Perkin Warbeck

 

“How does your NIET examination of the life and times of Perkin Warbeck -- the impersonator of Richard, Duke of York – fit into the background history interpreted by Bertram Fields in the section “Pretenders” and “impostors”, in his book ROYAL BLOOD (pp. 200-229)?”

 

 

If we want to see how our NIET examination fits into the life and times of Perkin Warbeck – and if we are to make progress with "our" case of missing persons – specifically, Richard, Duke of York -- and we hasten to remind the reader that what is produced in this section is merely an outline of the historical case, we have first to turn back to the first page of the flip-chart, entitled : 'THE PRINCES AND THE BOOK'.

 

This manuscript/book, relied upon for centuries, is Thomas More's The History of King Richard the Third.

 

 Now, for good reason soon to be made clear, we re-title this first chart : 'THE PRINCES AND THE BOOK, Book No. 1', adding the essential chronology : 'Written between 1513 and 1521 ? : first appeared in print in 1557'.

 

 We now open a fresh chart and mark it : 'THE PRINCES AND THE BOOK, Book No. 2'. This new chart refers to the second book written by More, Utopia. We mark it on the chart and add : 'First published in 1516'.

 

 We now open up one more new chart, the third chart, and entitle it, perhaps not surprisingly, 'THE PRINCES AND THE BOOK, Book No. 3'. This last chart refers to a book not written by Thomas More but by another famous Englishman, a certain Sir Francis Bacon (1587-1657) The History of Henry VII. We mark it on the chart, adding : 'First published in 1622'.

 

The reader will perhaps now see more clearly the forty-one year gap between publication of Book No. 2 (published first) and Book No. 1 (published second), both during the time of the Tudor monarchs (1485-1603). We mark this on the charts : 'Tudors'. Book No. 3 appeared during the reign of the first Stuart king, James I of England (1603-1625). We also mark this on this latter chart : 'Stuarts'. It means, therefore, that from the time More began to write his Richard, in or about the year 1513, until the time of the publication of Bacon's Henry, in 1622, more than one hundred years had passed.

 

 We now draw a line on each chart. Below this line, on each chart, we mark the word 'Lawyer'. In this connexion, we know that each man was a lawyer, each was knighted for services to the crown and later appointed senior law officer of the realm, Lord Chancellor of England.

 

 We also know that each man was the most famous intellectual of his day, that More resigned the great seal of his office and the same great seal was taken away from Bacon. For the moment we draw no inference from this. We merely write down the words : 'Left office under a cloud'.

 

In this, we have finally to draw attention that two of England's keenest legal minds sloppily allowed hearsay evidence to pass as fact. This is slightly worrying.

 

We will draw attention to this oddity of apparently haphazard and undoubted sloppy writing – written in a non-serious way -- when we return again shortly to the inquiry. It is, perhaps, at the heart of certain matters that have puzzled writers on this period over a substantial period of time.

 

 For the present, the reader may not be surprised that in these two books each author touches with a sure hand and even in a light-hearted manner, as one might perhaps expect, upon the subject of certain 'pretenders' and 'impostors'.

 

 We see the name Perkin Warbeck as an impostor of Richard, Duke of York. We see certain other names, Lambert Simnel, for instance -- but they do not concern us here. We will return to them later. For the moment, we merely draw attention to the expert opinion of Paul Turner that More is referring to Warbeck, perhaps, in More's famous book of fiction, Utopia.

 

It is true that More put certain remarkable words into the mouth of his contra-factual character, Raphael Hythlodaeus (the word 'Hythlodaeus' means, roughly, 'dispenser of nonsense' in Greek and More expected his knowledgeable friends to understand the allusion!), concerning some advice which Hythlodaeus 'if he had been so stupid to allow himself to become a king's counsellor' might have felt obliged to offer the king of France, a factual character, when he says :

 

    It might also be as well to offer secret encouragement -- under the terms of a treaty it cannot be done openly -- to some exiled English nobleman with pretensions to the throne. This would give His Majesty an extra hold over the King of England, whom he otherwise might not trust an inch.

 

Paul Turner thought that this might be a reference to Perkin Warbeck. We shall now add to the general confusion by suggesting, if we may, that this reference perhaps might mean some other 'exiled English nobleman' including, perhaps, "our" two princes.

 

 Since Perkin Warbeck is closely connected with the alleged story in More's Richard and Bacon's Henry : we mark Warbeck's name on the appropriate charts. On More's second chart 'Utopia' we merely add a question mark, Paul Turner's question mark, beside Warbeck's name.

 

In this connexion, we have seen in the ancient Matricules of the Old University of Louvain that a certain John Clement, "our" supposed John Clement, was inscribed in the year 1489. We must now draw attention to the given age of the impostor, known in England as Perkin Warbeck, who first claimed to be Prince Richard in or about the year 1491, some eight years after the disappearance of the princes from the Tower.

 

 We see under the entry "WARBECK Perkin", in the Dictionary of National Biography, a number of foreign sources, but the major source for Warbeck's life and times, as we should perhaps expect in England, has been Bacon's History of Henry VII, over a substantial period of time.

