Part 5 (1/2)

Lord Verulam, to account for the likeness between the young pretender and the late King Edward, as also to explain his courtly bearing and princely deportment, tells a strange and extremely improbable story, to the effect that the lad was son of a converted Jew, named variously John, and Peter, Osbeck, a resident of Tournay, but whom business brought to London. This...o...b..ck resided in London for some time, having with him his wife, who, during the period of their residence in the English metropolis, was confined of a boy. Osbeck, says Bacon, ”being known in Court, the King, either out of a religious n.o.bleness, because he” (the father) ”was a convert, or upon some private acquaintance, did him the honour to be G.o.dfather to his child,” and, it is to be presumed, endowed him with regal inclinations. This needless legend is set in contrast with another in the next page, wherein the chronicler, forgetting the ”religious n.o.bleness” of the licentious monarch, subjoins that it was said, ”King Edward the Fourth was his G.o.dfather, which, as it is somewhat suspicious for a wanton prince to become gossip in so mean a house, and might make a man think that he might indeed have in him some base blood of the House of York, so at the least it might give occasion to the boy, in being called 'King Edward's G.o.dson,' or, perhaps in sport, 'King Edward's son,' to entertain such thoughts in his head. For tutor he had none (for aught that appears), as Lambert Simnel had, until he came unto the Lady Margaret, who instructed him.”

The advocate for the crafty, avaricious, old Tudor king, next indulges in a lengthy and apparently imaginative account of the secret tuition of the comely lad by the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy, with whose innermost thoughts Bacon professes the closest acquaintances.h.i.+p. He shrewdly guesses that ”Perkin Warbeck” had counterfeited for so long a time the person of the murdered prince, that at last, ”with oft telling a lie, he was turned by habit almost into the thing he seemed to be, and from a liar to a believer.” Be this as it may, the _soi disant_ Richard, comfortably installed at the Court of Flanders, speedily discovered means of opening communications with England. Many members of the highest families, including, so it was alleged, Sir William Stanley, a relative of the King, and who had even saved Henry's life and crown at Bosworth, were involved in a plot, having for its object the overthrow of the reigning monarch, and, apparently, the subst.i.tution for him of the Burgundian protege. Henry was well provided with spies, who kept him closely informed of all that was brewing; but his efforts to obtain possession of ”le garson,” as he termed the claimant, were unavailable; whilst all his declarations that he was perfectly at his ease with respect to the ”impostor, as every one knew who and what he was,” only served to display his anxiety.

By means of the King's gold, the whole of the conspiracy on foot was revealed: Sir Robert Clifford, one of the conspirators, betrayed his companions for five hundred pounds and a free pardon, and two other accomplices for sums proportionate to their lower rank. The whole details of the plot were unravelled, and the chief members of it, including Stanley, were brought to the block. Stanley's complicity in the ”Perkin Warbeck” conspiracy has been doubted by modern historians, who have not hesitated to aver that his wealth was his princ.i.p.al crime in the King's eyes; indeed, the only charge that was made against him was, that if he were sure the claimant was King Edward's son, he would not bear arms against him.

The discovery of the plot, and the fate of its princ.i.p.al concocters, appeared to be a death-blow to the young adventurer's cause; but he, all undaunted, taking advantage of Henry's absence in the north, with the aid of the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy fitted out an expedition, and tried to effect a rising in England. Some portion of his followers landed at Deal, but instead of obtaining a.s.sistance were attacked by the Kentish men, and either killed at once or made prisoners, and subsequently hanged. Discouraged by this hostile reception, ”Perkin” returned to Flanders, whence he shortly betook himself once more to Ireland. There he again failed to arouse the populace on his behalf, although joined by Desmond and some others of less note. ”As,” says Bacon, ”there was nothing left for Perkin but the bl.u.s.tering affection of wild and naked people,” and as he had lost three of his vessels in a futile attempt to capture Waterford, he had to relinquish his efforts in that quarter.

