Part 30

Unluckily for the young invader, the people of England had had enough of civil war. White Rose or Red Rose had become of less importance to them than peace and prosperity. They refused to rise in his support, and quickly grew to hate his soldiers, who, being of different nations, most of them brigandish soldiers of fortune, began by quarrelling with one another, and ended by plundering the country.

"This is shameful," said Perkin. "I am not here to distress the English people. Rather than fill the country with misery, I will lose my rights."

King James laughed at his scruples, giving him to understand that no true king would stop for such a trifle. But Perkin was resolute, and the army marched back again into Scotland without fighting a battle. The White Rose had shown himself unfit for kingship in those days. He was so weak as to have compassion for the people, if that was the true cause of his retreat.

This invasion had one unlooked-for result. The people had been heavily taxed by Henry, in preparation for the expected war. In consequence the men of Cornwall rose in rebellion. With Flammock, a lawyer, and Joseph, a blacksmith, at their head, they marched eastward through England until within sight of London, being joined by Lord Audley and some other country gentlemen on their route. The king met and defeated them, though they fought fiercely. Lord Audley was beheaded, Flammock and Joseph were hanged, the rest were pardoned. And so ended this threatening insurrection.

It was of no advantage to the wandering White Rose. He soon had to leave Scotland, peace having been made between the two kings. James, like Charles VIII. before him, was honorable and would not give him up, but required him to leave his kingdom. Perkin and his beautiful wife, who clung to him with true love, set sail for Ireland. For a third time he had been driven from shelter.

In Ireland he found no support. The people had become friendly to the king, and would have nothing to do with the wandering White Rose. As a forlorn hope, he sailed for Cornwall, trusting that the stout Cornish men, who had just struck so fierce a blow for their rights, might gather to his support. With him went his wife, clinging with unyielding faith and love to his waning fortunes.

He landed at Whitsand Bay, on the coast of Cornwall, issued a proclamation under the title of Richard the Fourth of England, and quickly found himself in command of a small army of Cornishmen. His wife he left in the castle of St. Michael's Mount, as a place of safety, and at the head of three thousand men marched into Devonshire. By the time he reached Exeter he had six thousand men under his command. They besieged Exeter, but learning that the king was on the march, they raised the siege, and advanced until Taunton was reached, when they found themselves in front of the king's army.

The Cornishmen were brave and ready. They were poorly armed and outnumbered, but battle was their only thought. Such was not the thought of their leader. For the first time in his career he found himself face to face with a hostile army. He could plot, could win friends by his engaging manners, could do anything but fight. But now that the critical moment had come he found that he lacked courage. Perhaps this had as much as compassion to do with his former retreat to Scotland. It is certain that the sight of grim faces and brandished arms before him robbed his heart of its bravery. Mounting a swift horse, he fled in the night, followed by about threescore others. In the morning his men found themselves without a leader. Having nothing to fight for, they surrendered. Some few of the more desperate of them were hanged. The others were pardoned and permitted to return.

No sooner was the discovery made that the White Rose had taken to the winds than horsemen were sent in speedy pursuit, one troop being sent to St. Michael's Mount to seize the Lady Catharine, and a second troop of five hundred horse to pursue the fugitive pretender, and take him, if possible, before he could reach the sanctuary of Beaulieu, in the New Forest, whither he had fled. The lady was quickly brought before the king. Whether or not he meant to deal harshly with her, the sight of her engaging face moved him to compassion and admiration. She was so beautiful, bore so high a reputation for goodness, and was so lovingly devoted to her husband, that the king was disarmed of any ill purposes he may have entertained, and treated her with the highest respect and consideration. In the end he gave her an allowance suitable to her rank, placed her at court near the queen's person, and continued her friend during life. Years after, when the story of Perkin Warbeck had almost become a nursery-tale, the Lady Catharine was still called by the people the "White Rose," as a tribute to her beauty and her romantic history.

As regards the fugitive and his followers, they succeeded in reaching Beaulieu and taking sanctuary. The pursuers, who had failed to overtake them, could only surround the sanctuary and wait orders from the king. The astute Henry pursued his usual course, employing policy instead of force. Perkin was coaxed out of his retreat, on promise of good treatment if he should surrender, and was brought up to London, guarded, but not bound. Henry, who was curious to see him, contrived to do so from a window, screening himself while closely observing his rival.

London reached, the cavalcade became a procession, the captive being led through the principal streets for the edification of the populace, before being taken to the Tower. The king had little reason to fear him. The pretended prince, who had run away from his army, was not likely to obtain new adherents. Scorn and contempt were the only manifestations of popular opinion.

So little, indeed, did Henry dread this aspirant to the throne, that he was quickly released from the Tower and brought to Westminster, where he was treated as a gentleman, being examined from time to time regarding his imposture. Such parts of his confession as the king saw fit to divulge were printed and spread through the country, but were of a nature not likely to settle the difficulty. "Men missing of that they looked for, looked about for they knew not what, and were more in doubt than before, but the king chose rather not to satisfy, than to kindle coals."

Perkin soon brought the king's complaisance to an end. His mercurial disposition counselled flight, and, deceiving his guards, he slipped from the palace and fled to the sea-shore. Here he found all avenues of escape closed, and so diligent was the pursuit that he quickly turned back, and again took sanctuary in Bethlehem priory, near Richmond. The prior came to the king and offered to deliver him up, asking for his life only. His escapade had roused anger in the court.

"Take the rogue and hang him forthwith," was the hot advice of the king's council.

"The silly boy is not worth a rope," answered the king. "Take the knave and set him in the stocks. Let the people see what sort of a prince this is."