 

We see it was first published two years after the "Mayflower" had sailed for America (1620). We have to draw attention that this book remained the preferred source for two hundred and thirty-six years when it was finally enshrined into history, if we may describe it this way, in Memorials of King Henry the Seventh, by a certain James Gairdner (London, Rolls Series, 1858).

 

However, we have to draw attention to a later work by this same author, James Gairdner, The History of the Life and Reign of King Richard III, published forty years later in a revised addition, in 1898, by Cambridge University Press.

 

In an Appendix by this eminent co-editor of Letters & Papers, Foreign & Domestic, Henry VIII (a collection of some 100,000 documents to which we will return again and again in these pages), Gairdner claimed to have made a recent and most remarkable discovery of certain 'contemporary documents most of which have been altogether unknown until the present generation.'

 

Essentially, the new documents suggested, Gairdner claimed in a revised and published opinion, that Bacon's account of the life and times of Henry VII was untrue. This is rather more than 'remarkable'. It is astounding. But there is more. Gairdner is saying the history is undermined. If true, and this is our central point here, it is not at all clear why certain writers today continue to rely on Bacon's contradictory evidence without minuting and systematically examining it. We will briefly show this to the inquiry to where we must shortly return.

 

We use new methods to unravel this tiny but truly interesting piece of England's history. We pursue this odd history in the light of the new evidence. We continue to use appropriate security agency jargon, as by now we should expect, in order to explain in practical terms the aims and intentions of certain notional persons we call 'impersonators' or 'impostors' and their case officers. We will also show how our clever ancestors, perhaps, dealt with them.

 

 

Interpretation of the evidence

 

Before we may come to our evidence-in-chief and the remarkable case-history of Perkin Warbeck (1473/4?-1499), as given by Sir Francis Bacon in his History of Henry VII, we have to draw attention, first of all, to a brief recapitulation of the chronology.

 

 The purpose is to show to the inquiry certain "negative enemy action" over a considerable period of time. This is negative evidence seen and interpreted from the record of the “feigned” official non-interest in these matters of fact under review, which is not always immediately apparent because of the time span from one century to another.

 

 We see first that some one hundred and twenty years after the death of the person known as Perkin Warbeck in England in the late 15th century, also known as Pierrequin or Pierrechon “Warbeck” “Werbek” or “Werbecque” or even “Osbeck” in his confession vetted by Henry’s DDT, depending on whether the writer’s first language was either English, French or Flemish, and at a time when there was no standard orthography in any European language -- the Chancellor of England, Sir Francis Bacon, was dismissed his office and sat down to write about the founder of the Tudor dynasty, Henry VII, at the beginning of the seventeenth century.

 

Some two hundred and sixty years later, in the late nineteenth century, the greatly respected writer and editor, James Gairdner, published his startling revised opinion that Bacon's book was contrafactual.

 

You may now conceivably decide that there are merely two possible options to be considered by us today : either, (1) Bacon's account is a considerable misinterpretation of fact ; or, (2) it is a practical essay in misinformation.

 

Once again and once more, as we have already explained and made clear, it is amazing that the glaring anomalies in this book were not queried and minuted for systematic investigation long before now.

 

In this connexion, we wish to state a personal view : it is most unlikely from the seventeenth century onwards that an educated reader was unaware of Bacon's general theory in Novum Organum and, perhaps, Bacon's special theory of "Elimination Induction".

 

We have to draw attention, for just one minute, that Bacon's special theory of 'elimination induction' is one of the earliest (if not, arguably, the first and best) study of the basics of systematic investigation.

 

We do not intend to go into each aspect of Bacon's special theory before the inquiry today, merely the essential fact that if one is sensitive to this sort of thing, there are two possible options for us to consider. Option No. 1 : a hint by an establishment figure, Francis Bacon, that he wrote a contrafactual book on the grounds of political expediency and systematic investigation would reveal why he did it. The derived second option, Option No. 2 : the documents discovered by Gairdner had been suppressed at the time on the same grounds, requiring further systematic investigation.

 

If subsequently found to be true, on the basis of scientific and other evidence, it means Bacon's book was a "whitewash" of Henry VII. Nonetheless, without making the essential systematic investigation, Gairdner might have tested if More's book was, perhaps, a "blackwashing" of Richard III -- and why.

 

The best-fit hypothesis is that modern writers have ignored Gairdner's heroic attempt to correct an anomaly and have merely returned to the muddy waters of the Stuart dirty tricks department who were once more stirring up the already muddied waters of the original source, the Tudor department of dirty tricks. We shall show that Gairdner and the modern writers had become unconscious agents (and the victims) of on-going Tudor and Stuart dirty tricks, which we will now describe and make clear to the inquiry.

 

We may now perhaps begin by leaving the later activities of the Stuart department of dirty tricks and turn back to the late fifteenth century.

 

 

“He that hath a secret, to keep it secret,

 must keep it secret, that he hath a secret.”

(Francis Bacon)

We have to draw attention to certain new circumstantial evidence, which shows that we are not merely confronted by Perkin Warbeck, his case officer and just one department of dirty tricks. We have now to consider the activities of two mutually antagonistic "DDTs", as we shall describe them from now on, working in the background against which the drama of Perkin Warbeck was being finally played out. The first, the Tudor DDT. The second, the York DDT.

