Part 9 (1/2)

On June 12 the prior of the Charterhouse arrived at Westminster and informed the King of Warbeck's whereabouts. Henry immediately had the news conveyed to Puebla, who communicated it to Ferdinand and Isabella, to rea.s.sure them that the pretender had been speedily found. The prior begged the King to spare Warbeck's life. Henry VII was not a bloodthirsty man, but he was no longer prepared to be lenient with Perkin. He had him put in the stocks in Cheapside and at Westminster, where he was again made to read aloud his confession, then he was marched under strong guard to the Tower and imprisoned in a cell where ”he sees neither sun nor moon.”82 Bacon a.s.serts that even now Warbeck was still insisting he was Richard of York, and declaring that when he was delivered from the Tower, he would wait for the King's death, ”then put myself into my sister's hands, who was next heir to the crown.” But Bacon was writing much later, and-as we have seen-tended to see intrigue where none probably existed, especially in regard to pretenders. It is highly unlikely that Elizabeth was harboring sympathy for this young man, or that she still took his claim seriously.

Certainly Pedro de Ayala did not, and he a.s.sured Ferdinand and Isabella that Henry VII's crown was now ”undisputed, and his government is strong in all respects.” But the years of uncertainty had taken their toll. Ayala added that Henry ”looks old for his years, but young for the sorrowful life he has led.”83 Vergil too observed how Henry had aged: ”his teeth [were] few, poor and blackish; his hair was thin and gray; his complexion pale.” Worry and anxiety may have taken their toll on Elizabeth too: a portrait of her painted in the 1490s, now in the Royal Collection (see Appendix 1), shows her looking older than her years-she was thirty in 1496-with pinched lips and a double chin.

But now, with Warbeck securely imprisoned, the outlook for the future appeared brighter, and the way seemed clear for preparations for Prince Arthur's wedding to the Infanta to proceed smoothly. It was what the King earnestly desired, and he ”swore by his royal faith that he and the Queen were more satisfied with this marriage than with any other.”84 On July 7, 1498, two Spanish diplomats, Commander Sancho de Londono and Juan de Matienzo, sub-prior of Santa Cruz, ”pa.s.sed four hours with [King Henry] in conversation, at which the Queen and the mother of the King were present.” They reported to their sovereigns: ”To hear what they spoke of Your Highnesses and of the Princess of Wales was like hearing the praise of G.o.d.” The envoys gave Elizabeth two letters from Ferdinand and Isabella and two letters from the Princess of Wales. ”The King had a dispute with the Queen because he wanted to have one of the said letters to carry continually about him, but the Queen did not like to part with hers, having sent the other to the Prince of Wales.”85 It is hard to imagine Elizabeth defying Henry openly like this. More likely, the dispute was staged to demonstrate to the Spanish envoys the enthusiasm of the royal pair for the marriage of their son to Princess Katherine.86 When, on August 25, 1498, Rodrigo de Puebla brought Elizabeth letters from the Spanish sovereigns and Katherine of Aragon, ”and explained them, she was overjoyed.” She sent at once for her Latin secretary ”and ordered him to write, in her presence, two letters, one of them to the Queen of Spain and the other to the Princess of Wales.” The secretary told Puebla afterward ”that he was obliged to write the said letters three or four times, because the Queen had always found some defects in them,” saying, ”They are not things of great importance themselves, but they show great and cordial love,” which had to be expressed in the proper fas.h.i.+on.87 This testifies to Elizabeth's keen desire for a successful outcome to the marriage negotiations, as do her efforts to cement good relations with Puebla by finding him an English bishopric or an English bride.

