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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
There are few subjects in our country's history which are so enshrouded in mystery as the so-called conspiracy which was designed to place Perkin Warbeck upon the English throne. It is with great diffidence that I present the following account, which I have collected from various sources, being well aware that the subject is one which has occupied and baffled many of our ablest historians.
page 63 note * A compotus of William Hatteclyffe and others, of expenses and receipts in Ireland at this time, is preserved among the Royal MSS. in the British Museum, (18 C., xiv.) It contains many interesting records connected with the landing of Perkin Warbeck, and would well repay a more thorough examination than I have been enabled to make. By one item in this book it appears that the three captured vessels were sold for £93 6s. 8d., from which we may infer that they were of no great size.
page 64 note * In this proclamation Warbeck denounces Henry as an usurper, and says that Henry, well aware that he cannot hold his position much longer, is sending vast amounts of treasure abroad, for his future subsistence. He offers a reward of a thousand pounds, and an annuity of a hundred marcs in houses and land, to whomsoever will intercept the king in his attempted flight. (Harl. MS., 283, fol. 183 b., et seq.)
page 66 note * Amongst the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum (616, f. 5), is a letter of Warbeck's, dated the 18th October, (1496). It is addressed to Barnard de la Forse, then in Spain, whose son Anthony was with Warbeck in Scotland. It does not throw any light upon his proceedings, but is extremely interesting, inasmuch as it bears the autograph, and I believe the only one extant, of Perkin Warbeck. He styles himself Richard, King off England, in a bold English hand, which shows plainly, that though educated in Flanders, he had an English tutor.
page 68 note * The total amount of fines collected in the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Wilts, Hants, and a portion of Devon, amounted to £9665 10s., besides a large sum which was levied in Cornwall. (Cott. MS., Calig. D., vi., f. 22.)
page 71 note *** In Add. MS. 5485, fol 230 et seq., Mus. Brit., will be found a transcript from an older document, giving an account of a plot against the king's life, to which Warbeck was said to have been privy, and in which the principal person inculpated was John Kendal, prior of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. As John Kendal enjoyed the king's favour until the time of his death, which did not take place until five years afterwards, it seems probable that the whole account is false.