 

Conjecturally, the former operated only in England, financed and controlled under the orders of Henry VII. The latter, as already described and made clear, operated out of Flanders. It was financed and controlled by Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, widow of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and this is beyond any measure of doubt, until she died in 1503. Born Margaret of York, in 1446, Margaret was the paternal aunt of the two princes, their father Edward IV's younger sister by four years.

 

For the present, we will say that when two DDTs enter into a war of claim and counterclaim upon the order of their masters, the first casualty is truth. The aim of this war of wits, as we have already described and made clear, is to muddy the waters and leave them muddy, and this is precisely what we do find.

 

We now invite the inquiry to re-enter the maze while we point out certain matters that concern us. We intend to play to win this new war game against the two "enemy" DDTs -- and we make this assertion with great confidence.

 

The Dictionary of National Biography gives only a brief and incomplete account of the whereabouts of Perkin Warbeck during his short lifetime of some twenty-five years.

 

Since this version in DNB closely follows the "edited" version put out by the Tudor DDT, presumably, we may expect to find certain factual material in an end-on relationship with certain contrafactual material -- which is merely one way DDTs plant contrafactual information.

 

Since our aim and intention is to separate the factual material from the contrafactual material in this DNB version, we briefly summarize the official version and merely repeat it for the record. Without scientific proof to the contrary, NIET reads and remembers it without placing reliance upon it or any part of it and, for the present, does not draw any inference from its alleged substance.

 

Early in his life, Warbeck was taken by his mother to Antwerp. He stayed about half a year with a cousin, John Steenbeck, an officer of the town. In 1483, or 1484, he returned south to Tournai because of wars in Flanders but, within a year, he was sent again by his parents to Antwerp with a certain Tournai merchant ‘Mynheer Berlo’. He had a five months illness and was then taken to Bergen-op-Zoom where from about this time and for some three years, he was in service under different masters. At Middelburg, he was placed with an English merchant, John Strewe, and remained from Xmas to Easter. He was then taken by the wife of a certain Sir Edward Brampton to Portugal. This Lady Brampton is described as 'an adherent of the house of York' and, elsewhere, 'an ardent Yorkist'. Warbeck remained in Portugal for one year in the service of a 'one-eyed knight', Peter Vacz de Cogna. He then entered the service of a certain Breton merchant ‘Pregent Meno’ who eventually brought him to Ireland in the year 1491. The Earl of Desmond and the Earl of Kildare both supported him and encouraged him to assume the identity of Richard, Duke of York. Kildare was Lord Deputy of Ireland under Henry VII and was discharged the office in 1492. According to Warbeck's confession statement : 'against my will they made me learn English and taught me what I should do and say...' (See also ; Gairdner, op. cit., pp. 263-335).

 

We have to draw attention that this alleged confession of Perkin Warbeck was vetted presumably by a Tudor DDT. One or two items omitted from this published official account suggest certain major difficulties that may have confronted the DDT.

 

For instance, conjecturally, the DDT had notionally “murdered” the two princes, Edward and Richard, in 1483. Some eight years later, in or about the year 1491, Warbeck appears in Ireland claiming to be Richard, Duke of York. Firstly, why did Henry not immediately denounce Warbeck as an impostor ?

 

 Conjecturally, the simple answer is that Henry VII was not foolish. He knew that the one unchallengeable witness of truth, the mother of the princes, Elizabeth Woodville, would not agree to co-operate and support the story in parliament.

 

 The inquiry may conceivably decide that the Woodville standoff was holding firmly in place and the Woodvilles merely had to stay silent after the arrival of the impostor, Warbeck. The purpose was "keep them alive" at all costs, that is to say both princes, pending a reversal of fortunes : hence the silence.

 

Denunciation of Perkin Warbeck by Elizabeth Woodville would have destabilized the position. And so, you may further conceivably decide, Woodville refused to say officially that Perkin was an impostor ! If true, we may confidently expect to find other anomalies. And this, in fact, is what we do find.

 

In this connexion, we have to return one last time and for one minute, to Elizabeth Woodville. The inquiry may recall that after the death of her husband, in 1483, Tudor records show alleged financial arrangements to the benefit of the Dowager Queen. We see that Woodville was permitted certain grants by the Exchequer, her pension was increased, even to the extent of extra payments for Christmas fare and other festivities. And yet, there is the recurring problem of her Will. We have to draw attention once more that Woodville was virtually a recluse living in certain apartments in Bermondsey Abbey due to her, by right, as the widow of Edward IV. We have further to draw attention that despite allegedly receiving from her son-in-law, Henry VII, a large sum of money each year equivalent to something more than one million American dollars to-day, per annum and for life, and as already described and made clear, she left nothing to her children 'except her blessing'. She died with her daughters around her on the 8th of June 1492 and is buried beside Edward IV in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.

 

We see Woodville's Will officially confirmed under the entry "Elizabeth Woodville" in the Dictionary of National Biography. It is not at all clear how and when precisely the Will came to light. For the moment, we are not able to say, therefore, if Woodville truly left nothing to her children 'except her blessing'. If true it means the alleged financial arrangements made by the Exchequer presumably are later additions and false.

