However unpopular this result might be in England, it certainly strengthened Henry’s hands in dealing with foreign Powers. He was no longer under special obligations to Spain, and France had consented to buy his friendship. The prince who was most dissatisfied with the result was Maximilian, King of the Romans, to whom Henry had already rendered very important aid, and who seemed to consider him bound to fight his battles in France, though he had himself been by no means a steady and faithful ally. Maximilian’s animosity from this time was persistent; yet it was perhaps not more injurious to Henry in particular than it was inconvenient to other Powers, when, in 1495, Spain, Venice and the Pope would have been glad to draw England into a league with Maximilian against France.
Maximilian’s infant son Philip, called Archduke of Austria, was to govern the Netherlands when he came of age. But the Council which meanwhile governed in his name had very little respect for his father, who in fact was at one time not allowed the guardianship of his own son. Much more influential was Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, widow of the young Prince’s grandfather, Charles the Bold; who, being a sister of Edward IV, and having sustained considerable loss of revenue by the accession of Henry VII, laboured assiduously for his overthrow. She harboured at her Court disaffected Yorkists who fled from England, and assisted their conspiracies against the new King. Her nephew, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, who supported Simnel and was killed at the battle of Stoke (1487), had first escaped over sea and held conference with her. And, notwithstanding the disastrous failure of that rebellion, the refugees at her Court had ample facilities for the formation of fresh conspiracies.
It is questionable, however, whether the new impostor who now appeared on the scene received his original stimulus from her. Perkin Warbeck, a native of Tournay, was a young man who had been much in the Low Countries and in Portugal, and having finally taken service with a Breton named Pregent Meno, landed in Cork in 1491, arrayed in fine clothing belonging to his master. The Irish took him for a prince of royal birth; if not Warwick, the son of Clarence, he must be a bastard son of Richard III. But after he had denied both characters, they persuaded him to personate Richard Duke of York, the younger of the two princes murdered in the Tower, telling him he would be supported by the Earls of Kildare and Desmond, who were both, in spite of recent professions of loyalty, wholly bent on the King’s destruction. He remained some little time in Ireland, learning to speak English fluently and to play the part assigned to him, when Charles VIII, knowing that Henry was preparing to make war on France, invited him to his Court. There for a brief time he was honoured as a prince; but on the conclusion of the Peace of Etaples (1492) he was dismissed and went to Flanders, where Margaret received him with open arms, acknowledging him as her nephew. Next year, when Maximilian visited the Low Countries, Henry sent an embassy to him and to the Archduke Philip to remonstrate against the countenance given to the Pretender; but it produced no result, the Council of the young Archduke replying that Margaret was free to do as she pleased within the lands of her jointure.
Thus it was clear that the government of the Low Countries intended to allow conspiracies to be matured in those parts against Henry VII. He met this by forbidding commerce with Flanders and removing the mart of the Merchant Adventurers from Antwerp to Calais (September 18, 1493). This was a step quite against his ordinary policy, for no King was ever more studious of the interests of commerce, and though aimed at the Flemings it produced inconvenience on both sides, thus leading to a riot in London, as the German merchants of the Hansa had certain privileges by charter, which enabled them to carry on the traffic forbidden to Englishmen. Perkin, however, soon afterwards repaired to Maximilian at Vienna, where at the funeral of the Emperor Frederick III a place was assigned to him corresponding to his pretensions. Next year he returned with Maximilian to Flanders, where he was recognised as King of England. But Henry had intelligence of those implicated in the conspiracy at home, and a number of arrests were made, the most startling of which was that of Sir William Stanley. To him King Henry had owed not only his crown but his life, when it was in serious danger at Bosworth; in reward for which, among other things, Stanley had been appointed the King’s Chamberlain. Yet he had sent over to Flanders to encourage Perkin one Sir Robert Clifford, who, turning informer, revealed his intrigues to the King. Stanley was beheaded on Tower Hill (February 16, 1495). This disconcerted for a time a plan for the invasion of England which had been formed in the Low Countries and was nearly ripe for execution. On July 3, however, Warbeck appeared with a little fleet off Deal, and some of his followers landed, but were presently taken, sent up to London and hanged. Perkin himself had wisely refrained from landing, and sailed to Ireland, where he attacked by sea the loyal town of Waterford, which Desmond’s followers at the same time besieged by land. After eleven days, however, he was compelled to withdraw with loss, and later in the year he found a better asylum in Scotland, which had long been prepared to receive him.
Influenced, no doubt, by Maximilian and by Margaret of Burgundy, James IV of Scotland had committed himself to Perkin’s cause before he came, and now not only acknowledged him as Duke of York, but gave him in marriage his cousin, Katharine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Huntly. In September, 1496, when the young man had been nearly a year his guest in Scotland, James invaded England with Perkin in his company. But it was a mere brief border raid, from which the Scots returned in three days on hearing of a force sent from Newcastle to oppose them; and all that came of it was that a truce was broken, and that Henry now made preparations to punish a neighbour whom he had been anxious to conciliate. He assembled a great council which, anticipating the action of Parliament, promised him £120,000 for the War, and authorised the raising of ,£40,000 in loans. Parliament met in January, 1497. Two fifteenths and tenths were imposed, to be levied in May and November following. But the first attempt to collect the money in Cornwall met with serious opposition. A lawyer named Thomas Flammock told the people that they were not bound to pay, as the King had a right to the services of his feudal tenants for military purposes, without burdening his subjects generally. Flammock and a blacksmith named Michael Joseph became the leaders of an army of malcontents, which marched on towards London. They were joined at Wells by Lord Audeley, but were refused admittance into Bristol. At last they encamped upon Blackheath, and actually overlooked London. But here at length they were defeated with great slaughter (June 17), and the survivors delivered themselves up as prisoners.
This result was not obtained without the aid of a force under Lord Daubeney, which had been raised to proceed against Scotland, but was hastily recalled to meet the Cornishmen. Henry’s troubles made him the more anxious to come to terms with James, if he could only be got to deliver up Perkin, or even to cease to countenance him. But just at the time when he despatched Bishop Fox to Scotland to make