In February, Henry VII had informed Ferdinand and Isabella that ”since Puebla could not be induced to accept a Church preferment, he was asked whether he would also refuse an honorable marriage offered to him. After many excuses, he has at last been persuaded, princ.i.p.ally by the Queen, to accept the marriage, but under the express condition that his king and queen must first give him their consent. Wis.h.i.+ng to marry Puebla well in England, he and his queen beg them [the Spanish sovereigns] to grant their prayers, and to give their consent. The marriage will be of great advantage to the Princess Katherine when she comes to live in England.” Puebla dutifully but reluctantly relayed the proposal to his sovereigns, and it seems that Henry and Elizabeth continued to press him to accept the hand of an Englishwoman of their choosing.88 On the morning of Sunday, July 18, Commander Londono and the sub-prior of Santa Cruz went to Sheen, accompanied by the Bishop of London and other great dignitaries of state, and there saw the King and Queen walking in procession after hearing Ma.s.s in the chapel. ”The ladies of the Queen went in good order and were much adorned.” Later that day the envoys ”took leave, and went to kiss the hand of the Queen.”89 During their visit, Commander Londono and the sub-prior of Santa Cruz made their separate observations about Elizabeth resenting Margaret Beaufort's influence on the King. As discussed earlier, the envoys' conclusions were probably overstated, for Elizabeth and her mother-in-law continued to present a united and friendly front to the world, and until now there had been no hint of discord between them. Several times during 1498 alone we find them amicably working and playing together. They displayed a joint concern to prepare Katherine of Aragon for her marriage. On July 17, Puebla reported: ”The Queen and the mother of the King wish that the Princess of Wales should always speak French with the Princess Margaret [of Austria, wife of Katherine's brother, the Infante Juan, Prince of Asturias], who is now in Spain, in order to learn the language and to be able to converse in it when she comes to England. This is necessary, because these ladies do not understand Latin, and much less, Spanish. They also wish that the Princess of Wales should accustom herself to drink wine. The water of England is not drinkable, and even if it were, the climate would not allow the drinking of it.”90 That summer, Margaret Beaufort accompanied the King and Queen on a progress into East Anglia, visiting Havering, Bury St. Edmunds, and Thetford on the way to Norwich, where they were received by the mayor, who made an oration in their honor.91 They again visited the shrine at Walsingham, and at Bishop's Lynn (later King's Lynn) they lodged in the Augustinian priory92 before journeying westward to Margaret's house at Collyweston.93 Two years later Elizabeth collaborated with Margaret and Prince Arthur to secure the appointment of Thomas Pantry, a native of Calais, as Supreme Beadle of the Arts at the University of Oxford, although in 1501 they all supported rival claimants for the same post in Divinity, which shows that Elizabeth was not always swayed by her mother-in-law's opinions.94 In July 1498, Londono and the sub-prior of Santa Cruz reported an instance of the King, Queen, and Margaret Beaufort sharing a similar sense of humor. They had heard of it from ”a Spaniard, brought up and married in England,” who was ”porter to the Queen of England. He said that some time ago the King was living at a palace about a quarter of a league distant from the town in which Puebla was staying. Puebla went every day, with all his servants, to dine at the palace, and continued his unasked-for visits during the s.p.a.ce of four or five months. The Queen and the mother of the Queen sometimes asked him whether his masters in Castile did not provide him with food. On another occasion, when the King was staying at another palace, there was a report that Dr. de Puebla was coming. The King asked his courtiers, 'For what purpose is he coming?' They answered, 'To eat!' The King laughed at the answer.”95 This is a revealing insight into a private joke shared by Elizabeth, her mother-in-law, and her husband, which suggests that ”subjection” was quite the wrong word to describe her relations with Lady Margaret.

