the Family of Yorke but most of all Perkin being of a more active spirit so more sensible of his wrongs then the other and cost the King more Consultation and Treasure in the working him into his hands Therefore answerably aggravated his miseries and disgraces which now beganne to exceede for hee was not onely sharpely restrained in the Tower but the fame was the Question or Gehenne was given Him sometimes he was taken forth and carried in most ignominious manner abroade to bee set in the Pillory otherwhile in the Stockes after all these bitter and cruell punishments to pull downe his stomacke there was sent some unto Him of purpose to perswade his submission to the Kings mercy and by renowncing His Blood Birth and Title to confesse himselfe no other but Perkin Warberk the Sonne of a base Flemming which Hee scorning and denying His sufferings were made more rigorous and Hee lodged poorely and basely as meanely fedde worse cladde untill at length by Torments and Extremities Hee was forc't to say any thing and content to unsay what they would have Him to accuse Himselfe by a forc't Recantation of his Family Name and Royall Parentage this must bee compell'd too under His hand then to bee brought by the Officers unto the most publique places of London and Westminster to suffer as before related and with a loud voyce to reade the same which might passe at present with the multitude for current who knew not how it was forcd from Him nor had judgement enough to know and consider that Racks and Tortures have made very able men accuse themselves and others unjustly Seneca telleth of a man who being suspected of Theft was inforced by torture to confesse the theft and his fellow Theeves but haveing none hee accused the good and just Cato to avoyd the torture nay which is a thing of more horror it maketh men by false Oaths to blaspheme God Therefore Saint Augustine inveigheth sharply against the cruell use of it and amongst many other sins which hee findeth in it this is one Tortus si diutius nolet sustinere Tormenta quod non commisit se commisisse dicit The tortured gladly doing this the sooner to exchange those torments with death as the far lesse pain And therefore this young Man may bee excusable in what hee did against himselfe his youth being ignorant of these high points of Honour and could not yet bee confirmed in any brave and firme resolution nor happily in Religion and the worse also by the reason of his long imprisonment and heavy trouble having no Councell to strengthen him nor so much as in Charity to comfort Him but left a miserable desperate forlorne Man and feared to bee so for ever and at the best And if learned grave Men Men of grace having large Talents of Spirit and Science for feare of such punishments have denyed some chiefe points of Christian Faith yet have beene excused for the torture sake of which wee have testimony in the Ecclesiasticall Stories what may a tender and unexperienced youth doe For which just causes the best Doctors of the Civill Law and also of Theology condemne and aborre the use of Torture as having a further mischiefe in it and is Arcanum Gehennae a secret of Torture or of Hell For when the Prisoners body by exteame toment is brought into any mortall State or symptome of death or made incurable and deadly then to avoyde the imputation of Murder the prisoner by a short and private processe is condemned of some capitall crime and presently executed whilst there is yet some life in him And to that censure Perkin at last came for nothing could serve but his blood his confession being only extorted from him to perswade the People hee was an impostor and because they could not lay hold of his Life by the Course of Law or Justice being not attainted nor condemned of any capitall crime This scraple being a little considered there was found out a way to remove that and matter enough to make him guilty of a capitall offence for which purpose it was devised there should a practise of escape bee offered him and because the case of Edward Plantagenet Earle of VVarrwicke was like unto his and as well wisht being not attainted of any crime hee also must desire to escape that devise being the onely matter of guilt or capitall crime which was wanting and might bee as it were created for them the more colorably to effect their executions there not wanting instruments for that purpose to betray their innocent considence whose inprisonment had layne so heavily and cruelly upon them that they were easily perswaded to catch at any hope of liberty Some say the Earle of Warwicke at his arraignment was charged with perswading the other to make this escape but sure it is they both gladly hearkened to the motion of it And were soone after accused as guilty of practise and Conspiracy to escape out of the Tower so for the same arraigned and condemned to die though gâ—eat difference was put in their processe and execution for the Earle of Warwick was tryed by his noble Peeres and