 

I shall say, therefore, that since the Will contradicts the official account, false and spurious entries were perhaps added after Woodville's death by Tudor conscious agents : and, repeated by unconscious agents down the centuries.

 

Finally, we read that Henry VII continued to refer to his mother-in-law as 'right dear mother' when she was in the Abbey of Bermondsey.

 

Unfortunately, this can be interpreted in a number of ways depending on context and the manner in which it is said. We do not intend to pursue this matter further, which is purely peripheral. We merely say that Warbeck was not denounced at the time or subsequently by the old Queen or new Queen of England, Elizabeth of York.

 

The impression is that the new principal calling "Stand Off" from the ramparts of this new Castle of Care in the on-going War of the Roses, after the death of her mother, was Woodville's daughter, sister of the two princes and Henry’s wife.

 

We may now return, please, to Perkin Warbeck. Conjecturally, in his vetted confession of 1497 we may expect to find, as already described and made clear, certain factual material in an end-on relationship with contrafactual material. The primary aim of the Tudor DDT was to give weight and substance to the lie that the princes were dead. How did they do it ? The primary aim of "our" case is to disprove the lie that the princes were dead. How do we do it ?

 

Firstly, we see the declaration by Perkin Warbeck that he addresses his mother in a letter as “Catherine Warbecque”, not “Osbeck” as in the confession, the son of “Jehan Osbeck”. Since we are dealing with a DDT whose sole aim and objective is to muddy the waters and leave them muddy, we shall say that Perkin was probably the son of a certain John Warbeck, or Osbeck, and Katharine de Faro, his legal wife, also known as Nicaisine, Nicaise or Caisine Faroul, converted Marrano Jews (which means they were of Spanish origin and perhaps Spanish-speaking) living in Tournai where John was a minor official. This is possibly factual.

 

However, we also see the claim that when Warbeck was young, the family had lived for a time in London where John Warbeck allegedly earned a living selling carpets to the royal court. This is odd. We have been unable to discover an entry in the royal accounts in Edward IV or Henry VII of a purchase of carpets from a John Warbeck or Osbeck or some similar name. This is possibly contrafactual.

 

Since there is no independent corroboration to-date from tax or business records in an English documentary source of this claim, we may say, therefore, that it is odd and suspect until proven otherwise.

 

In this connexion, in 1484-85, Perkin was taken by his mother to Antwerp, it is said, 'to learn Flemish'. It means, presumably, that Tournai was then mainly French-speaking as today and perhaps Perkin spoke only French (and Spanish?) at home.

 

We have to draw attention that the city of Antwerp was (and is!) a great seaport where many Flemish speaking Antwerpenaars spoke English as a second language. These were merchants who traditionally spoke English to their English customers (the custom is carried on to this day) and there is the equal possibility, therefore, that Perkin learned to speak English in Antwerp and not in London.

 

When war forced him to return home to Tournai, he only returned much later to Antwerp, it is said, to look after the stall of the Tournai merchant, Berlo, in the beautiful Grote Markt. This life may not have entirely agreed with him and he was ill, it is said, for some five months. Alternatively, this may have been a cover story for other activities while he was learning English.

 

He perhaps continued to be employed as a salesman until the summer of 1487 when he met the English-born wife of a certain Sir Edward Brampton (indeed a converted Marrano Jew, Duarte Brandao, to whom Edward IV had stood as Godfather upon his conversion to the Christian faith) and entered into his employ, where much of the time he would probably have continued to learn spoken English.

 

Brampton arrived in England in 1468, fought for Edward ‘in many battles’, was given command of a large sea force, made Governor of Guernsey and granted estates in the City of London and in Northamptonshire, and was the first Jew ever to be knighted. In 1483 Brampton saved the English fleet for Richard III and later fought on Richard’s side in opposing Buckingham’s rebellion.  Clearly, Brampton was a York supporter over a substantial period of time.

 

However, after Richard’s death in 1485, as we might expect, Henry VII confiscated his lands and property in England and Brampton was exiled or exiled himself to live in Flanders.

 

Warbeck, now fast moving up in the world, accompanied his employer's wife to Portugal, it is said, and entered into the service of Peter Vacz de Cogna, before allegedly leaving of his own free will 'to see the world'.

 

A few months later he entered the service of a Breton merchant, Pregent Meno, a dealer in expensive silk fabrics. It is not at all clear but Warbeck seems to have appeared in Ireland dressed in fine silks. This was how he first came to Ireland in 1499-1489, he claimed, which is precisely what one might expect, if we remember what is to follow.

 

Warbeck at first impersonated Edward, Earl of Warwick, it is reported, the late Duke of Clarence's son.

 

Conjecturally, if we are indeed reading the vetted version by a Tudor DDT, then, the "sting" is in the tail : 'He then impersonated Richard, Duke of York.'

 

We will now leave conjecture behind, draw out the sting and since the game is afoot we will examine it, if we may, together with the members of the inquiry.

 

For the moment, we shall merely say that certain new evidence suggests Perkin Warbeck was coached in his imposture by the person he was impersonating, Richard, Duke of York, in Flanders. Perkin was now "playing the game" and was sent away to Portugal by the York DDT in order to provide a plausible "legend" to account for his whereabouts and where and with whom he had been hiding since his disappearance.