There was a good reason to account for Elizabeth being out of sorts or looking strained or irritable during the amba.s.sadors' visit: she was two months pregnant, and possibly suffering with it. The King paid out money to her physician, Lewis Caerleon, probably for consultations and treatment connected with her condition.96 In the summer of 1498, during a visit to London, the Bishop of Cambrai (once alleged to be Warbeck's real father) visited Henry VII and asked to see Perkin, who was duly produced for his inspection. Puebla observed that he was ”so much changed that I, and all other persons here, believe his life will be very short. He must pay for what he has done.” Puebla, doubtless acting on the orders of King Ferdinand, did not cease urging King Henry to rid himself of this embarra.s.sment, hinting that Ferdinand was having second thoughts about marrying his daughter to a prince whose future throne might not be secure.97 On September 11, Bishop Fox was empowered to negotiate the marriage of Margaret Tudor and James IV. Henry was resolved upon cementing the peace between England and Scotland, and liked the prospect of his grandson sitting on the Scots throne. James too was eager for the marriage, and there was talk of an early wedding, but Henry revealed to Pedro de Ayala that his wife and his mother had worked in concert again, this time to protect Margaret from the perils of marrying too young. ”I have already told you more than once that a marriage between him and my daughter has many inconveniences,” he said. ”She has not yet completed the ninth year of her age, and is so delicate and female [i.e., weak] that she must be married much later than other young ladies. Thus it would be necessary to wait at least another nine years. Beside my own doubts, the Queen and my mother are very much against this marriage. They say if [it] were concluded, we should be obliged to send the princess directly to Scotland, in which case they fear the King of Scots would not wait, but injure her and endanger her health.”98 Margaret Beaufort probably spoke from bitter experience, for her husband had not waited, and the likelihood is that giving birth at thirteen scarred her so badly, mentally as well as physically, that she had never borne another child. She and Elizabeth may also have heard reports of the Scots King's womanizing and been concerned for Margaret. Bowing to this pressure from his womenfolk, Henry compromised and made James agree not to demand his bride before September 1503, when she would be nearly fourteen.99 Early in 1499 a young Cambridge student, Ralph Wilford, the son of a London cordwainer, suddenly declared that he was the real Warwick. Like Lambert Simnel, he had been encouraged in his deception by an errant cleric, in this case a friar. He was speedily apprehended and ”confessed that he was sundry times stirred in his sleep that he should name himself to be the Duke of Clarence's son, and he should in process obtain such power that he should be King.” By now Henry VII's patience was exhausted, and after personally interrogating the imposter, he did not hesitate to deal swiftly with him: on February 12, Wilford was hanged.100 Even so, the damage had been done, for the King was much disturbed by the appearance of yet another pretender, and-as he had probably feared-the Spanish sovereigns were dismayed when they heard of it.

Elizabeth was then in the last stages of pregnancy. The Great Wardrobe Accounts for January 1499 record payments for linen cloth for bearing sheets, ”headkerchiefs, biggins [bonnets for the baby], and breast kerchiefs,” kersey for twelve couches (beds), and fustian ”for a bed for the nursery,” all purchased for the Queen. On January 20 the King sent for the silver font from Canterbury Cathedral, paying the prior 2 [970] for the favor.

Around the time she took to her chamber, Elizabeth had to deal with more bad news. On February 9, 1499, her brother-in-law, John, Viscount Welles, the husband of her sister Cecily, died of pleurisy at his London home. In his will he had pa.s.sed over his other heirs and directed that all his property should go to Cecily for the term of her life, and that his body should be interred wherever she-with the consent of the King and Queen and the King's mother-should deem appropriate. After his death Cecily sent to the King at Greenwich to discover his pleasure in the matter. He commanded that Welles be buried with great solemnity in the old Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. Cecily apparently returned to the Queen's household, where, given Elizabeth's love and care for her sisters, she was a.s.sured of a sympathetic welcome.101 By February 19, Anne Crown, mistress of the nursery (probably identified with Anne Crowmer), was installed and awaiting the arrival of her charge. Under her was Anne Skern, who had nursed Princess Mary, and ”five gentlewomen of the nursery.”102 Elizabeth bore her third son, her sixth child, on Thursday, February 21, 1499, at Greenwich.103 He was baptized there in the church of the Observant Friars on February 24. The Great Wardrobe provided linen for the silver font from Canterbury, cords for hanging the canopy that would be borne over the infant, red worsted, gilt nails, and other items104 against the christening, which was ”very splendid, and the festivities such as though an heir to the crown had been born.”105 The baby was named Edmund, after Henry's father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond.

Margaret Beaufort was Edmund's G.o.dmother at the font, and gave him the generous gift of 100 [48,600], as well as handsomely rewarding the midwife and the nurses.106 Clearly she was relieved to see both mother and child safely delivered, for ”there had been much fear that the life of the Queen would be in danger, but the delivery, contrary to expectations, had been easy.”107 A payment of 6s.8d. [160] made by the King on the day after the birth to ”Wulf the Physician at two times”108 may reflect the precautions put in place should something go wrong. We do not know why there were fears for the Queen's life, unless the shock of her brother-in-law's death and her sister's bereavement had affected her badly, but the ministrations of her doctors the previous year suggest she had had a difficult pregnancy.

Prince Edmund was styled Duke of Somerset,109 a t.i.tle proudly borne by his Beaufort ancestors, although he was probably never formally enn.o.bled since no enrollment of any patent can be traced.

