The Tudor rose

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  It was the unromantic bourgeois name of Perkin Warbeck.

  “Or was it Osbeck?” they debated.

  They really did not seem very sure. But they were all agreed that he had lived in Picardy, in the prosperous town of Tournay.

  “Then how is it,” asked Elizabeth, who had been summoned to the King's room to hear them, “that he speaks such faultless English?”

  “Jean de Warbeck, his father, being a free burgess of the town, sent him into commercial houses in Antwerp and Middlesburg, where he had much to do with English merchants,” one of Henry's spies told her. “We have proof that one year he was there from Christmas until Easter.”

  “Not very long in which to learn a language,” pointed out Sir William Stanley, sceptically.

  “In order to perfect it, Sir, he was sent into Portugal in the household of Sir Edward Brampton, and remained there for months,” he was told.

  “But still in a foreign country,” said Elizabeth, remembering for how long a time a faint French accent had clung to her husband's speech in spite of his being Welsh bred and born.

  “It is possible that this young man may actually have been born in England, Madam, while his parents were on a commercial visit here,” explained Archbishop Morton, who had been invaluable in assembling the varied and conflicting evidence. “Jean de Warbeck was, it seems, a converted Jew, and it has even been suggested that either for that reason or in order to encourage the Flemish trade your illustrious father himself may have stood godfather to the child.”

  “Are his parents dead?” asked Lord Stanley.

  “His mother, Katherine de Faro, is thought to be still alive.”

  “And was this Katherine de Faro particularly beautiful?” enquired Jasper Tudor with a meaning smile, joining in the conversation from the chair to which illness now confined him.

  “Of that we have no evidence, milord,” the informers said solemnly, surprised by his seeming irrelevance. “But probably, since the young man himself is said to have the asset of good looks—”

  “If you are suggesting, my good uncle, that this Warbeck child was something more than godson to my father,” interrupted Elizabeth crisply, “then I think your ingenious idea is shattered by the unlikelihood of his Grace bestowing upon him the name of Peter, or any of its absurd diminutives.”

  “How did this Perkin turn up in Ireland in the first place?” asked Lord Stanley, returning more realistically to the matter in hand.

  Archbishop Morton consulted a voluminous sheaf of papers. “For the sake of travel, or for some love of adventure which was in him, he appears to have gone there to assist a Breton merchant called Pregent Meno, who dealt in velvets and other expensive fabrics,” he said.

  “Then it was probably these fine fabrics bedecking his elegant person which so impressed the Irish and bedevilled them into believing that he must be some important personage!” suggested Stanley, with his rich indulgent laugh. “Well, write the whole matter down,” ordered the King, who had been listening in attentive silence.

  And as the Palace clerks made a great shuffling with their parchments and inkhorns milord Archbishop, who had been standing beside him, leaned closer. “It is an interesting story, Sir, and would look well in print,” he suggested, his fine dark eyes glittering with lively intelligence.

  “And probably more persuasive to the masses than in manuscript,” agreed Henry, making a note to write yet again to his Holiness in Rome about a Cardinal's hat for so able a Primate. “Well, milords, that should lay this bogey for ever and set the Queen's mind at rest,” he added more formally, in that precise, rather high-pitched voice of his, while drawing his gown about him and rising. “I would have you know that I have already written to the Archduke acquainting him with our findings and asking him to expel this gross impostor from Flanders. So now let us leave these good people to prepare their news for the printing press while we betake ourselves to the council-chamber. There are fresh dispatches arrived from their most Christian Majesties of Spain, and we would discuss the all-important matter of the marriage of our right well-beloved son the Prince of Wales with their daughter, Princess Katherine of Aragon.”

  Elizabeth, taking his courteously outstretched hand and allowing him to escort her from the room, was sensible of the new lightness of his step. “So you see it turns out to be, as I told you, just another foolish pother over another tradesman's son,” he said smugly, at parting. But, while agreeing with the common sense of his words, Elizabeth shared nothing of his relieved lightness. As she passed along the gallery towards the garden with her ladies she experienced an extraordinary flatness, as if some hope held insanely in the back of her mind had once again been dispelled. So that coming upon Sir William Stanley and Sir Robert Clifford standing together beneath an archway, she felt impelled to ask, “And what do you two gentlemen make of it?”