had the supplice of a Noble man in an honorable place the Tower of London Perkin alias Richard by a Common Jury who are men many times of little honesty and to suffer at the common and infamous place Tyburne by the name of Perkin Warbecke to confirme the People Hee was what they condemned him for For this Nick-name was supposed to have utterly disnobled Him and as it were divested Him of all his Noble Bloud and Titles the condition of an impostor serving best for a cloke against that purple shower which was at the fall and cruell usage of this miserable Prince It may bee thought the Earle of VVarwicke had as shamefully suffered if the Wit and Malice of the Cardinall could have reacht to have made him a counterfeit But all men knew Hee was not onely a true and certaine Prince but free from all practise yet Hee was restrained of his liberty and a prisoner the most paâ—t of Hislife from the time of his Fathers attainder untill He Suffered this was after they had survived King Richard their Unckle about fifteen years Now for their Offence the learned Judges will tell us of what Nature and Quality it is called in Law Some holding an escape to bee but an errour a naturall dislike of bondage or a forfeit of simplicity proceeding from a naturall and very tolerable desire of liberty which opinion is contingent to right And the cause of these two Princes may also bee the better received if it bee well considered that this Plot of their escape was not projected by themselves but cunningly propounded to them by proper instruments being young and unexperienced to intangle them in some capitall offence and so of Death of which kinde of offences they stood cleere before not once accused haveing never beene indicted
of their Father which was ten moneths after for King Edward dyed in April before and this is plaine in the Records of the Parliament of Anno 1. Rich. 3. where there is mention made of this Prince as then living and Sir Thomas Moore confesseth that they were living long after that time before said But I conjecture Edward the Eldest brother lived not long after but died of sicknesse and infirmity being of a weake and sickly disposition as also was his Brother which the Queene their Mother intimated in her speech to the Cardinall Boursier and the weake constitutions and short lives of their sisters may be a naturall proofe to infer it probable enough this Prince dyed in the Tower which some men of these times are the rather brought to thinke certaine bones like to the bones of a Child being found lately in a high desolate Turret supposed to be the bones of one of these Princes others are of opinion it was the â—aâ—râ—asse of an Apekept in the Tower that in his old age had happened into that place to die in and having clamber'd up thither according to the light and idle manner of those wanton Animals after when he would have gone down seeing the way to be steepe and the precipice so terrible durst not adventure to descend but for feare stayed and starved himselfe and although hee might bee soone mist and long sought for yet was not easily to be found that Turret being reckoned a vast and damned place for the hight and hard accesse no body in many yeares looking into it But it is of no great consequence to our purpose whether it were the Carcasse of a Child or of an Ape or whether this young Prince dyed in the Tower or no for wheresoever hee dyed why should it not be as probable hee dyed of a naturall sicknesse and infirmity as for his young Cozen german the sonne and heire of King Richard many reasons conducing why the qualities and kinde of their death might be the same and neere one time being even parallels almost and in their humane constitutions and corporall habitude sympathizing of one Linage and Family of one blood and age of the same quality and fortune therefore not unlikely of the same Studies Affections Passions Distemperatures so consequently subject to the same infirmities to which may be added equall and common constellations the same compatient and commorient fates and times and then there is reason and naturall cause they might both die of like Diseases and infirmity and were not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taken away by violence secret or overt for it may with asmuch Argument bee suspected the son of King Richard being in the like danger of secret violence for the same cause as his Cozen was might suffer so But to open the circumstance a little neerer what danger could the lives of those two Princes be to Richard who was accepted King by a just title and his Nephewes declared illegitimate by the high Court of Parliament and whilst they were reputed such by so great and generall a conclusion why should he be lesse secure of them then Hen. 2. was of Robert E. of Glocester base sonne to Hen. 1. or Richard the first of his base Brother Geoffrey Plantagenet So although Iohn of Gaunt left base sonnes aspiring enough yet they were of no danger to the