Polydore Vergil recorded that ”by his wife Elizabeth, [Henry VII] was the father of eight children, four boys and as many girls”; and John Foxe, writing in the reign of Elizabeth I, stated that ”Henry VII had by Elizabeth four men children and of women children as many, of whom only three survived.” John Stow, the Elizabethan antiquarian, states that there was a fourth and youngest son called Edward. In the eighteenth century, Thomas Carte also a.s.serted, in his history of England, that there was a fourth son who died in infancy, while in the nineteenth century, Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster, recorded a fourth son, Edward, who died very young and was buried in Westminster Abbey. However, the royal genealogist Francis Sandford, writing in the seventeenth century, says that Edmund was the third and youngest son.

Modern biographers110 have put forward all kinds of theories about a fourth son. One names him George,111 but most call him Edward. His birth date has variously been given as 148788112 and 149596,113 suggesting some confusion with Princess Mary, 1497114 or 150001.

There is no contemporary evidence to support any of these theories. Nor is there any record of Elizabeth having more than seven pregnancies. All are doc.u.mented in one way or another, so it is unlikely that a prince called Edward ever existed. The most telling evidence in favor of the Queen having borne only three sons is to be found in two works of art. The St. George altarpiece at Windsor, which depicts Henry and Elizabeth and their children adoring St. George, and dates from 150509, shows four daughters and only three sons. An illumination in the ”Ordinances of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception,” dating from 1503, also shows three sons and four daughters. Given that all the known children who died young are included in each of these groups, which were painted after Elizabeth's death, we might expect to see a fourth son-if there had been one-in both pictures.

There also exists in the British Library the ”Genealogical Chronicle of the Kings of England,” dating from 1511, which has tiny circular images of Henry and Elizabeth with seven children, labeled Arthur, Edmund, Henry, Katherine, Margaret, Mary, and Elizabeth. Margaret and Katherine are shown as boys-the other girls wear gable hoods.115 The likelihood is that Vergil got it wrong and there were only three sons of the marriage. Claims by modern historians116 that there were other children who died unnamed in infancy are not substantiated by any contemporary evidence.

In May 1499, with the portly Puebla standing in for the Infanta, Prince Arthur was married by proxy in a ceremony in the chapel at Tickenhill Palace, his house near Bewdley, Worcesters.h.i.+re. This was ”a fair manor place west of the town, standing in a goodly park well wooded” on a hill in the Severn Valley. Originally built in the fourteenth century, it had been enlarged by Edward IV for his son, the Prince of Wales, when the Council of the Marches was established, and Henry VII converted it into a palace for Prince Arthur.117 It was intimated by the King and Queen to the Spanish amba.s.sador that the ladies Katherine brought with her to England should be ”of gentle birth”-for ”the English attach great importance to good connections”-and ”beautiful, or, at the least, by no means ugly.”118 From 1499 to 1501, Arthur and Katherine were encouraged to write frequently to each other. They corresponded in Latin in a formal style, no doubt supervised by their elders. Although the young couple had not yet met, they expressed the proper sentiments required by convention. One letter sent by Arthur on October 5, 1499, from Ludlow Castle is typical of how a royal courts.h.i.+p was conducted: Most ill.u.s.trious and most excellent lady, my dearest spouse, I wish you very much health, with my hearty commendations.

I have read the most sweet letters of your Highness lately given to me, from which I have easily perceived your most entire love to me. Truly, these your letters, traced by your own hand, have so delighted me, and have rendered me so cheerful and jocund, that I fancied I beheld your Highness, and conversed with and embraced my dearest wife. I cannot tell you what an earnest desire I feel to see your Highness, and how vexatious to me is this procrastination about your coming. I owe eternal thanks to your excellence that you so lovingly correspond to this, my so ardent love. Let it continue, I entreat, as it has begun; and, like as I cherish your sweet remembrance night and day, so do you preserve my name ever fresh in your breast. And let your coming to me be hastened, that instead of being absent we may be present with each other, and the love conceived between us and the wished-for joys may reap their proper fruit.

