By his own confession, made in 1497, Warbeck's six-year career as a pretender to the English throne started in 1491 when he arrived at Cork, Ireland, as a merchant's apprentice. Here, he was "recognised" as a Yorkist prince.
He adopted the identity of Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the two "Princes in the Tower" held by Henry VII, permitted to escape on the murder of his brother. Whatever the merits of the story, it was readily enough accepted by those disgruntled and seeking a means of furthering the Yorkist cause against the Lancastrian monarch, himself without the clearest of claims to the throne.
By this time, Richard, Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV of England was almost certainly dead - murdered in the Tower of London.
His welcome in Ireland, however, fell far short of that extended to his predecessor, Lambert Simnel, the Yorkist pretender of 1487. Warbeck, alais the duke of York, was forced to travel the courts of Europe seeking support which was not lacking. He was recieved as the Duke by Charles VIII of France, by Margaret of Burgundy (who conceded him to be her nephew) and attended the funeral of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III in 1493 at the invitation of Maximilian I.
Warbeck, aided by Margaret of Burgundy, made his first attempt to invade England on July 3rd, 1495; A small small force landed near Deal but they were soon routed, 150 are killed and the rmeainder flee. Warbeck himself never disembarked and fled to Ireland.
Support by the Earl of Desmond, Warbeck besieged Waterford but, meeting stout resistance, he withdrew and fled to Scotland where he was well recieved. James IV accepted his claim to the English throne and he was permitted to marry the king's cousin
Lady Catherine Gordon, grand-daughter of the Earl of Caithness and was granted a monthly pension of �112.
Warbeck was now an embarassment to the king of the Scots and returned again to Ireland. Here he besieged Waterford for 11 days but withdrew before dawn on August 3rd and was pursued by four ships of the town ships to Cork, on to Kinsale, and finaly to Cornwall. With the failure of the Cornish rebellion against taxation for war against Scotland in June 1947, Warbeck sought to take advantage of the discontent in Cornwall by mounting another invasion attempt in the county.
He arrived near land's End September 1497 with only two ships and one hundred and twenty men. By the time his small force had marched to Exeter, its numbers had been swelled to several thousand men. Armed only with what implements were to hand, the rebel "army" moved on. When Henry's army met the rebels, Warbeck realised the futility of the situation and fled for the coast, taking refuge Beaulieu Abbey where he surrendered without resistance.
In his confession to the king made at Taunton on October 5th, 1497 the pretender admitted that he was the son of a bourgeois of Tournai who had come to Cork in 1491 as a merchant's apprentice and had been "recognised" as a Yorkist prince. Someof the ringleaders of this second Cornish rebellion were executed but Warbeck himslef was kept as the king's prisoner.
His attempt to escape in June 1498 resulted in him being moved to the Tower of London where he was placed in a cell adjacent to that of Edward, Earl of Warwick. A new pretender masquerading as Warwick appeared and, although the plot was suppressed, a plot was disclosed by an informer to burn down the Tower and place Warwick on the throne, possibly using an agent provpcateur. Both pretenders and several others, including the gaoler, were found guilty of treason.
A commoner, Perkin Warbeck suffered the full horrors of a traitor's hanging at Tyburn Hill on November 23rd, 1499. The Earl of Warwick was beheaded Tower Hill on the 29th.