Lancastrian Kings neither did Henry 7. or Henry 8. stand in any jealousy of Arthur Plantagenet and surely Richard the third was as valiant wise and consident as any of his predecessors and had as little cause to dread his Nephewes as they stood adjudged or be more cruell and bloudy neither hath my reading found any Bastards of France or Spaine who have aspired so publickly onely except Don Eurique E. of Trastamara who was drawne into that action by the violent rages of the people and by the perswasions of the revolted states of Castile to put downe a monster of Soveraignty the hatefull tyrant Don Pedro Cruell But being Sir Thomas Moore and our best Chroniclers make it doubtfull whether these two Princes were so lost in King Richards time or no and infer that one of them was thought to be living many years after his death that might be enough to acquit him which opinion I like the better because it mentioneth the survivance but of one of them Neither doe our most credible stories mention the transportation of more then one into Flanders nor had they reason it will bee sufficient if one of them survived him more or lesse time we will follow therefore the examination of his story under the opinion of those times and the attestation of grave and credible men because it will be more conspicuous in the true and simple narration of this one Brother every story being fraught with reports concerning him and few or none of his brother finding no mention of the Elder Bothers being in Flanders but of the youngers much and of his other adventures The prudent and honorable care of sending away this younger Brother by some is ascribed to Sr. Robert Brakenbury by others to the Queene his Mother and it may well be the projection of them both though no doubt there was the advise and assent of other well affected friends And it is the more credible the Queen wrought in it for the story of Sr. Thomas Moore saith shee was before suspected to have had such a purpose which was objected to her by some of the Lords and the Cardinall Boursier told her the maine Reason which made the Protector and Nobles so urgeing to have him sent to his Brother being then in the Tower was a suspition and feare they had shee would convey Him forth of the Realme So then it may be cleerly supposed he was sent into a forraine Country and that Flanders as all our stories testify there commended to a liberall education under the curature of a worthy Gentleman in Warbeck a Towne in Flanders but kept very privately all the life time of his Uncle his Friends not daring to make him of the councell After his death knowing Henry Richmond a cruell enemy to the house of Yorke for his better safety was committed to the care of Charles of Burgundy and his Dutchesse the Lady Margaret Aunt to the Prince as formerly the Dutchesse of Yorke upon a like cause of feare and jealousy had sent thither her two younger sons George and Richard The Dutchesse being very tender to let this young Duke have all Princely and vertuous education in Tornay in Antwerp and after in the Court of the Duke of Burgundy as hee had bin in Warbeck c. And with the greater circumspection because the Dutchesse of Burgundy had as jealous an opinion of Henry the Seventh as the Queene Widdow had of Richard 3. Therefore as yet it was advised to conceale his Name and Quality being not come to the growth nor age to have experience in his own affaires much lesse to undertake an attempt
vires Major in exiguo regnabat corpore virtus In te enim sunt rei militaris virtus peritia foelicitas autoritas quae omnia in optimo exercitus principe Cicero requirit In te Serenissime Princeps praeclari Regis Imperatoris praecepta it a concurrunt ut nihil ad tuam Bellicam aut domesticam virtutem cujusquam oratoris verbis apponi possit Tu igitur Serenissime Domine Princeps de ineunda inter te nostrum Principem charitate amicitia sic age ut Angli Scoti dilectionis respectu nullum penitus discrimen habeatur sed in unum amoris benevolentiae vinculum videantur esse connexi sic numerabiles commoditates ex tui nostri populi dilectione dulci connubio unione Matrimonio Affinitate consurgent In freta dum fluvii current dum montibus umbrae Lustrabunt connexa polus dum sidera pascet Dum juga montis aper fluvios dum piscis amabit Dumque Thymo pascentur apes dum rore cicadae Semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt But what is this or more to malice and detraction that haunt him to his death and after that making the Catastrophe or last Tragical act of his life at Bosworth-field an immediate stroke of the divine vengeance for such offences as they please to particular from women or superstitious Clerks whose natures startle at the noise of War and Martial trial to whose fears and weaknesse such reasons would sound tolerable But if Bishop Morton and Sir Thomas Moor although they were men of the long Robe had considered with whom they conversed and where they most lived how could they forget That to