I have done as your ill.u.s.trious Highness enjoined me in commending you to the most serene lord and lady, the King and Queen, my parents, and in declaring your filial regard toward them, which to them was most pleasing to hear.119 The expressions in the letter are those of an adult, and it seems unlikely that a thirteen-year-old boy would have written them; probably his words were dictated by his tutors.

In September, while the King and Queen were away on a progress in Hamps.h.i.+re,120 the celebrated scholar Erasmus, then a guest of fellow humanist William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, was taken to meet their younger children at Eltham. Years later he recalled: ”Thomas More paid me a visit, and took me for recreation on a walk to a neighboring country palace, where the royal infants were abiding, Prince Arthur excepted, who had completed his education. The princely children were a.s.sembled in the hall and were surrounded by their household, to whom Mountjoy's servants added themselves. In the middle of the circle stood Prince Henry, then only nine [sic] years old, and already having something of royalty in his demeanor, in which there was a certain dignity combined with a singular courtesy.” A painted terracotta bust by Guido Mazzoni in the Royal Collection, of a chubby-cheeked, mischievous-looking, laughing boy is thought to portray young Henry around this time (ca.14981500), and may have been commissioned by Henry VII himself.

On Prince Henry's right hand ”stood the Princess Margaret, a child of eleven [sic] years, afterward Queen of Scotland. On the other side was the Princess Mary, a little one of four [sic] years of age, engaged in her sports, whilst Edmund, an infant, was held in his nurse's arms.”121 Thomas More presented Prince Henry with some Latin verses he had composed especially for him, and that same evening, after they had returned to More's house, Erasmus received a request from the prince for some verses of his own. ”I was angry with More for not having warned me,” he wrote, ”especially as the boy sent me a little note, while we were at dinner, to challenge something from my pen.” In fact the great scholar was so overcome with trepidation that it took him three days to come up with something he considered suitable, the Prosopopoeia Britanniae;122 in this, he described the royal children in allegorical terms: the boys were red roses, for vigor, the girls white, for innocence.

Already, it seems, the future Henry VIII had a commanding and awe-inspiring demeanor, and to have read the verses dedicated to him he would have had to be highly proficient in Latin. Erasmus thought he was. His inscription read: ”We have dedicated these verses, like the gift of playthings, to your childhood, and shall be ready with more abundant offerings when your virtues, growing with your age, shall supply more abundant material for poetry.” Erasmus later recalled that Henry ”had a vivid and active mind, above measure to execute whatever tasks he undertook. You would say that he was a universal genius.”123 Erasmus was also much impressed by Lady Guildford, the princesses' governess, with whom he engaged in two conversations. By November 1501, however, Lady Guildford had returned to the Queen's service.

With their daughter due to come to England when she reached fourteen in December, Ferdinand and Isabella had expressed concern at the emergence of yet another pretender, and even though Ralph Wilford had been speedily dealt with, their faith in the security of the English throne was shaken. They had seen over the years how it could be destabilized by imposters and the existence of Yorkist heirs who might yet challenge Henry VII's t.i.tle. Now that Warbeck had been discredited, they regarded Warwick as the greatest threat to England's stability, as he had the strongest claim to the crown and was clearly a focus for malcontents. In the years to come, Katherine of Aragon would say that her marriage to Prince Arthur had been made in blood,124 which implies that it was conditional upon the removal of the hapless Warwick. Fifty years later Warwick's nephew, Cardinal Reginald Pole (the son of Margaret of Clarence), revealed that King Ferdinand was averse to giving his daughter to one who would not be secure in his own kingdom. The likelihood is that Ferdinand warned Henry VII that while Warwick lived, the Infanta would not be coming to England.

Henry, like many of his contemporaries, was a superst.i.tious man. In March, still perturbed by the Wilford affair, he heard of a priest who had accurately foretold the deaths of Edward IV and Richard III and summoned him for a consultation. The soothsayer warned him that his life would be in danger all that year, for there were two parties with very different political creeds in the land-those who were loyal to the Tudor dynasty, and those who wanted to see the House of York restored-and that conspiracies against the throne would ensue. A fortnight later Pedro de Ayala reported that the King had aged twenty years in two weeks.125 Unnerved by the Wilford affair, and aware that Warwick would always remain a threat, Henry probably foresaw no end to the intrigues that had long undermined his security. Fearful as a result of the soothsayer's warning, he consulted his astrologer, Dr. William Parron, several times. Later that year, Parron observed, ”It is expedient that one man should die for the people, and the whole nation perish not, for an insurrection cannot occur in any state without the deaths of a great part of the people and the destruction of many great families with their property.” This pragmatic view was shared by the King, and it was probably at this time that he came to the decision that Warwick must be eliminated.