 

At this point I have to draw attention to further new evidence that the impostor, Warbeck, was not a "look-alike" of the person he was impersonating, Prince Richard.

 

We may now draw attention to the reported appearance of Perkin Warbeck. This documentary report, corroborated by a good drawing of him in a certain French manuscript known as the 'Recueil d'Arras', describes him as tall with long fair hair, of greatly impressive appearance, and (as in all other descriptions) said to resemble his similarly fair-haired, handsome and some six-foot-three-inch-tall "father", Edward IV.

 

This royal measurement was obtained in 1789. We read in the entry "Edward IV" in the Dictionary of National Biography that three hundred and six years after his death (1483), certain un-named persons examined Edward's remains, in 1789. This is odd. These curious persons then estimated his former height from his skeleton. We see no other official reason or justification given for this remarkable examination and will return to this elsewhere.

 

We may now perhaps more usefully return to the appearance of Perkin Warbeck. One report shows that, because Warbeck resembled the Neville side of the family, some thought he was an illegitimate son of Edward IV. We merely say it is possible. However, Holbein shows us Prince Richard, conjecturally depicted in the Nostell painting, with dark hair, brown or hazel eyes, of medium height and build, who might be said to reflect more closely the non-tall, non-beefy, pictorial image of his uncle, Richard of Gloucester, his late father's dead brother, later Richard III.

 

We will say, therefore, on the basis of this new and oblique pictorial evidence of the appearance of the two men, that Warbeck did not resemble Prince Richard.

 

If true, we will now show how this 'non-accord' may have been used by the York DDT to positive advantage in the York plan of deception ; namely, to convince those persons who had seen Edward IV before he died in 1483 and who now saw Warbeck in or about the year 1491, that he was indeed the son of that fair-haired, outstandingly tall and handsome king.

 

If we rely on Holbein's pictorial evidence, then, Prince Richard's true appearance was less convincing.

 

The inquiry may conceivably decide this pre-supposes that Warbeck was only required to stand up to superficial examination in the York deception plan. The inquiry may further decide the Tudor deception plan had to explain, after he had been caught, how Warbeck had learned to speak English. We see, therefore, the Tudor version that Warbeck lived in London when he was young and this explains, allegedly, how and where he learned the language.

 

For the moment, we will merely say that it is unlikely that a Flemish, or French, or English-speaking foreign impostor would have been able to learn English sufficiently well to conceal his 'give-away' accent over the short time period. Not impossible but unlikely. Furthermore, there is a constant risk that the non-English origins of a foreign-born English speaker, however great his English language skills, may become apparent merely from the tiniest lapse in the impostor's manner or way of pronouncing 'difficult' English words (ask any 'foreigner'!) and in any odd blunder in his formal and informal behaviour.

 

In this connexion, we will therefore say that it is wholly unsafe to assume that Warbeck did not make such blunders, and even more serious blunders, before a discerning and interested audience.

 

We are now closer, presumably, to the bedrock of the case. We will say, first of all, that Europe was told the remarkable story of how Richard, "our" Richard, Duke of York, had been able to persuade certain very important persons of his real identity after 1493 ; namely, the incumbent pope, the king of the Romans and the kings of Denmark and Scotland, and this is beyond any possible measure of doubt.

 

Secondly, we shall say that the impostor, Warbeck, visited England, Ireland and Scotland and since he did not admit to having been anywhere else in Europe, we shall further say, therefore, that it was Prince Richard, "our" Richard, who visited Italy to speak to the Pope in the Vatican, that he spoke to the Danish king in Denmark (a relatively short distance from Flanders) and that he visited Vienna, where he met Maximilian, the king of the Romans, his Aunt Margaret's son-in-law. We may perhaps pause here, for just one minute, in order to consider this further.

 

I have to draw attention that certain writers have suggested that Perkin Warbeck had "fooled" each one of these foreign princes and prelates into believing that he, Warbeck, was Prince Richard of England.

 

I shall say that this proposition fails to take into account certain matters of fact in the case of men of power throughout history and is, therefore, wholly unsafe. In this connexion, we know from our reading that the popes and kings of the sixteenth century were awesome men of power. We also know they retained the services of certain highly skilled counselors, advisors and interrogators. We merely add that to suggest that any one of these advisors, counselors and interrogators might risk leaving himself open to the charge of having been fooled by an impostor, any impostor, is so wildly ridiculous as to be laughed out of court.

 

These men were dependent on the court and knew their lives were at risk if they failed in their duty to the prince. They would have left nothing to chance in their examination of a supposed notional person.

 

I shall say these men were satisfied, only after rigorous examination over a substantial period of time, that Prince Richard was who he said he was. We may now leave the modern writers and Perkin Warbeck and return, perhaps, to "our" supposed Richard, John Clement.

 

After his mysterious and undoubted disappearance, in 1483, I shall say that only the real Prince Richard, "our" Richard, also known as John Clement, was sufficiently convincing ten years later to tell his story, in 1493, at about twenty years of age, when he appeared before the pope, the king of the Romans and king of Denmark. If true, we may conjecture therefore what then happened to him in Italy and Denmark.

