1499: Edward, Earl of Warwick, the last Plantagenet claimant

Executed Today ^ | November 28th, 2019

[robowombat]

1499: Edward, Earl of Warwick, the last Plantagenet claimant

November 28th, 2019

On this date in 1499, the Plantagenet prince Edward, Earl of Warwick lost his head — and his once-mighty house lost its last direct male successor to its claim upon kingship.

A lagging casualty of the Wars of the Roses, little Ted was only three when he lost his old man to a treason charge and a butt of malmsey. The same blade dangled close to Edward’s neck throughout his few years, for he became a potential royal claimant after his young cousins, the Princes in the Tower, were killed off in 1483.

Warwick was all of eight years old at that moment. When he was 10, he was shut up in the Tower of London by Henry VII, never really to leave it again.* “Being kept in the Tower from his tender age, that is to say from his first year of the king [i.e., of Henry VII’s reign] to this fifteenth year, out of all company of men and sight of beasts, in so much that he could not discern a goose from a capon,” in the words of chronicler Edward Hall. Some historians have taken that to mean that Edward was was mentally disabled, but under the circumstances, who wouldn’t be?*

It was cold and eminently practical mistreatment, for this boy however innocent in his own person was the potential champion of the Yorkists. In 1487, an abortive rebellion arose in Warwick’s name, with a 10-year-old kid named Lambert Simnel presented as a faux-Edward. Henry crushed the rebellion and was obliged to make his proofs to the populace by parading the real Edward around London which was at least a rare excursion outside the Tower walls for the tween hostage.**

Pretenders tossed the boy prisoner hither and yon on the currents of fortune. The next one to have a go at Henry, a Low Countries twerp named Perkin Warbeck who claimed to be one of the lost Princes in the Tower, mounted landings in the mid-1490s, vainly hoping to spark a general revolt. After he was finally captured in 1497, he wound up in the Tower with poor Warwick. Warbeck persuaded the desperate youth upon a desperate course — or was it by the intentional policy of that scheming king to dispose of a threat and thereby cinch that famously ill-fated Spanish marriage so productive of clientele for our grim annals? A century-plus later, Francis Bacon described in History of the Reign of King Henry VII the popular suspicion that had attached to this convenient tying up of loose ends:

it was ordained, that this winding-ivy of a Plantagenet should kill the true tree itself. For Perkin, after he had been a while in the Tower, began to insinuate himself into the favour and kindness of his keepers, servants to the lieutenant of the Tower Sir John Digby, being four in number; Strangeways, Blewet, Astwood, and Long Roger. These varlets, with mountains of promises, he sought to corrupt, to obtain his escape; but knowing well, that his own fortunes were made so contemptible, as he could feed no man’s hopes, and by hopes he must work, for rewards he had none, he had contrived with himself a vast and tragical plot; which was, to draw into his company Edward Plantagenet earl of Warwick, then prisoner in the Tower; whom the weary life of a long imprisonment, and the often and renewing fears of being put to death, had softened to take any impression of counsel for his liberty. This young Prince he thought these servants would look upon, though not upon himself: and therefore, after that by some message by one or two of them, he had tasted of the earl’s consent; it was agreed that these four should murder their master the lieutenant secretly in the night, and make their best of such money and portable goods of his, as they should find ready at hand, and get the keys of the Tower, and presently let forth Perkin and the earl. But this conspiracy was revealed in time, before it could be executed. And in this again the opinion of the King’s great wisdom did surcharge him with a sinister fame, that Perkin was but his bait, to entrap the earl of Warwick.

… Howsoever it were, hereupon Perkin, that had offended against grace now the third time, was at the last proceeded with, and by commissioners of oyer and terminer arraigned at Westminster, upon divers treasons committed and perpetrated after his coming on land within this kingdom, for so the judges advised, for that he was a foreigner, and condemned, and a few days after executed at Tyburn; where he did again openly read his confession, and take it upon his death to be true. This was the end of this little cockatrice of a King, that was able to destroy those that did not espy him first. It was one of the longest plays of that kind that hath been in memory, and might perhaps have had another end, if he had not met with a King both wise, stout, and fortunate. … And immediately after was arraigned before the Earl of Oxford, then for the time high steward of England, the poor Prince, the Earl of Warwick; not for the attempt to escape simply, for that was not acted; and besides, the imprisonment not being for treason, the escape by law could not be treason, but for conspiring with Perkin to raise sedition, and to destroy the King: and the earl confessing the indictment, had judgment, and was shortly after beheaded on Tower-hill.

This was also the end, not only of this noble and commiserable person Edward the earl of Warwick, eldest son to the duke of Clarence: but likewise of the line male of the Plantagenets, which had flourished in great royalty and renown, from the time of the famous King of England, King Henry the second. Howbeit it was a race often dipped in their own blood. It hath remained since only transplanted into other names, as well of the imperial line, as of other noble houses.

But it was neither guilt of crime, nor treason of state, that could quench the envy that was upon the King for this execution: so that he thought good to export it out of the land, and to lay it upon his new ally, Ferdinando King of Spain. For these two Kings understanding one another at half a word, so it was that there were letters shewed out of Spain, whereby in the passages concerning the treaty of marriage, Ferdinando had written to the King in plain terms, that he saw no assurance of his succession, as long as the earl of Warwick lived; and that he was loth to send his daughter to troubles and dangers. But hereby, as the King did in some part remove the envy from himself; so he did not observe, that he did withal bring a kind of malediction and infausting upon the marriage, as an ill prognostic: which in event so far proved true, as both Prince Arthur enjoyed a very small time after the marriage, and the lady Catharine herself, a sad and a religious woman, long after, when King Henry the eighth his resolution of a divorce from her was first made known to her, used some words, that she had not offended, but it was a judgment of God, for that her former marriage was made in blood; meaning that of the earl of Warwick.

