Perkin Warbeck

Perkin Warbeck (c. 1474 – 23 November 1499) was a pretender to the English throne.

By claiming to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, Warbeck was a significant threat to the newly established Tudor dynasty, and gained support outside England.

Henry VII declared Warbeck an impostor, and after his capture, Warbeck wrote a confession in which he said he was a Fleming born in Tournai around 1474.

Due to uncertainty as to whether Richard of Shrewsbury had died in the Tower of London or had survived, Warbeck's claim gathered some followers, either due to real belief in his identity or because of desire to overthrow Henry and reclaim the throne. Dealing with Warbeck cost Henry VII over £13,000, putting a strain on Henry's weak state finances.

Early life

Perkin Warbeck (play)

Perkin Warbeck is a Caroline era history play by John Ford. It is generally ranked as one of Ford's three masterpieces, along with 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and The Broken Heart. T. S. Eliot went so far as to call Perkin Warbeck "unquestionably Ford's highest achievement...one of the very best historical plays outside of the works of Shakespeare in the whole of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama."

Date, performance, publication

The play's date of authorship is uncertain, though it is widely thought to have been written in the 1629–34 period. It was first published in 1634, as The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck. A Strange Truth. The quarto was issued by the bookseller Hugh Beeston, with a dedication by Ford to William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle. The title page bears Ford's anagrammatic motto, "Fide Honor," and states that the play was performed "(some-times)" by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Phoenix or Cockpit Theatre.

A second edition appeared in 1714 in duodecimo format. Ford's play was reportedly revived at Goodman's Fields in 1745, during Bonnie Prince Charlie's invasion of England; two other contemporary plays about Warbeck were also acted at that time. After 1745, the next production occurred in 1975 at Stratford-upon-Avon.