 

Richard would first have been invited, presumably, to write down his remarkable story. He would then be asked to repeat it before a court of inquiry. He would need and might indeed have received assistance, perhaps, from English witnesses of undoubted honesty and integrity, like Sir James Tyrrell who is reported to have been in Italy at or about this time on an official embassy, who would be asked to corroborate Richard's account of his whereabouts over the long period of time since his sad disappearance.

 

He would have been asked, perhaps, to explain his unfortunate disappearance together with that of his brother (where was his brother?) and how they had been financially supported and by whom.

 

The patient interrogators and their masters would listen with interest to a royal cousin offering certain reasons in order explain precisely why his brother had been obliged to give up his claim to the English throne ; why his sister then married a usurper, Henry Tudor, with the consent of their mother ; and why his mother, his brother and his sister and all his other family had remained silent thereafter upon a dishonest and obviously collusive arrangement.

 

The inquiry would have wanted to know where each prince had been living and by whom concealed, every possible 'why and wherefore', before those worthy heads of Europe would have accepted the odd story as true and factual. How could this have been achieved in front of highly skilled interrogators unless he was really "our" Richard who could account for each and every tiny detail of his life? We will say, therefore, that the contra-argument is deeply flawed and, like an impostor, falls to pieces under close scrutiny.

 

On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that King James of Scotland oddly permitted his royal cousin, Lady Katharine Gordon, to marry a commoner, this same Perkin Warbeck.

 

The inquiry may conceivably decide that this remarkable Morganatic marriage, as we would call it to-day, offers just two possible options to account for James's odd behaviour. Option No. 1 : James was fooled by Warbeck. Option No. 2 : James was NOT fooled by Warbeck.

 

From Option No. 2, a derived third possible option is that James knew Warbeck was an impostor. There is no other option and I will therefore, perhaps not surprisingly, argue the case for the derived third option.

 

In this connexion I shall say, therefore, that however well-coached abroad, Warbeck would not have been able to sustain the pretence before the interrogators if King James of Scotland had wanted to submit him to any long or really close interrogation. He would have quickly succumbed or run away as he did later, in Scotland and in England, when asked by James to lead an army against Henry VII.

 

 James thought, perhaps, that the tie of a royal marriage would be a sufficient 'hold' on Warbeck. James also thought, presumably, as More later wrote in Utopia, that a 'pretender' would be an extra 'hold' on Henry VII.

 

James paid heavily for his foolishness when Warbeck ran away from an impending battle and it was then that Henry caught him and made the final trick easily and with a lowly trump card : against three kings and a pope, if we may so describe the end game.

 

The inquiry may decide that Henry's reaction to the impending invasion from the north was curiously casual. Later, Francis Bacon would say, speaking at this juncture of events, that Henry accounted the designs of Perkin 'but as a May game'.

 

I have to draw attention that this casual remark is what we might expect to hear from an amused and all-powerful Henry if he wanted to give the impression that the princes were dead and that he was now going to beat this obvious impostor and his army (Henry, presumably, did not know Warbeck's name at this time) into the ground.

 

If true, it also means that Henry's alleged response is once more consistent if, as Holbein's new evidence suggests, Prince Richard was alive and living somewhere in Flanders under the protection of his aunt, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, and Henry knew it. 

 

I have further to draw attention, and this is our central point, that Bacon's account is precisely what we should expect to read in 1622, some one hundred and thirty-nine years after the disappearance of the princes in 1483, if the English descendants of the princes were still at risk and under on-going scrutiny and surveillance by the Stuart DDT and Bacon knew it.

 

Bacon had either met socially or knew of, presumably, Algernon, Robert and Philip Sidney (later Sir Philip Sidney) the children of Sir Henry Sidney by Mary Dudley, the daughter of Lady Jane Guildford and John Dudley, and that Sir Philip Sidney was married to the daughter, Frances, of Sir Francis Walsingham. We will return to this again. (See : Footnote No.1, p. 207)

 

For the moment, I have to draw attention that when Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, openly declared his support for the person he believed to be Richard, Duke of York, "our" Richard, in 1493, this was six years after Pope Innocent VIII, Giovanni Battista Cybo, had confirmed Henry VII as lawful king of England, securing the succession of Henry's children in the papal bull of 27th March 1487. This new development was clearly a change of attitude by the Vatican.

 

I shall say that Henry interpreted this sea change as merely threatening behaviour by the Borgia Pope, now trying to gain some effective 'hold' on Henry.

 

The response of the Tudor DDT to this new story coming out of the Vatican in 1493, that Prince Richard was still alive, and may I please remind the inquiry once more that the Tudor DDT had notionally murdered Prince Richard in 1483, was to publish the factual account by Perkin Warbeck of his imposture of the dead prince. This was Henry's finesse and trump card.

 

After Henry caught Warbeck in 1497, he then paraded him, put him on display, made him confess again in public, ordered the confession to be written down and printed, waited some two more years, then cut off his head.

 

The York DDT stood abashed by this new and decisive tactical muddying of the waters by the Tudor DDT. The end of the York DDT under Margaret was in sight. I shall say, therefore, that Margaret and the York DDT were outsmarted and dead-ended by Henry's experts in the on-going war of wits. Margaret died soon after.