  Each of them held a document from which dangled the royal seal, and they had been so close in conversation and ceased speaking so abruptly at her approach that she was sure they had been still talking about Perkin Warbeck.

  “In spite of all this reassuring evidence, the King has very sensibly issued orders to all of us to hold ourselves and our men in armed readiness in case of trouble,” replied Sir William, covering his embarrassment with a statement of fact which was no answer at all.

  “And what do you think, Sir Robert?” persisted Elizabeth, trying to make her voice as cold and casual as possible. “You who were at first so much impressed that you lived for several months in the pretender's entourage?”

  Robert Clifford's position was a delicate one, and although he now enjoyed the King's favour the Queen's forthright way of speaking disconcerted him. “All the carefully amassed information we have just been listening to must, of course, be correct,” he answered carefully. “But the backers in this business were singularly fortunate in finding a young man who so much resembles your Grace's family.”

  Although this was the very confirmation which Elizabeth's heart sought, her chin went up proudly and her hand went to the locket beneath her gown. “Surely your judgment must be at fault,” she rebuked him, “if it ever saw anything in common between a mercer's son and my father's!”

  Like a good Court Chamberlain, Sir William hastened to say the tactful word. “If either of us really believed for a moment that this Perkin Warbeck was your Grace's brother,” he swore, tapping the summons he held in one hand with the back of the other, “your Grace must know that I would not lift my sword against him.”

  But Elizabeth left them feeling that the good man was both worried and uncertain. She wished above everything that she could see her Aunt Margaret of Burgundy and find out just how much that woman, whom she remembered with so much liking, had been activated by hatred of the Lancastrians and how much by belief in Perkin as a nephew. It must be more than ten years since Margaret Plantagenet had seen the real Dickon in England, when he was only a child of eight. After ten years, confronted by a grown man, could anyone be certain? Could she herself, who had seen him more recently? But of course her heart would cry out at sight of him and tell her. And it would all be confirmed because he would remember things—small foolish things which only the real Dickon would know. But why think about it? Why stand there with the tears in her eyes? Why keep recalling the loveableness of his personality, or the enchantment of his smile? Dickon was dead. Smothered, poor terrified precious, by Dighton's or Forest's rough, hell-hound hands. And had not she herself dreamed of Ned's crying out to her during that long night?

  To hope to see Dickon again in this world was madness. Of course Margaret of Burgundy, whatever she believed, was acting merely as the adoring sister of a dead Yorkist King. Only the previous evening Elizabeth had heard her husband dictating his letter to the young Archduke Philip and complaining that her malice was both causeless and endless. Henry could not, it seemed, rid himself of the conviction that she had been responsible, too, for all that trouble when Lambert Simnel had impersonated Warwick. “Being a wom
an past childbearing, she now brings forth full-grown imposters,” he had written. “Can she not instead be grateful for the joys which Almighty God serves up to her in beholding her niece Elizabeth in such honour, with children to inherit the throne of England?” As usual, Henry had set forth his arguments with reasonableness and restraint, preferring to conclude with a request rather than with the threats which he was undoubtedly in a position to make. “As Charles of France discarded this impostor,” he had written, “so I entreat you to do the same.”

  And although the fifteen-year-old Archduke—advised, no doubt, by his father the Emperor—wrote back in due course, regretting that he had no power to expel the Dowager Duchess or her guests from his territory, Elizabeth felt that sooner or later Henry would find means to force him into doing so.

  “And where will the poor garçon of Tournay go then?” she wondered, immediately chiding herself for the thought because it did not matter at all.

  But all too soon she and Henry were to know.

  “The pretender has landed in England,” people shouted; and some, in their excitement, so far forgot themselves as to cry aloud with love in their voices, “Duke Richard has come home!”