Yet Warwick had never actually done anything to justify any legal process against him. Having him secretly murdered in the Tower, like the princes, was clearly not Henry's way of doing things. The King had experienced what could ensue when an heir to the throne simply disappeared. Moral issues aside, it had to be known that Warwick had died, and the only sure way to remove him and eliminate any future claims of his survival was by the process of law.

What happened afterward is still surrounded in mystery. We do not know the extent of official involvement-although the evidence suggests it was considerable-or how far the government drove or manipulated events. What was paramount, though, was that Henry secure his crown and safeguard the valuable Spanish alliance. Small wonder that he probably seized the chance to kill two birds with one shot.

One might have thought that high-security prisoners like Warwick and Warbeck would be kept isolated from each other lest they bred a further conspiracy together, but this was clearly not the case. On August 2, according to Warwick's indictment, two gaolers-Thomas Astwood, one of Warbeck's former supporters who had been pardoned four years earlier, and Robert Cleymound-met with Warwick in his chamber in the Tower and hatched a plot to fire and seize the Tower, thus facilitating his escape to Flanders, whence he would make war upon Henry VII, ”a.s.sume the royal dignity and make himself King.”126 Warwick may have been inveigled into colluding in what was nothing less than high treason; or he might, understandably, have leapt at the chance of being revenged upon the King who had so unjustly incarcerated him for fourteen years. Yet he may not fully have understood the enormity of what he thought he was about to do, or had the capacity to see it through. Vergil says that Warwick had been brought up in prison from his cradle, and although that was not strictly true of his earlier years, he had been a captive since 1485, ”out of sight of man or beast,” and he was clearly not very bright. It is hard to imagine him seriously contemplating leading an armed rebellion.

Two days later the conspirators made contact with Warbeck, whose cell-somewhat conveniently-was below Warwick's, and drew him into the plot. Warwick, he was told, would set him at large and make him King of England-which was glaringly at variance with what Warwick had been promised, but probably no more than an inducement to draw Warbeck into the plot. Given Warbeck's sorry state the previous year, it could have been predicted that he was now desperate to escape and would seize any chance. Four other gaolers and two other prisoners, Yorkist dissidents, also became involved, as well as two citizens of London. Then suddenly, Cleymound complained that Warbeck had betrayed the conspirators to the King and his council and fled into sanctuary.

This all suggests that the two prisoners had been enticed into the conspiracy, and that Cleymound was an agent provocateur placed in the Tower. No action was ever taken against him, and it seems suspicious that one of Warbeck's gaolers was his former adherent, and that Warwick and Warbeck were held close enough to communicate. Warwick is said to have knocked on the floor of his chamber, and even made a hole in it so that the two could speak, and to have sent Warbeck doc.u.ments and tokens by Cleymound. This is even more suspicious, considering that the whereabouts of Warwick's chamber in the Tower had until now been a well-kept state secret for fear of rescue attempts. It is unlikely too that Warbeck would have revealed the conspiracy to the council. Probably, the two prisoners were set up, and it is likely that the Earl of Oxford, the Constable of the Tower, and his deputy, John Digby, its lieutenant, were parties to the deception; it is hard to imagine this conspiracy escaping their notice.

It seems implausible that Elizabeth knew anything of this. There is no official record of Spain's intervention, and if there was a policy to remove Warwick and Warbeck, it was kept highly secret. Henry and his advisers probably allowed the conspiracy to mature, and awaited their moment.

On November 12 the doomed plot came to light when John Fineux, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, reported to the council ”certain treasons conspired of Edward, naming himself of Warwick, and Perkin, and others within the Tower; which intendeth, as it appeareth by [their] confessions, to have deposed and destroyed the King's person and his blood. And over that the said Edward intended to have been King, and first to have holpen Perkin to the crown if he had been King Edward's son, and else to have had it himself.” Already the accused had been examined and it was determined by the judges that they had committed treason ”and deserved death,” while the King was demanding what was to be done with them.