die valiantly in the field for Countrey life and friends was always held a glorious farewel to the world or what infinite numbers of vertuous and most noble Captains have fallen so by the Sword and fate of War Lampridius affirmeth that all the best men have died violent deaths and what higher Quarrel could call any Heroical spirit then King Richard's fighting for a Crown kingdom and all his happie Fortunes here God hath many times taken away Princes and changed the Government of kingdoms for the iniquities of the people why then should not King Richard's fate be held in a modest Scale until we can better know or judge it Nor can it be safe to enquire or peremptorily to determine further after Gods proceedings in such cases He that owes him no malice things looked upon thorow judgement and charity may with more justice say he died valiantly and in a just quarrel when many of his enemies fell by deaths more vile and shameful Executions But he that hath but a reasonable pittance of Humanity will censure no mans life by the manner of his death for many good and holy men have suffered by violent deaths though it be this Princes fortune to fall under the ill affections of envious pens more then many that committed more publike and proved crimes then he which wanted much of his vertues and desert Examine him with Henry the First the good Clerk and learned Prince but so covetous and ambitious that he could not be content to usurp in this Kingdom the Right and Primogeniture of his elder brother Robert Courthose but by force took the Dukedom of Normandy from him and to make his injuries more exact and monstrous cast him into the Castle of Gloucester there kept him in cruel durance and caused his eyes to be put out so wearied him to most miserable death King Iohn by the general voice is charged with the murder of Arthur Plantagenet the son of his eldest brother and so the next Prince in right of blood to King Richard the First And it is written by good Authors that Edward the Third was not onely privie and consenting to the deposing the King his father a King anointed but also to his Massacre And because Edward Plantagenet Earl of Kent Protector and his Uncle moved him to restore the Crown to his father Edward the Second he called him Traitor and cut off his head at Westminster How King Henry the Fourth caused King Richard the Second the true and anointed King to be cruelly butchered at Pomfret is too notorious and this was Scelera sceleribus tueri King Edward the Fourth is accused of the murder and death of the King Saint Henry and of Edward Prince of Wales his son Ut supra King Henry the Seventh although amongst the best Kings in his general character is not thought guiltlesse of that Crimen sacrum vel regale in cutting off Edward Plantagenet Earl of Warwick an innocent Edwardum filium Ducis Clarenciae puerum infantem in suam suorum securitatem capite plexit And to secure his Estate had more then learnt other smart rules of Policie That reach of State upon Philip of Austrich Duke of Burgundy King of Castile and Arragon is not the least memorable This Prince Philip was by crosse Fortune put into the Kings hands purposing out of Flanders to go into Spain with the Queen his wife took shipping at Sluce and passing by the coasts of England was by a tempest forced for his safety to put into the Port of Weymouth in Dorset-shire the Queen being ill and distempered much with the storm was compelled to make some stay there Sir Iohn Carew and Sir Thomas Trenchard principal men in those parts gave speedy intelligence of this to the King who was glad of the accident and purposed to make good use of it as speedily returning his command to give them all honourable entertainment but not suffer them to depart until he had seen and saluted them The Duke ignorant of this as soon as the Queen and the rest had recover'd and refresht themselves thought he was onely to give those Knights thanks and take his leave which they by way of courtesie and request interpose in behalf of the Kings vehement desire to salute him and the Queen a motion the Duke much prest to be excused from as the necessity of his journey stood but the intreaty was so imperious he must stay and alter his journey for Windsor to meet the King who received him there in a magnificent manner and at the height of a Feast propounds a suit to the Duke for Edmund de la Pool then in his Dominions a pretender to the Crown of England and not so soundly affected to him a suit of a harsh exposition as the Duke apprehended it and to the blemish of his honour and piety as he nobly urged but no argument had vertue nor no vertue argument enough to excuse it the King must have him or the Duke must stay Cast upon this extreme and foreseeing what disadvantages were upon him some honourable conditions granted that he should neither lay punishment nor death upon him he gave his promise to send him and the King strictly and religiously bound himself to the exceptions