 

Since time is pressing and we have to move on, I will not go into the full story of the impersonation by Lambert Simnel of Edward, Earl of Warwick, the Duke of Clarence's only son. This was one more problem for Henry. Warwick was a de jure heir merely barred by an attainder that could be reversed. He was the third nephew of Richard III with an impediment in his claim, the other two being the princes. I will merely say that Henry responded, as by now we should expect, by parading the real Edward in London.

 

Thereafter, perhaps in defiance of the Tudor DDT by Irish supporters of the Yorkists in Ireland, perhaps because the Yorkists needed a new leader, Simnel was nonetheless crowned King Edward V of England in Dublin Cathedral in 1487. He then invaded England at the head of an army and was defeated by Henry at the Battle of Stoke later that year. He was then paraded in London by Henry as an impostor and then, according to Polydore Vergil, pardoned and employed for some years as a scullion, now a mere menial, in the royal kitchens. He was beheaded by Henry together with certain other Yorkist supporters a few days before Perkin Warbeck's execution.

 

As already described and made clear, Henry juggled with one conspiracy after another throughout his reign of twenty-four years. The central theme, at all times, was the removal of the York threat to his throne and to “re-legitimize” his wife.

 

In this, it is not in the least surprising that those who know this history continue to find the survival of the sons of Edward IV to be as remote and unlikely a possibility as was ever proposed despite what the new evidence shows.

 

I shall say, therefore, that the survival of the two princes depended on keeping the stand off firmly in place and, keeping it secret. And this is precisely what the evidence shows.

 

If the stand off was on-going, in fact, this tells us something about the character of the elder prince. If true, it means that Edward V, also known as Edward Guildford, preferred life to death, loved his sister and remained 'a good little Woodville', staying quiet and docile all his life : "housetrained", as it is described to-day in the odd jargon of Whitehall.

 

More than one hundred years later, the Stuart DDT was still muddying the waters with an occasional stir. The inquiry may well ask 'Why?' Let us now pause for just one minute to consider this. The reason, presumably, concerns certain grandsons of Edward V in the time of Elizabeth I and James I.

 

The inquiry may recall that the sole heir of Sir Edward Guildford was Lady Jane Guildford, married to John Dudley, later Duke of Northumberland.

 

We see from our reading in the Dictionary of National Biography, and this is not contradicted and is not in dispute, that when John Dudley was at the height of his powers, under Edward VI, his fourth and only remaining unmarried son, Guildford Dudley, was married, at his insistence, to a certain Lady Jane Grey (1537-1554).

 

Jane Grey's mother, Frances, was the daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, whose wife, Mary, as we have already described and made clear, was the younger sister of Henry VIII.

 

John Dudley then is reported to have 'forced' the newly-weds onto the throne of England insisting that his son, Guildford, should be known as 'king'.

 

By now, the inquiry may conceivably decide that this is precisely what we should expect to hear if Guildford Dudley was a great-grandson of Edward V.

 

Lady Jane Dudley, also known by her maiden name as Lady Jane Grey, indeed sat on the throne of England for some nine days with her husband, Guildford Dudley, beside her. John Dudley paid for this with his head. They cut it off. They also cut off the heads of Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey (See : Footnote No. 2).

 

I shall say, therefore, that if we blend the family arms and quarterings of Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey, we are looking, presumably, at the arms of the rightful heirs to the throne of England determinedly cut down by supporters of the legal heirs, as already described and made clear, during the so-called Anarchic Period of Tudor history.

 

From out of this violent first Protestant reaction came the first Catholic counter-reaction. Henry VIII’s first child, Mary I, came to the throne. Five years later, in 1588, the Protestant response to the remarkable cruelty and vindictiveness of this Catholic queen (in punishing English Protestants) was to put Protestant Elizabeth I, Henry's only other surviving child, on the Tudor throne. England was still in great turmoil.

 

In this, I have to draw attention that the first Tudor, Henry VII, had created certain political problems in England with his arguable usurpation of the throne from Richard III. These political problems were then added-to and exacerbated by his son, Henry VIII, by the repudiation of his wife, Katharine of Aragon, due to a sexual impediment of some consequence, on the basis of Holbein’s new and contemporary historical and medical evidence, resulting in the ensuing religious problems in England. The inquiry may conceivably decide that each one of these seemingly separate and unconnected events is related and inter-related and now we know it.

 

We may perhaps pause here, once last time and for just one minute. We have finally to draw attention to the odd circumstances surrounding the death of Guildford Dudley's younger brother, Robert Dudley (1532-1588), the famous Earl of Leicester. There is widely held belief and concern, over a considerable period of time, reported in the entry "DUDLEY Robert" in DNB, if we may describe this concern in by now familiar language, that Leicester was "set-up" by an Elizabethan DDT.

 

If true, it means this first Elizabethan DDT perhaps knew that Leicester was the rightful heir. I have to draw attention that it was not absolutely essential for the DDT operators to know this, only the head man, Sir Francis Walsingham.

 

What is much more certain is that the DDT knew that Leicester was courting the legal heir, Elizabeth I, and encouraging her, as all England's Catholics should expect, to turn the country back to the old religion.

