Chapter 2

By means of his spies, Henry, after a time, succeeded in tracing the true pedigree of Warbeck, and immediately published it for the satisfaction of the nation. At the same time he remonstrated with the Archduke Philip on account of the protection which was afforded to the impostor, and demanded that "the theatrical king formed by the Duchess of Burgundy" should be given up to him. The ambassadors were received with all outward respect, but their request was refused, and they were sent home with the answer, that "the Duchess of Burgundy being absolute sovereign in the lands of her dowry, the archduke could not meddle with her affairs, or hinder her from doing what she thought fit." Henry in resentment cut off all intercourse with the Low Countries, banished the Flemings, and recalled his own subjects from these provinces. At the same time, Sir Robert Clifford having proved traitorous to Warbeck's cause, and having revealed the names of its supporters in England, the king pounced upon the leading conspirators. Almost at the same instant he arrested Fitzwater, Mountfort, and Thwaites, together with William D'Aubeney, Thomas Cressener, Robert Ratcliff, and Thomas Astwood. Lord Fitzwater was sent as a prisoner to Calais with some hopes of pardon; but being detected in an attempt to bribe his gaolers, he was beheaded. Sir Simon Mountfort, Robert Ratcliff, and William D'Aubeney were tried, condemned, and executed, and the others were pardoned.

Stanley, the chamberlain, was reserved for a more impressive fate. His domestic connection with the king and his former services seemed to render him safe against any punishment; but Henry, thoroughly aroused by his perfidy, determined to bring the full weight of his vengeance upon him. Clifford was directed to come privately to England, and cast himself at the foot of the throne, imploring pardon for his past offences, and offering to condone his folly by any services which should be required of him. Henry, accepting his penitence, informed him that the only reparation he could now make was by disclosing the names of his abettors; and the turncoat at once denounced Stanley, then present, as, his chief colleague. The chamberlain indignantly repudiated the accusation; and Henry, with well-feigned disbelief, begged Clifford to be careful in making his charges, for it was absolutely incredible "that a man, to whom he was in a great measure beholden for his crown, and even for his life; a man to whom, by every honour and favour, he had endeavoured to express his gratitude; whose brother, the Earl of Derby, was his own father-in-law; to whom he had even committed the trust of his person by creating him lord chamberlain; that this man, enjoying his full confidence and affection, not actuated by any motive of discontent or apprehension, should engage in a conspiracy against him." But Clifford persisted in his charges and statements. Stanley was placed under arrest, and was subsequently tried, condemned, and beheaded.

The fate of the unfortunate chamberlain, and the defection of Clifford, created the greatest consternation in the camp of Perkin Warbeck. The king's authority was greatly strengthened by the promptness and severity of his measures, and the pretender soon discovered that unless he were content to sink into obscurity, he must speedily make a bold move. Accordingly, having collected a band of outlaws, criminals, and adventurers, he set sail for England. Having received intelligence that Henry was at that time in the north, he cast anchor off the coast of Kent, and despatched some of his principal adherents to invite the gentlemen of Kent to join his standard. The southern landowners, who were staunchly loyal, invited him to come on shore and place himself at their head. But the wary impostor was not to be entrapped so easily. He declined to trust himself in the hands of the well-disciplined bands which expressed so much readiness to follow him to death or victory; and the Kentish troops, despairing of success in their stratagem, fell upon such of his retainers as had already landed, and took 150 of them prisoners. These were tried, sentenced, and executed by order of the king, who was determined to show no lenity to the rebels. Perkin being an eye-witness of the capture of his people, immediately weighed anchor, and returned to Flanders.

Hampered, however, by his horde of desperadoes, he could not again settle quietly down under the protecting wing of the Duchess Margaret. Work and food had to be found for his lawless followers; and in 1495 an attempt was made upon Ireland, which still retained its preference for the House of York. But the people of Ireland had learnt a salutary lesson at the battle of Stoke, and Perkin, meeting with little success, withdrew to Scotland. At this time there was a coolness between the Scottish and English courts, and King James gave him a favourable reception, being so completely deceived by his specious story, that he bestowed upon him in marriage the beautiful and virtuous Lady Catherine Gordon, the daughter of the Earl of Huntly, and his own kinswoman. Not content with this, the King of Scots, with Perkin in his company, invaded England, in the hope that the adherents of the York family would rise in favour of the pretender. In this expectation he was disappointed, and what at first seemed likely to prove a dangerous insurrection ended in a mere border raid.