Again repelled in his efforts to obtain a footing in Ireland, the intrepid wanderer crossed over to Scotland, to the warlike monarch of which country he carried recommendatory letters not only from the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy, but also from the French King and the Emperor of Germany. By the Scottish King the presumed prince was received with open arms, and in every way treated as if he were the personage he claimed to be. There is every reason for believing that James credited his guest's story; outwardly, at least, he paid him all deference; addressed him as ”cousin,” and gave him for wife his own relative, the beautiful Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntley, and granddaughter of James the First of Scotland. It seems very unlikely that the Scottish monarch would have sanctioned the marriage of Lady Catherine with the adventurer unless convinced of his royal birth.

Under the pretext of a.s.sisting his youthful guest to regain his dominions, James headed two warlike incursions into England. Unable to resist so good an opportunity of looting, the Scottish army carried off everything of value; and when the young adventurer, according to Polydore Vergil, the historian, ”feigning” to be distressed at the devastation inflicted, implored the King to spare his miserable subjects, James replied, sneeringly, that it was very generous to be so careful of what did not belong to him, as not a man had yet joined his standard. No one, indeed, of any consequence did join the claimant upon these occasions; and as the raids proved disastrous to the Scottish forces, Henry was enabled to make peace on his own terms with James; offered him his eldest daughter, Margaret, in marriage, and forced him to withdraw his protection from Perkin.

Compelled once more to resume his search for an asylum, the luckless pretender, accompanied by his beautiful wife and a few faithful followers, left Scotland; not, however, without bearing away with him some substantial proof of the Scottish King's regard. Again he sought shelter in Ireland, but the Irish appearing less disposed than before to espouse his cause, he departed for Cornwall, where much discontent prevailed on account of Henry's oppressive taxation. With only three vessels and seventy men the claimant landed at Whitsand Bay, near Land's End, on the 7th September, 1497. He sent his wife to St.

Michael's Mount for safety; and then, at the head of an irregular body of three thousand men, whom he had got together by liberal promises, he marched on Exeter, to which city he laid siege, in compliance with the advice of his adherents that he should endeavour to make himself master of some walled town. He sent a demand to the citizens to surrender to him, but as he had no artillery to enforce his claims, his a.s.sumed t.i.tle of Richard the Fourth, King of England, inspired little reverence, and after some unsuccessful a.s.saults he was compelled to raise the siege and hastily retire to Taunton. Seeing clearly how utterly incompetent his undisciplined forces were to compete with the veteran troops Henry was sending against him, he forsook them in the night, and, accompanied by several of his princ.i.p.al followers, fled to the monastery of Beaulieu, in the New Forest, and there claimed sanctuary. His followers, left without a leader, surrendered without an effort; a number of them were hanged, and the rest heavily fined.

Not daring to violate the privileges of a sanctuary, Henry had the Beaulieu Monastery securely guarded; the meanwhile he contrived to obtain possession of the Lady Catherine Gordon, mightily afraid that she might give birth to a child, in which case, as Bacon shrewdly remarks, ”the business would not have ended in Perkin's person.” The politic king received the royal lady kindly, and sent her to the queen; awarded her ”honourable allowance for the support of her estate, which she enjoyed both during the king's life and many years after.”

Determined not to let go his hold on Perkin, the king promised him a full pardon upon condition that he confessed himself an impostor.

Unable to discover any means of escape, the pretender accepted Henry's conditions, and on the 5th October surrendered to the royal troops at Taunton. He did not reach London until the end of November, and on his arrival was sent as a prisoner to the Tower. At first the supposed Richard was treated with much respect, and the evidence of his official examination kept strictly secret; although the garbled and absurd account of it which Henry caused to be published was so contradictory and generally unsatisfactory, that ”men missing of that they looked for,” says the chronicler, ”looked about for they knew not what, and were in more doubt than before.” Perkin, on his way to the Tower, was made to traverse the city on horseback, but not in any ignominious fas.h.i.+on; and although scoffed at by some, by the majority was treated with respect.

After about six months of detention, the pretender contrived or was permitted to escape; but such diligent pursuit was made that he was compelled to again take sanctuary, and this time in the Priory of Shene, in Surrey. As soon as his retreat was publicly known, the King was advised to take him forth and hang him, but Henry was too prudent for such a course. At the intercession of the Prior of Shene, the King promised to spare the fugitive's life, bidding them ”take him forth, and set the knave in the stocks.” Taken from his place of refuge, and brought back to London, the wretched youth was fettered and placed for a whole day in the stocks, and on the following day, the 14th June, 1499, was compelled to read from a scaffold, erected in Cheapside, a lengthy and rambling confession, in which, among other matters, he acknowledged himself to be Perkin, son of John Warbeck, a Flemish tradesman, and that he had been taught to enact his part by various enemies of King Henry.