Life being promised, the prior brought forth his charge, and a few days after Perkin was set in the stocks for a whole day, in the palace-court at Westminster. The next day he was served in the same manner at Cheapside, in both places being forced to read a paper which purported to be a true and full confession of his imposture. From Cheapside he was taken to the Tower, having exhausted the mercy of the king.

In the Tower he was placed in the company of the Earl of Warwick, the last of the acknowledged Plantagenets, who had been in this gloomy prison for fourteen years. It is suspected that the king had a dark purpose in this. To the one he had promised life; the other he had no satisfactory reason to remove; possibly he fancied that the uneasy temper of Perkin would give him an excuse for the execution of both.

If such was his scheme, it worked well. Perkin had not been long in the Tower before the quick-silver of his nature began to declare itself. His insinuating address gained him the favor of his keepers, whom he soon began to offer lofty bribes to aid his escape. Into this plot he managed to draw the young earl. The plan devised was that the four keepers should murder the lieutenant of the Tower in the night, seize the keys and such money as they could find, and let out Perkin and the earl.

It may be that the king himself had arranged this plot, and instructed the keepers in their parts. Certainly it was quickly divulged. And by strange chance, just at this period a third pretender appeared, this time a shoemaker's son, who, like the baker's son, pretended to be the Earl of Warwick. His name was Ralph Wilford. He had been taught his part by a priest named Patrick. They came from Suffolk and advanced into Kent, where the priest took to the pulpit to advocate the claims of his charge. Both were quickly taken, the youth executed, the priest imprisoned for life.

And now Henry doubtless deemed that matters of this kind had gone far enough. The earl and his fellow-prisoner were indicted for conspiracy, tried and found guilty, the earl beheaded on Tower Hill, and Perkin Warbeck hanged at Tyburn. This was in the year 1499. It formed a dramatic end to the history of the fifteenth century, being the closing event in the wars of the White and the Red Roses, the death of the last Plantagenet and of the last White Rose aspirant to the throne.

In conclusion, the question may be asked, Who was Perkin Warbeck? All we know of him is the story set afloat by Henry VII., made up of accounts told by his spies and a confession wrested from a boy threatened with death. That he was taught his part by Margaret of Burgundy we have only this evidence for warrant. He was publicly acknowledged by this lady, the sister of Edward IV., was married by James of Scotland to a lady of royal blood, was favorably received by many English lords, and was widely believed, in view of the mystery surrounding the fate of the princes, to be truly the princely person he declared himself. However that be, his story is a highly romantic one, and forms a picturesque closing scene to the long drama of the Wars of the Roses.

THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD.

It was the day fixed for the opening of the most brilliant pageant known to modern history. On the green space in front of the dilapidated castle of Guisnes, on the soil of France, but within what was known as the English pale, stood a summer palace of the amplest proportions and the most gorgeous decorations, which was furnished within with all that comfort demanded and art and luxury could provide. Let us briefly describe this magnificent palace, which had been prepared for the temporary residence of the English king.

The building was of wood, square in shape, each side being three hundred and twenty-eight feet long. On every side were oriel-windows and curiously glazed clerestories, whose mullions and posts were overlaid with gold. In front of the grand entrance stood an embattled gate-way, having on each side statues of warriors in martial attitudes. From the gate to the palace sloped upward a long passage, flanked with images in bright armor and presenting "sore and terrible countenances." This led to an embowered landing-place, where, facing the great doors, stood antique figures girt with olive-branches.

Interiorly the palace halls and chambers were superbly decorated, white silk forming the ceilings of the passages and galleries, from which depended silken hangings of various colors and braided cloths, "which showed like bullions of fine braided gold." Roses set in lozenges, on a golden ground-work, formed the chamber ceilings. The wall spaces were decorated with richly carved and gilt panels, while embroidered silk tapestry hung from the windows and formed the walls of the corridors. In the state apartments the furniture was of princely richness, the whole domains of art and industry having been ransacked to provide their most splendid belongings. Exteriorly the building presented an equally ornate appearance, glass, gold-work, and ornamental hangings quite concealing the carpentry, so that "every quarter of it, even the least, was a habitation fit for a prince."

To what end, in the now far-away year of 1520, and in that rural locality, under the shadows of a castle which had fallen into irredeemable ruin, had such an edifice been built,--one which only the revenues of a kingdom, in that day, could have erected? Its purpose was a worthy one. France and England, whose intercourse for centuries had been one of war, were now to meet in peace. Crecy and Agincourt had been the last meeting-places of the monarchs of these kingdoms, and death and ruin had followed their encounters. Now Henry the Eighth of England and Francis the First of France were to meet in peace and amity, spending the revenues of their kingdoms not for armor of linked mail and death-dealing weapons, but for splendid attire and richest pageantry, in token of friendship and fraternity between the two realms.

A century had greatly changed the relations of England and France. In 1420 Henry V. had recently won the great victory of Agincourt, and France lay almost prostrate at his feet. In 1520 the English possessions in France were confined to the seaport of Calais and a small district around it known as the "English pale." The castle of Guisnes stood just within the English border, the meeting between the two monarchs being fixed at the line of separation of the two kingdoms.

The palace we have described, erected for the habitation of King Henry and his suite, had been designed and ordered by Cardinal Wolsey, to whose skill in pageantry the management of this great festival had been consigned. Extensive were the preparations alike in England and in France. All that the island kingdom could furnish of splendor and riches was provided, not alone for the adornment of the king and his guard, but for the host of nobles and the multitude of persons of minor estate, who came in his train, the whole following of the king being nearly four thousand persons, while more than a thousand formed the escort of the queen. For the use of this great company had been brought nearly four thousand richly-caparisoned horses, with vast quantities of the other essentials of human comfort and regal display.