of a boatman of Tournay started on a similar errand with a less
congenial end. An unwilling puppet at first, Perkin Warbeck was on a
trading visit to Ireland, when the Irish, who saw a Yorkist prince in
every likely face, insisted that Perkin was Earl of Warwick. This he
denied on oath before the Mayor of Cork. Nothing deterred, they
suggested that he was Richard III.'s bastard; but the bastard was safe
in Henry's keeping, and the imaginative Irish finally took refuge in
the theory that Perkin was Duke of York. Lambert's old friends rallied
round Perkin; the re-animated Duke was promptly summoned to the Court
of France and treated with princely honours. When Charles VIII. had
used him to beat down Henry's terms, Perkin found a home with
Margaret, aunt to all the pretenders. As usual, there were traitors in
high places in England. Sir William Stanley, whose brother had married
Henry's mother, and to whom Henry himself owed his victory at (p. 011)
Bosworth, was implicated. His sudden arrest disconcerted the plot,
and when Perkin's fleet appeared off the coast of Kent, the rustics
made short work of the few who were rash enough to land. Perkin sailed
away to the Yorkist refuge in Ireland, but Kildare was no longer
deputy. Waterford, to which he laid siege, was relieved, and the
pretender sought in Scotland a third basis of operations. An abortive
raid on the Borders and a high-born Scottish wife[24] were all that he
obtained of James IV., and in 1497, after a second attempt in Ireland,
he landed in Cornwall. The Cornishmen had just risen against Henry's
extortions, marched on London and been defeated at Blackheath; but
Henry's lenience encouraged a fresh revolt, and three thousand men
flocked to Perkin's standard. They failed to take Exeter; Perkin was
seized at Beaulieu and sent up to London to be paraded through the
streets amid the jeers and taunts of the people. Two years later a
foolish attempt at escape and a fresh personation of the Earl of
Warwick by one Ralf Wulford[25] led to the execution of all three,
Perkin, Wulford, and the real Earl of Warwick, who had been a prisoner
and probably the innocent centre of so many plots since the accession
of Henry VII. Warwick's death may have been due to the instigation of
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, who were negotiating for the marriage
of Catherine of Aragon with Prince Arthur. They were naturally anxious
for the security of the throne their daughter was to share w