After the second reading of this ”confession,” which was so badly composed that it served rather to confirm than dissipate the belief that the so-called ”Perkin” was the personage he had a.s.sumed to be, the prisoner was again incarcerated in the Tower, where he became the companion and friend of the unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, whom Lambert Simnel had formerly counterfeited. Such was the fascination of the claimant's manners that he not only won the friends.h.i.+p of his fellow-prisoners, but also the favour of his keepers, the four servants of Sir John Digby, the Lieutenant, who, apparently, conspired together to permit the escape of the two captives, and to aid them to excite another insurrection. The whole plot in all probability originated in the cunning of Henry, who made it a pretext for the trial and execution of both his troublesome prisoners. ”The opinion of the King's great wisdom,” as Bacon dexterously recounts it, ”did surcharge him with a sinister fame, that Perkin was but his bait to entrap the Earl of Warwick.”

About the time of this presumed plot, and most opportunely for Henry, another claimant to the name and t.i.tle of the young Earl of Warwick appeared in Suffolk. Although this pretender was speedily taken and executed, the state of disquietude these events kept the country in afforded the King ample excuse for proceeding to extremities, notwithstanding the fact that the whole affair was regarded as a subtle device of the Sovereign. Accordingly, on the 16th November, 1419, Perkin was brought to trial, and was found guilty upon the indictment of having conspired, in company with the hapless Earl of Warwick, ”to raise sedition and destroy the King.” Upon the 23rd of the month Perkin was taken from the Tower to Tyburn, and, after having again read his confession and vouched for its truth, was executed. Such was the end of this strange drama, which was, as Bacon remarks, ”one of the longest plays of that kind.”

The case of Perkin Warbeck is one of the most mysterious on record; and in attempting to gauge the truth or falsity of his claim to royalty it must not be overlooked that the only contemporary records of him and his adventures are by those who professedly wrote on King Henry's behalf, and were not, therefore, likely to be over scrupulous in suppressing any facts tending to support the pretender's claims. The confession wrung from him under fear of death is of little or no value; the absence of all allusion in it to the d.u.c.h.ess of Burgundy seems to disprove the a.s.sertion that it was written by Perkin himself; whilst the absurd statement it contained that he, a thorough master apparently of the language, did not learn English until forced to, after his arrival at Cork, is most suspicious. He was never confronted with his supposed mother, the Queen Dowager, whom Henry had in safe keeping at Bermondsey, nor were any judicial steps taken to expose his imposture, if such it were. The King was most studiously careful to keep all records of the affair out of the people's sight; he took Tyrrell, the supposed chief murderer of the young princes, into his favour, and never had, what might have satisfied the suspicions of many, the remains of the two lads publicly exhumed. According to the account of Sir Thomas More, the murdered princes were first buried ”at the stairfoot, deep in the ground, under a heap of stones,” but were afterwards taken up, at the desire of King Richard, and reburied by the Tower Chaplain ”privately, in a place that, by reason of his death, never came to light.” This account, if true, would seem to cast a doubt upon the ident.i.ty of the ”small bones” discovered under the staircase in the reign of Charles the Second, and by him had interred and commemorated as the remains of the royal princes.

The circ.u.mstantial account of Lord Verulam is so enveloped in mystery and innuendo, and his desire to screen the Tudor King is so self-evident, that it has caused many, including the sophistical and shallow Walpole, to believe and a.s.sert that ”Perkin Warbeck” was indeed the royal personage he claimed to be.

THE FALSE MUSTAPHA THE SECOND OF TURKEY.

A.D. 1555.

The Sultan Soliman the First, surnamed the Legislator, raised the Turkish Empire to its highest pinnacle of glory. Owing, however, to the great extent of frontier which his dominions possessed, he was continually at war with one or the other of the neighbouring powers.