For a time Warbeck remained in Scotland; but when King James discovered that his continued presence at his court completely prevented all hope of a lasting peace with England, he requested him to leave the country. The Flemings meanwhile had passed a law barring his retreat into the Low Countries. Therefore, after hiding for a time in the wilds of Ireland, he resolved to try the affections of the men of Cornwall. No sooner did he land at Bodmin, than the people crowded to his banners in such numbers, that the pretender, hopeful of success, took upon himself for the first time the title of Richard IV., king of England. Not to suffer the expectation of his followers to languish, he laid siege to Exeter; but the men of Exeter, having shut their gates in his face, waited with confidence for the coming of the king. Nor were they disappointed. The Lords D'Aubeney and Broke were despatched with a small body of troops to the relief of the city. The leading nobles offered their services as volunteers, and the king, at the head of a considerable army, prepared to follow his advanced guard. Perkin's followers, who numbered about 7000 men, would have stood by him; but the cowardly Fleming, despairing of success, secretly withdrew to the sanctuary of Beaulieu. The Cornish rebels accepted the king's clemency, and Lady Gordon, the wife of the pretender, fell into the hands of the royalists. To Henry's credit it must be mentioned that he did not visit the sins of the husband upon the poor deluded wife, but placed her in attendance upon the queen, and bestowed upon her a pension which she continued to enjoy throughout his reign, and even after his death.

It was a difficult matter to know how to deal with the impostor himself. It would have been easy to make the privileges of the church yield to reasons of state, and to take him by violence from the sanctuary; but at the same time it was wise to respect the rights of the clergy and the prejudices of the people. Therefore agents were appointed to treat with the counterfeit prince, and succeeded in inducing him, by promises that his life would be spared, to deliver himself up to King Henry. Once a captive, he was treated with derision rather than with extreme severity, and was led in a kind of mock triumph to London. As he passed along the road, and through the streets of the city, men of all grades assembled to see the impostor, and cast ridicule upon his fallen fortunes; and the farce was ended by the publication of a confession in which Warbeck narrated his real parentage, and the chief causes of his presumption to royal honours.

But although his life was spared, he was still detained in custody. After a time he escaped from prison, and fled to the Priory of Sheen, near Richmond, where he desired the prior, who was a favourite with the king, to petition for his life and a pardon. If Henry had listened to the advice of his counsellors he would have taken advantage of the opportunity to rid himself of this persistent disturber of his peace; but he was content to give orders that "the knave should be taken out and set in the stocks." Accordingly, on the 14th of June 1499, Warbeck was exposed on a scaffold, erected in the Palace Court, Westminster, as he was on the day following at the Cross on Cheapside, and at both these places he read a confession of his imposture. Notwithstanding this additional disgrace, no sooner was he again under lock and key, than his restless spirit induced him to concoct another plot for liberty and the crown. Insinuating himself into the intimacy of four servants of Sir John Digby, lieutenant of the Tower, by their means he succeeded in opening a correspondence with the Earl of Warwick, who was confined in the same prison. The unfortunate prince listened readily to his fatal proposals, and a new plan was laid. Henry was apprised of it, and was not sorry that the last of the Plantagenets had thus thrust himself into his hands. Warbeck and Warwick were brought to trial, condemned, and executed. Perkin Warbeck died very penitently on the gallows at Tyburn. "Such," says Bacon, "was the end of this little cockatrice of a king." The Earl of Warwick was beheaded on Tower Hill, on the 28th of November 1499.

DON SEBASTIAN--THE LOST KING OF PORTUGAL.

King Sebastian of Portugal, who inherited the throne in 1557, seems, even from his infancy, to have exhibited a remarkable love of warlike exercises, and at an early age to have given promise of distinguishing himself as a warrior. At the time of his accession, Portugal had lost much of her old military prestige; the Moors had proved too strong for her diminished armies; the four strongholds of Arzilla, Alcazar-Sequer, Saphin, and Azamor, had been wrested from her; and Mazagan, Ceuta, and Tangier alone remained to her of all her African possessions. Consequently, the tutors of the boy-king were delighted to see his warlike instinct, and carefully instilled into his mind a hatred of the Paynim conquerors.