* The situation reminds of little Tsar Ivan VI in the 18th century, although that Russian prince was held from an even younger age, under even more oppressive conditions.

** Being only a figurehead, the pretend Warwick ironically enjoyed great mercy compared to the real one. Simnel was installed in Henry’s kitchens instead and lived out a comfortable life in the royal household.

[fieldmarshaldj]

*ping*

[rainee]

Mine too
I’ve read all books in that trilogy

[Sloane_Ranger]

Normans are not Gallic "French," but are more correctly decedents of "Norsemen," aka Vikings. They are Scandinavians.

Indeed. Normans or Northmen were Vikings who settled off the coast of France. The ancestor of William the Conqueror was Rollo the Viking. It is ironic that the Saxons kept the various Viking incursions at bay only to ultimately lose the English throne in 1066 to a Viking descendant, William.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Imagine Shakespeare casting you as a villain. What a way to be remembered.

That is what happened to Macbeth.

[bigbob]

Must have been great fun for a kid to pretend to be the King.

You might say he was fake-king it...

(ducking and running)

[mass55th]

"Easy, George was attainted and therefore his son lost his inheritance rights."

John Rous, the medieval historian who died in 1492, claimed that after Richard's son and wife had died a year apart, he'd named Edward Warwick as his heir with Edward's cousin John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln named as 2nd in line. There has been no proof found that it actually occurred though. Edward was created the 17th Earl of Warwick in 1478 after the attainder, and execution of his father. Richard, Duke of Gloucester had no problem declaring the sons of Edward IV as illegitimate, and usurping the crown for himself. If he had really wanted to see his nephew Edward on the throne instead of himself, I have no doubt he would have been able to get it accomplished.

[Verginius Rufus]

King Henry II was a grandson of Henry I through his mother Matilda. Henry II’s father was a Plantagenet so Henry II was the first Plantagenet king. I don’t know if the Plantagenets also had Scandinavian ancestry. They were rulers of Anjou in France.

[mass55th]

My other Plantagenet connection is through Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk, who was the sister of Edward IV, and Richard III. She's my 15th great-grandmother. Her husband was John de la Pole. He was first married to Lady Margaret Beaufort, but the marriage was annulled. She was the mother of Henry VII and grandmother of Henry VIII. John de la Pole's father William, 1st Duke of Suffolk was married to Geoffrey Chaucer's granddaughter Alice. Her father was Thomas. Geoffrey Chaucer is my 18th great-grandfather.

I also have Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, and Richard Plantagenet of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge as my 16th and 17th great-grandfathers. Richard, 3rd Earl of Cambridge is supposed to be the grandfather of Edward IV and Richard III. The Neville, de Mortimer, de Spencer, Grenville, de Courtenay, along with other names appear in my family tree. It's crazy, and I wonder how factual it all is. They're on my mother's side of the family. She was born in Canada. She's got English, Scottish, and German royalty in her line. Even has de Medici's, Orsini's and Farnese's. Lorenzo de Medici is supposed to be my 15th great-grandfather. I never even knew any of my grandparents. They all died before I was born in 1947, so all of this info has blown my mind.

[FrdmLvr]

I am a direct descendant of the Plantagenets.

[mass55th]

Have you ever seen this article on the real King of England?

The Real King of England: Mile the First Dies in Obscurity in Australia

Several years ago I watched a program that had aired on British TV. It was hosted by Tony Robinson (Black Adder series). It was about the possibility that Edward IV may have been illegitimate, and not rightful King. Here's a link to the full show on YouTube:

Britain's Real Monarch with Tony Robinson

It's pretty interesting.

[Okeydoker]

I stand corrected. You are right. Victoria’s father was in line, about fourth or fifth, then he died and his brother, vics uncle, became king leaving the succession to Victoria on his death.

[mass55th]

I also found this article from 2014 regarding a break in Richard III's male DNA line:

Does Richard III's DNA question Queen's right to the throne? Hunchback king's genetic comparison with distant cousins reveals an illegitimate child in royal family tree

[kalee]

for later

[Okeydoker]

Mostly correct. They are not french as we think of the French and Normandy was a territory that continually over time went back and forth between England and France. The normans were from Normandy but not at that time considered proper French.

[Verginius Rufus]

Of course they could say Henry VII's right to the throne was by right of conquest (winning the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485), just as William the Bastard became king of England by virtue of winning the battle of Hastings. There was a taint of illegitimacy in the Tudor line anyway--an ancestor had been born illegitimate and later legitimized.

The Wittelsbachs have a better genealogical claim to the throne than the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line anyway, but also going back to Henry VII.

[Grampa Dave]

Richard “Duke of York” Plantagenet
1415–1495

BIRTH 3 MAY 1415 • Raby Castle, Straindrop, County Durham, England

DEATH 31 MAY 1495 • Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England
15th great-grandfather

Am I too late?

[lastchance]

Thanks. I’ll have to watch that, it does sound interesting.

[mass55th]

"The Wittelsbachs have a better genealogical claim to the throne than the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line anyway..."

They're in my family as well as the Hapsburgs, the Dillenburgs, and the Hohenzollerns. Never knew until I had my DNA done that there was any German or Italian in my family. My DNA showed 35% Germanic Empire.

[Larry Lucido]

The Plantagenets were a strange lot.

[lastchance]

It is so easy to get hooked on finding out about one’s ancestors. I started doing research on my husband’s family on his mother’s side just on a lark. I entered a name, which was on a family tree done by his great grandfather, into a search engine and found out all kinds of interesting information. But I also came to some dead ends which is very aggravating.