In 1555 he was engaged in hostilities with Persia, but, despite his desire to pursue the contest with vigour, the weight of sixty years, and the fatigues of twelve personally conducted campaigns, rendered repose necessary to him; he, therefore, left the command of his forces to the Grand Vizier Rustem.

The repose which Soliman had promised himself did not last long; the interruption came whence it was least expected. Of his numerous sons Mustapha, his eldest, was the child of a Circa.s.sian, whilst several others were children of Roxelana, a jealous and ambitious woman. The sister of this latter woman, married to the Grand Vizier Rustem, was the link by which she succeeded in obtaining his co-operation in her schemes. Seeing every probability of Mustapha eventually obtaining the throne to the exclusion of her own sons, Roxelana determined upon his death. Conspiring with Rustem, she forged letters purporting to be addressed by the heir-apparent to a friend of his, informing him that he was treating with his father's foe, the King of Persia, with the view of obtaining one of his daughters in marriage. At the same time that this communication was adroitly placed before Soliman, he received intelligence from his Grand Vizier that Prince Mustapha displayed a disposition to revolt, and was attending complacently to the seditious propositions of the emissaries.

This startling news aroused the old hero; he immediately quitted his palace and its pleasures, placed himself once more at the head of his army, and summoned his son to his presence. On the 21st September, 1555, ignorant of the charges against him, or relying upon his innocence, the Prince arrived at his father's camp, was met by the chief captains, and conducted with all the pomp due to his rank as heir-apparent to an audience of the Sultan. On entering the imperial tent, the unfortunate man was seized by seven mutes, and strangled with a bowstring, calling vainly upon his father, who, hidden by a silken curtain, witnessed the horrible deed. Not satisfied with his son's death, the old monarch also caused his grandson Murat, Mustapha's child, to be put to death in the same way as its parent. Prince Ziangir, a younger brother of the a.s.sa.s.sinated man, was so distressed at the catastrophe, that, after reproaching his unnatural father, he committed suicide. The two princes were interred together, and a mosque erected over their remains.

The army deeply deplored the loss of the unfortunate Mustapha, who was held in great esteem, and attributing his death to the schemes of Rustem clamoured for his dismissal. Yielding to the universal indignation, Soliman consented to deprive the Grand Vizier of his post, which was bestowed on Ahmed Pacha. The general feeling of grief which the heir-apparent's death caused throughout the empire found expression in numerous poems and elegies; and amongst others Yaha, a celebrated contemporary poet, composed verses that were known and repeated in all parts of the empire. Two years later, when Rustem returned to power, he was desirous of having Yaha executed, but this the Sultan would not consent to; and the Grand Vizier had to satisfy his vengeance with depriving the poet of his post of Administrator of Charity to the crown.

Meanwhile the death of Mustapha, so far from having secured rest for either Soliman or the Empire, only gave rise to fresh complications.

Bajazet and Selim, two sons of the infamous but clever Roxelana, both desirous of grasping the sceptre before their father's death, by means of a deep-laid conspiracy, raised the standard of revolt; and in order to obtain the sympathy and a.s.sistance of the army gave out that Mustapha, instead of being dead as was generally imagined, was alive, and heading the rebels. It was averred that the prince had been permitted to escape, someone else having been subst.i.tuted in his place for execution. A man, bearing a resemblance to the deceased Mustapha, was found and taught to play the part destined for him.

The army, eager to vent its rage upon Rustem, deserted largely to the pretender, whom many officers of position recognized, or appeared to, as their veritable prince. The Sultan was equal to the emergency; he sent vigorous instructions to the governors of the provinces where the disorders were; raised large bodies of mercenaries, and, above all, sowed his gold broadcast. This latter method had the desired effect: the impostor was betrayed, and by a man whom he had created his Grand Vizier. Conducted to Constantinople, and put to the torture, the claimant revealed the whole plot. Selim fled for refuge to Persia, but was ultimately delivered up to his father for a large sum of money by the Shah; and, together with his five little sons, put to death.

Bajazet's apparent contrition, and his mother Roxelana's intercession, procured his pardon; but the unfortunate instrument of his villainy, the pseudo Mustapha, was executed on the gallows.