The lesson was well learnt, and from the moment King Sebastian reached his 14th year (the period of his majority), it was evident that all his thoughts centred on an expedition to Africa, to revive the former glories of his house, and to extend his empire even beyond its former limits. In 1574 he set out, not to conquer the land, but simply to view it, and with youthful audacity landed at Tangier, accompanied by only 1500 men. Finding no opposition to his progress, he organized a hunting expedition among the mountains, and actually put his project into execution. The Moors, by this time thoroughly incensed by his audacity, mustered a force and attacked his escort, but he succeeded in beating them off, and escaped in safety to his ships, and reached his kingdom unharmed.

This peculiar reconnaissance only strengthened his resolution to wrest his former possessions from the Moslems; and although Portugal was impoverished and weak, he resolved at once to enter on a crusade against Muley Moluc and the Moors. The protests of his ministers were unheeded; he laid new and exorbitant imposts on his people, caused mercenaries to be levied in Italy and the Low Countries, and reluctantly persuaded his uncle, Philip I. of Spain, to promise a contingent. His preparations being at last completed, and a regency established, he put to sea in June 1578. His armament consisted of 9000 Portuguese, 2000 Spaniards, 3000 Germans, and some 600 Italians--in all, about 15,000 men, with twelve pieces of artillery, embarked on fifty-five vessels.

On the 4th of August the opposing forces met. The Moorish monarch, who was stricken with a fatal disorder, was carried on a litter to the field, and died while struggling with his attendants, who refused to allow him to rush into the thick of the fight. The Portuguese were routed with great slaughter, notwithstanding the valour with which they were led by Don Sebastian. Two horses were killed under the Christian king; the steed on which he rode was exhausted, and the handful of followers who remained with him entreated him to surrender. Sebastian indignantly refused, and again dashed into the middle of the fray. From this moment his fate is uncertain. Some suppose that he was taken prisoner, and that his captors beginning to dispute among themselves as to the possession of so rich a prize, one of the Moorish officers slew him to prevent the rivalry ending in bloodshed. Another account, however, affirms that he was seen after the battle, alone and unattended, and apparently seeking some means of crossing the river. On the following day search was made for his body, Don Nuno Mascarcuhas, his personal attendant, having stated that he saw him put to death with his own eyes. At the spot which the Portuguese noble indicated, a body was found, which, though naked, Resende, a valet of Sebastian, recognised as that of his master. It was at once conveyed to the tent of Muley Hamet, the brother and successor of Muley Moluc, and was there identified by the captive Portuguese nobles. That their grief was sincere there could be no doubt; and the Moorish king having placed the royal remains in a handsome coffin, delivered them for a heavy ransom to the Spanish ambassador, by whom they were forwarded to Portugal, where they were buried with much pomp.

But although the nobles were well content to believe that Sebastian was dead, the mob were by no means equally satisfied that the story of his fate was true, and were prepared to receive any impostor with open arms. Indeed, in some parts of Portugal, Don Sebastian is supposed by the populace to be still alive, concealed like Roderick the Goth, or our own Arthur, in some hermit's cell, or in some enchanted castle, until the fitting time for his re-appearance arrives, when he will break the spell which binds him, and will restore the faded glory of the nation. During the incursions of Bonaparte, his appearance was anxiously expected, but he delayed the day of his coming. But if the real Sebastian remains silent, there have been numerous pretenders to his throne and his name.

In 1585 a man appeared who personated the dead king. He was a native of Alcazova, and a person of low birth and still lower morals. In his earlier days he had been admitted into the monastic society of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, but had been expelled from the fraternity on account of his misconduct. Even in his later life, when, by pretended penitence, he succeeded in gaining re-admission, his vices were found so far to outweigh his virtues and his piety that it was necessary again to confide him to the tender mercies of a sacrilegious world. He fled to the hermitage of Albuquerque, and there devotees visited him. Widows and full-blooded donnas especially frequented his cell; and the results of his exercises were such that the Alcalde threatened to lay hands upon him. Once more he disappeared, but only to turn up again in the guise of Don Sebastian. Two of his accomplices who mixed among the people pointed out his resemblance to the lost monarch: the credulous crowd swallowed the story, and he soon had a respectable following. Orders from Lisbon, however, checked his prosperous career. He was arrested and escorted by 100 horsemen to the dungeons of the capital. There he was tried and condemned to death. The sentence was not, however, carried into effect; for the imposture was deemed too transparent to merit the infliction of the extreme penalty. The prisoner was carried to the galleys instead of the scaffold, and exhibited to visitors as a contemptible curiosity rather than as a dangerous criminal. So ended the first sham Sebastian.