 

In this connexion and running parallel with this story there is another story that suggests, perhaps, some sort of DDT operation against Leicester concerning the death of a friend, a certain Amy Robson. The determination with which the Elizabethan DDT may have operated against Leicester resulted, presumably, in his death by poison.

 

Furthermore, unless the queen believed the allegation of a long-time and on-going relationship between Leicester and Amy Robson and was jealous and angry enough over a period of time to order the death of a favourite courtier, this official targeting of Leicester may have taken place unilaterally and without the queen's knowledge (Leicester was a great favourite of the queen and it is most unlikely she did not know the royal origins of her cousin.) But this is peripheral to our present examination.

 

The aim and purpose of the Elizabethan and early Stuart DDTs, and this is the central point here, was to ensure that no Catholic would ever again sit on the throne of England. It was the central reason for their existence.

 

I will say that Francis Bacon re-introduced the factual story of the impostor Warbeck in an end-on relationship with the contrafactual story that the Catholic princes, Edward and Richard, had died in the year 1483.

 

Why precisely Bacon did this can be debated for many days and because time is pressing us, we do not intend to go down this road. We will merely say that the on-going interest of successive DDTs in the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of Sir Edward Guildford, as we should by now expect, continued until they were quite sure that they died with their secrets.

 

If true, it means the modern descendants are completely unaware of their royal origins. Factually, the slightly less puzzled descendants of the Dudley family, after briefing by the present author, fortunately, still exist today. The Lord de L'Isle and Dudley of Penshurst, is the rightful heir if the princes lived on. Other close family, the de la Warr's, left for America. The State of Delaware, perhaps, is named for them.

 

In conclusion, the inquiry may conceivably decide that More and Bacon, like any other writer who writes in a haphazard and unsystematic way, were writing fiction and they knew it.

__________________

 

Footnote No. 1 :

Sir Francis Bacon's true reason for writing a contrafactual book is not at all clear. Since Bacon was in disgrace at the time he wrote The History of King Henry VII it means, presumably, that we have at least three possible options to consider.

 

Option No. 1 : he did this in anger, perhaps from political and religious conviction, as an over-keen Protestant of the school of the Tudors. But religious men are hardly likely to publish contrafactual material as factual material unless, like More, it was to save life.

 

Option No. 2 : it was an attempt by a disappointed career politician to curry favour with the man described by the historian of cryptology, David Kahn, as 'the first head of the British Secret Service' with whom Bacon was in frequent contact, Sir Francis Walsingham, and to restore himself to status and favour by this route.

 

Option No. 3 : it was meddling.

 

In this connexion, if we may summarize this particular section in DNB, Bacon stands officially accused of unwise intellectual theorizing on certain sensitive political matters (in Irish affairs) in letters to the Earl of Essex over which he had no direct influence himself and which resulted in disaster for Essex, another great favourite of Elizabeth I, who then turned against Bacon 'for meddling'. If true, it means Bacon was not streetwise.

 

Finally, unless and until the time we find a contemporary witness risking his life to tell the true story behind the writing of this book, as in "our" case of More's Richard and the informant Holbein, the Sword of Damocles continues to hang over Francis Bacon's head.

 

It may have seemed that he wrote out of political expediency but in this world, where things are seldom what they seem, the true reason is open to conjecture. The entry in DNB says this of him:

 

His correspondence shows how eagerly he desired to be employed in political matters again, and it is one of the most curious features of that correspondence that he never seems to have understood that the sentence passed on him was an insuperable bar to employment in the service of the state.

 

For the moment, the true reason behind the writing of Bacon's Henry remains hidden but the all-important motive, as by now we should expect, is not; and, like others before and since, Fear robbed him of his reason.

 

Footnote No. 2 :

A detailed account of the execution of John Dudley appeared some three weeks later in France in the Paris Newsletter. According to the French reporter, this right-hand man of Henry VIII, John Dudley, responsible for the destruction of some six hundred monasteries in England, was confessed and declared on the scaffold that he died a Catholic and had always been a Catholic. Dudley then blamed all the troubles in England on the Divorce. Many of his friends and enemies today, including his descendants, notably the Lords de L'Isle & Dudley, have thought that John Dudley had gone mad. This is possibly true. The inherent contradiction of serving an oppressive monarch in order to protect his family and possessions, on the one hand, and going against his deepest convictions on the other, may indeed have unbalanced him. However, we will say that this madness of John Dudley is perhaps best seen in his miscalculation of the risks in forcing a great-grandson of Edward V on to the throne of England.

 

The predictable violent reaction of the predominantly Protestant court made rich by systematic depredation of former Catholic-owned property, over a substantial period of time, which had passed into their hands for peppercorn rents or as outright gifts from a grateful Tudor monarch, destroyed two most attractive innocents, Guildford Dudley and his young and scholarly wife, Lady Jane Grey.

 

The newly wedded couple became caught up in the machinations of others trying to reap the whirlwind of regicide, rebellion and usurpation insufficiently supported by men, money and materials.  Her story is sad indeed.

 

 Lady Jane Grey was no more than sixteen years old. She had to be shown where to place her head by the executioner. She simply did not know what to do.

 

 

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