Did Elizabeth tremble at the thought of what might have befallen her husband and her children, or did she grieve for her guileless cousin? Did she suspect, from the sheer improbability of the charges, that Warwick had been led unwittingly into treason? More pertinently, was she startled by the revelation that Warwick had been willing to make Perkin king if he proved to be her brother? If this was true-and it may not have been-then Warwick had remained uncertain that Warbeck really was Richard of York. He had been brought up with the royal children from 1478 to 1483, and so had known York, who was two years older, between the ages of four and nine. If York had survived, he would now be twenty-six. Even if Warwick had seen Perkin in the Tower, he might have found it difficult recognizing the boy in the man-and may not have had the wits to do so. But on the face of it he had not ruled out the possibility that Warbeck was York. If Elizabeth did not know that the whole conspiracy was a fabrication-and it is hard to imagine her colluding in it-then she had cause to wonder.

The exposure of the conspiracy sealed the fate of both young men. Warbeck was arraigned at Westminster on November 16 and condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, the punishment meted out to traitors. Two days later, at London's Guildhall, eight people including Thomas Astwood were found guilty of conspiring to murder the Marshal of the Tower and free Warwick and Warbeck.

Warwick himself was tried the next day, November 19, in Westminster Hall. ”Because of his innocency,”127 the simple young man pleaded guilty, and was also sentenced to a traitor's death. Later, Parliament attainted him for treason. We have no way of knowing if Elizabeth believed he had been justly condemned.

It was customary, in the case of peers of the realm, for the dread sentence handed down to traitors to be commuted by the King to beheading, so it is surprising to learn that Perkin Warbeck, a commoner, suffered only hanging on the public gallows at Tyburn. He certainly was drawn facedown on a hurdle to his execution, ”as being not worthy anymore to tread upon the face of the Earth,” but he was spared the full horrors of a traitor's death. Was there still, in the King's mind, and perhaps Elizabeth's too, some question that he might really be of royal blood? Or was Henry merely being merciful because Warbeck had unwittingly helped to send Warwick to a better world? Either way, on the scaffold Warbeck swore on his death that he was not the son of Edward IV, and asked forgiveness of G.o.d and the King for his deception. Expecting to face divine judgment within minutes, it is unlikely he was lying.

On November 29, Warwick, who was only twenty-four, was beheaded on Tower Hill. ”It was ordained that the winding ivy of a Plantagenet should kill the true tree itself,” observed Bacon. The King paid for the earl's remains to be buried in Bisham Priory, Berks.h.i.+re, near the tomb of his grandfather, Warwick the Kingmaker.128 During the days that followed, Astwood and the other men involved in the plot were put to death. If they were all seduced unwittingly into the conspiracy, then the government had made a ruthless and thorough job of it; but by willingly involving themselves, they nevertheless committed treason.

Elizabeth and her ladies were left to comfort the popular Katherine Gordon for the loss of her husband. Universally applauded for her loyalty to Warbeck, she stayed on at court in Elizabeth's service and in 1510 married the first of three more husbands, all gentlemen of Henry VIII's bedchamber.129 Henry VII fell ill after the executions, while staying at Wanstead, Ess.e.x, and was so poorly that his life was despaired of. But he recovered by the middle of December, and in January 1500, Pedro de Ayala was able to a.s.sure Ferdinand and Isabella that ”this kingdom is at present so situated as has not been seen for the last five hundred years until now, because there were always brambles and thorns of such a kind that the English had occasion not to remain peacefully in obedience to their king, there being divers heirs of the kingdom. Now it has pleased G.o.d that all should be thoroughly and duly purged and cleansed, so that not a doubtful drop of royal blood remains in this kingdom, except the true blood of the King and Queen and, above all, that of the lord Prince Arthur.”130

15.

”The Spanish Infanta”

Henry VII was now well established on his throne. His court poet, Pietro Carmeliano, observed that England's honor was ”in such wise now enhanced that all Christian regions pursue unto thee for alliance, confederation, and unity.” In March, having satisfied Ferdinand and Isabella that his crown was secure, the King concluded the treaty with Spain, and within the next two years would make alliances with Scotland, Burgundy, the Holy Roman Empire, and Flanders as well.