Perkin Warbeck
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Biographies
History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third to Which Is Added
the Story of Perkin Warbeck by James Gairdner (Kessinger Publishing,
2004)
Until recently, the appendix to this biography, originally published in the
1890s, was the most detailed account of Warbeck’s life and career.
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Perkin:
A story of deception by Ann Wroe (Cape, 2003)
From the review by Gerard Kilroy in the New York Times (7 December
2003): ‘Wroe's exciting and colourful book immerses itself not only in
the sources … but in the costumes and ideological world of the late
15th century. At every point she tells us what clothes Richard Plantagenet,
duke of York (for so Warbeck styled himself), was wearing, what cloths and
tapestries lined the streets of Malines, where Margaret of York, the dowager
duchess of Burgundy, had her court, and what the wild men of the woods in Ireland
were eating. Even more usefully, she continually recreates the cultural world
of the period … Detailed too are the accounts of provisions and armaments … The
effect of this painstaking scholarship is to provide a vivid sense of authenticity,
all the more necessary in a story whose very foundations shift in the treacherous
sands of rumour and political opportunism.’
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The
Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy: 1491-1499 by Ian Arthurson (Sutton,
1997)
Arthurson looks at who Warbeck really was, how he was used by those in power
and the progress of the conspiracy itself.
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Perkin
Warbeck: The boy who would be king by Robert Hume (Short Books,
2005)
Concise biography of the pretender, written by the writer of a novel about
Warbeck (see below).
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Richard of England by Diana Kleyn (Kensal Press, 1991)
First full-scale study of Perkin Warbeck. Describes the parallel lives of Richard
of York and Warbeck, then traces the latter’s travels around Europe
and his three attempts to invade England.
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Pretenders by Jeremy Potter (Constable, 1986)
A book of 'alternative kings and queens of England from the 11th to the 19th
century'. In particular, there are chapters on 'Lambert Simnel, Ireland's
King' and 'Prince Perkin', and also on 'Yorkists, Lancastrians and Henry
Tudor' – the lucky claimant who succeeded.
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A play and two novels
Three Plays: ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore, The Broken Heart,
Perkin Warbeck by John Ford, edited by Keith Sturgess (Penguin,
undated; first performed 1634)
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The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: A romance by Mary Shelley (Kessinger
Publishing; first published 1830)
Here’s a sample: ‘“I beseech you, fair Mistress,” said
Lovel, who now joined them, “to forget, even in private, such high-sounding
titles. It is dangerous to play at majesty, unaided by ten thousand armed assertors
of our right. Remember this noble child only as your loving nephew, Perkin
Warbeck: he, who well knows the misery of regal claims unallied to regal authority,
will shelter himself gladly and gratefully under the shadow of your lowly bower.”’
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Ruling Ambition: The story of Perkin Warbeck by Robert Hume
(Gee, 2000)
Novel about the pretender’s life, told in the first person.
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Two websites
Henry the Seventh by James Gairdner
http://tudorhistory.org/secondary/henry7/title.html
Online version of another book by Gairdner (see
above). Chapter 7 is entitled ‘Perkin Warbeck and his friends’,
and there is more about Warbeck in Chapter 10 (‘Domestic history’).
Sir Francis Bacon: Historia Regni Henrici Septimi Regis
Angliae
www.philological.bham.ac.uk/henry/7eng.html
Online version of Bacon’s history of Henry VII, first printed
in 1638. This chapter concerns Perkin Warbeck’s ultimately unsuccessful
attempts to take over the throne.
