ame given by Marco Polo to an island or islands
supposed to be the modern Japan, for outlying portions of which Columbus
mistook the West Indies.]

CONSPIRACY, REBELLION, AND EXECUTION OF PERKIN WARBECK

A.D. 1492

FRANCIS BACON

Soon after his accession to the throne of England, Henry VII married
Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the rival houses of
York and Lancaster. But notwithstanding this adjustment of the rival
interests, the rule of Henry, the Lancastrian, failed to satisfy the
Yorkists; and this party, with the aid of Margaret of Burgundy--sister of
Edward IV--and James IV of Scotland, set up two impostors, one after the
other, to claim the English throne. At the same time there was living a
real heir of the house of York--young Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of the
Duke of Clarence, brother to Edward IV. Henry had taken the precaution to
keep this genuine Yorkist in the Tower.

In 1487 a spurious earl of Warwick appeared in Ireland. Receiving
powerful support in that country, he was actually crowned in the
Cathedral of Dublin. In order to defeat this imposture Henry exhibited
the real earl to the people of London. He also vanquished the army of
the pretender at Stoke, in June, 1487. This false earl was found to be
Lambert Simnel, son of an Oxford joiner. He became a scullion in King
Henry's kitchen.

The second of these impostors, known as Perkin Warbeck, contrived to make
himself a figure of some importance in the history of England. Supposedly
born in Flanders, he first appears upon the historic stage in 1492, when
he landed at Cork. Going soon after to France, he was recognized by the
court as Duke of York, according to his claim. How he was coached for his
part, and how the drama in which he played it was acted out, are told by
Bacon in what is perhaps the best specimen we have of that great author's
style in historical composition.

Warbeck was executed in 1499, and, although Bacon gives us no dates,
the whole history, covering about seven years, may be said to form
a practically continuous series of incidents. The character of this
adventurer has been made quite prominent in literature, having been the
subject of Ford's tragedy, _The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck_
(1634), of a play by Charles Macklin, _King Henry VII, or the Popish
Impostor_ (1716), and of Joseph Elderton's drama, _The Pretender_.

This youth of whom we are now to speak was such a mercurial as the like