In the same year another pretender appeared. This was Alvarez, the son of a stone-cutter, and a native of the Azores. So far from originating the imposture, it seems to have been thrust upon him. Like the youth of Alcazova, after being a monk, he had become a hermit, and thousands of the devout performed pilgrimages to his cell, which was situated on the sea-coast, about two miles from Ericeira. The frequency and severity of his penances gained him great celebrity, and at last it began to be rumoured abroad that the recluse was King Sebastian, who, by mortifying his own flesh, was atoning for the calamity he had brought upon his kingdom. At first he repudiated all claim to such distinction; but after a time his ambition seems to have been aroused; he ceased to protest against the homage of the ignorant, and consented to be treated as a king. Having made up his mind to the imposture, Alvares resolved to carry it out boldly. He appointed officers of his household, and despatched letters, sealed with the royal arms, throughout the kingdom, commanding his subjects to rally round his standard and aid him in restoring peace and prosperity to Portugal. The local peasantry, in answer to the summons, hastened to place themselves at his service, and were honoured by being allowed to kiss his royal hand. Cardinal Henrique, the regent, being informed of his proceedings, despatched an officer with a small force to arrest this new disturber of the public tranquillity; but on the approach of the troops Alvares and his followers took to the mountains. The cardinal's representative, unable to pursue them into their inaccessible fastnesses, left the alcalde of Torres Vedras at Ericeira with instructions to capture the impostor dead or alive, and himself set out for Lisbon. He had scarcely reached the plain when Alvares, at the head of 700 men, swooped down upon the town and took the alcalde and his soldiers prisoners. He next wrote to the cardinal regent, ordering him to quit the palace and the kingdom. He then set out for Torres Vedras, intending to release the criminals confined there, and with their assistance to seize Cintra, and afterwards to attack the capital. On the march he threw the unfortunate alcalde and the notary of Torres Vedras, who had been captured at the same time, over a high cliff into the sea, and executed another government official who had the misfortune to fall into his clutches. The corregedor Fonseca, who was not far off, hearing of these excesses, immediately started at the head of eighty horsemen to oppose the rebel progress. Wisely calculating that if he appeared with a larger force Alvares would again flee to the hills, he ordered some companies to repair in silence to a village in the rear, and aid him in case of need. He first encountered a picked band of 200 rebels, whom he easily routed; and then, being joined by his reinforcements, fell upon the main body, which his also dispersed. Alvares succeeded in escaping for a time, but at last he was taken and brought to Lisbon. Here, after being exposed to public infamy, he was hanged amid the jeers of the populace.

Nine years later, in 1594, another impostor appeared, this time in Spain, under the very eyes of King Philip, who had seized the Portuguese sovereignty. Again an ecclesiastic figured in the plot; but on this occasion he concealed himself behind the scenes, and pulled the strings which set the puppet-king in motion. Miguel dos Santos, an Augustinian monk, who had been chaplain to Sebastian, after his disappearance espoused the cause of Don Antonio, and conceived the scheme of placing his new patron on the Lusitanian throne, by exciting a revolution in favour of a stranger adventurer, who would run all the risks of the rebellion, and resign his ill-gotten honours when the real aspirant appeared. He found a suitable tool in Gabriel de Spinosa, a native of Toledo. This man resembled Sebastian, was naturally bold and unscrupulous, and was easily persuaded to undertake the task of personating the missing monarch. The monk, Dos Santos, who was confessor to the nunnery of Madrigal, introduced this person to one of the nuns, Donna Anna of Austria, a niece of King Philip, and informed her that he was the unfortunate King of Portugal. The lady, believing her father-confessor, loaded the pretender with valuable gifts; presented him with her jewels; and was so attracted by his appearance that it was said she was willing to break her vows for his sake, and to share his throne with him. Unfortunately for the conspirators, before the plot was ripe, Spinosa's indiscretion ruined it. Having repaired to Valladolid to sell some jewels, he formed a criminal acquaintance with a female of doubtful repute, who informed the authorities that he was possessed of a great number of gems which she believed to be stolen. He was arrested, and on his correspondence being searched, the whole scheme was discovered. The rack elicited a full confession, and Spinosa was hung and quartered. Miguel dos Santos shared the same fate; but the Donna Anna, in consideration of her birth, was spared and condemned to perpetual seclusion.