who received them. There was a bond of sympathy between those who wore the same uniform, or the same device, wherever they might meet; and though they received nothing else from the lord, except perhaps a seat in his hall whenever they were hungry, they were always ready to do his bidding, partly from an inherited feeling of allegiance, partly from mere love of adventure. Thus the practice of giving liveries went hand in The jurisdic- hand with the practice of making forcible entries Star Chamber on lands to which the right was disputed. tion of the directed It against them. is the great glory of the Tudors, no matter whether they aimed at despotic power or not, that they |