  All London was in an uproar. For an hour or two the Court seethed with excitement. And then fresh messengers clattered in over London Bridge, bringing more exact tidings, and the thing became a sorry jest, adding to Henry's prestige and somehow filling Elizabeth with secret, painful shame. The inglorious fact was that although Perkin's little borrowed fleet lay for several hours off Kent, with the money of his Continental backers behind him and the prayers of many a Yorkist wellwisher in England awaiting him, he himself had not set foot on English soil at all. He had sent a small advance party ashore to reconnoitre in some obscure fishing village, and the local Kentishmen, Tudor loyal, had lulled them with promises of food and adherence and then slaughtered them with whatever implements they could lay hands on, “trusting to God,” as they put it, “that King Henry would come before the ships' companies landed and wreaked vengeance.” But the foreign-looking ships had sent neither help nor vengeance, but sailed away, leaving their unfortunate comrades behind.

  “Which proves that he is no Plantagenet!” declared Elizabeth disgustedly.

  It had been such a pitiful attempt that the sudden shock of it was soon forgotten. De Puebla, the Spanish ambassador, even reported that his royal master—who had hitherto shown himself much concerned about the insecurity of Henry's claim—considered all such pretenders merely food for laughter. But Henry, more harassed than any of his subjects, had all the ports watched and his own Lord Chamberlain brought to trial. Nothing worse came to light concerning him than that he had sworn that if the would-be invader could be proved to be Edward's son he would not lift his sword against him, but this was sufficient to condemn him. Elizabeth, who had heard the words spoken in their innocuous context, supposed that Sir Robert Clifford must have reported them to the King out of spite or in order to wash out his own near-defection in the past, and she would have gone straightway to her husband about it; but Archbishop Morton assured her that it was known to both of them that Sir William had promised much of his wealth to this flickering Yorkist cause. And it occurred to her, as it might also have occurred to Henry, that the invader might indeed be Edward's son, and yet no Duke of York. The people were appalled that a man like the great Lord Stanley's brother should lose his life over so small an affair, all the more so in view of the King's habitual clemency; and yet they were impressed by the fact that neither family connections nor high places could protect a man from the results of suspected treachery.

  And Elizabeth, covertly watching her husband, thought that he had become more secretive than ever and noticed how he had begun to age. She knew that, whatever private evidence he might have had of Sir William's guilt, he must have found it hard to sign the death warrant of a man whose intervention had saved the day for him at Bosworth. All his natural caution must have warned him of the risk of losing his own stepfather's loyalty; and more than anything else he must have hated to bring such bitter grief into the family circle of his mother.

  Why had he done this thing, Elizabeth wondered, just when he could so ill afford unpopularity? Henry was not naturally cruel. Rather, he turned from violence. But fear, sometimes, could drive a naturally clement man to cruelty. Could it be possible that when it came to this question of the succession Henry was mortally afraid? That all his pride and self-sufficiency and vaunting dragon banners were but a cloak for the pitiful sense of inferiority felt by a man who had neither the clear right nor the personal attractiveness for the heritage he had usurped? A cloak which excluded the sympathy she would so willingly have given.

  For the first time the wild idea occurred to Elizabeth that perhaps Henry might half believe in the thing which he had taken such pains to disprove. That he, too, was not quite sure that Perkin was an imposter.

  But, whether he did or not, life went on much as usual. Elizabeth bore Henry another daughter, who, from the first moment of her gurgling baby laughter, brought her nothing but joy. They called her Mary, and young Harry, her brother, adored her. It was good for him, their mother thought, to curb his boisterous strength sometimes and play with her gently. Elizabeth was happily occupied with all her children. Arthur was mostly away at Ludlow with his tutor, and she was proud of his scholarly prowess, although sometimes of late she had worried over his health. She tried to prepare her elder daughter for the high matrimonial place which would undoubtedly be hers and at the same time to cure her haughtiness; and not to spoil young Harry, however much she was tempted to do so because of the turbulent affection he showed her.

  Happy with her family at Richmond or Greenwich, Elizabeth saw little of Henry, who seemed to be perpetually going by barge to Westminster. He worked harder than most of his subjects, improving the courts of justice, controlling the dangerous power of the great barons by limiting their liveried retinues, and increasing the country's prosperity by creating markets abroad and by encouraging the discoveries of new countries by such splendid sailors as Cabot. He was full, too, of the prestige which would accrue to England from the proposed Spanish alliance, and spent hours closeted with de Puebla, the Ambassador, haggling about a handsome dowry and trying to arrange for a proxy marriage.

  But the pretensions to a better Plantagenet claim which dogged Henry's reign were not to leave them in peace for long. There came a memorable evening when all their domestic activities were overshadowed by portentous news from Berwick. As they sat listening to the musicians after supper a messenger from that northern border town sought an immediate audience with the King, and hurried into the hall, dusty and exhausted, to report that Perkin Warbeck, forced at last from Flanders by the people's reactions to Henry's trade reprisals, had landed in Scotland. After two testimonies to the Tower murder and the printed pamphlets about his, Perkin's, parentage the sheer impertinence of it left the English Court breathless. True, Edinburgh was not much nearer in miles than Ireland or Flanders; but this time no protecting sea lay between.

  “What are the Scots thinking of to allow it when your Grace has been to such pains to make a lasting treaty with them?” expostulated Sir Reginald Bray, who had done so much to strengthen the Tudor King financially.

  But in the dispatches from the much fought-over town of Berwick it was clearly stated that Perkin Warbeck had landed by the King of Scots' invitation.

  “You mean that James actually treats him as if he were royalty?” exclaimed Elizabeth.

  “It would seem so,” said Henry, still holding the letter between his hands. “As absurdly as Margaret of Burgundy did when I succeeded in prising him out of France.”

  “But James would not do so merely to annoy you?”

  “One would scarcely suppose so after there has been talk of his marrying my elder daughter.”

  Elizabeth rose from her chair beside the fire and began to pace back and forth between the standing courtiers. “Oh no, not James!” she repeated
, in sore perplexity. “In spite of all the border foraging that goes on, everyone holds James the Fourth of Scotland to be one of the most cultured men in Christendom. Bernard Andreas says he can turn a Latin phrase as fluently as he can talk French with Charles' envoys or discuss crofts and cattle with his Highlanders in their own Gaelic. His word is his bond. I have always thought he would be a son-in-law to be proud of.” She stopped in front of her husband and spoke with urgent informality. “Henry, do you not see that if James acknowledges him it is because he really believes him to be my brother? This—torturing uncertainty—is coming very near home!”

  All looked upon her with compassion. Even Henry could comprehend something of her distress and tried his best to reassure her. “There is no uncertainty at all after the conclusive evidence about your brothers' deaths and the facts we have now assembled about this impostor,” he said. “And in any case James can never have seen the real Duke of York, so why should his opinion affect you?” Yet when the King turned to enquire of the messenger what forces Warbeck had brought with him the question sounded merely perfunctory. This wholesale deluding of sane people had gone on so long that it was becoming uncanny. It was not the material force of the young man that mattered but his personal magnetism. One could fight successfully against a stated number of ships or horsemen or archers, but where was the weapon with which to fight against charm? For, as the messenger admitted, the levelheaded King of Scotland, who had but recently been discussing the advantages of a marriage with the Tudor King's daughter, had received Margaret of Burgundy's protege doubtfully, questioning him again and again with true Scottish caution; and yet he—like all the rest—had been persuaded.

  “Why should my wife imagine James Stuart to be any better than the rest? He only pretends to believe in him,” argued Henry, alone afterwards with Morton in the privacy of his own work-closet. “This brash young merchant is like a hostage held in all sovereigns' hands save mine, and they bandy him about between them. He is something they can throw into the scales against me, in order to undermine my security when they think I am becoming too powerful. And as a trouble-maker he is nearly as valuable to them spurious as real.”