The Rule of the Tudors 1485 - 1603

In 1491 a new and more dangerous pretender, foretold by prophecy, had appeared. Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, so it was claimed, had providentially escaped the Tower and murder
at his uncle's hands, and had been secretly conveyed abroad. Now he returned to claim his throne.
In this brilliant impostor, Perkin Warbeck, Yorkist sympathies and hopes were revived; testimony
not only to the claims of blood but to growing alienation from Henry VII. Support for the pretender
came not only from the disaffected in the country, but from the heart of the King's own household.
For six years Warbeck was welcomed in the courts of Europe - by Maximillian, King of the Romans,
James IV of Scotland, Charles VIII of France and Margaret of Burgundy. For Margaret, he was
truly her nephew returned to life; for the others, the perfect instrument for the pursuit of their
diplomatic and territorial ambitions. This pretender, the Yorkists' 'puppet' and 'idol', several times
threatened a Yorkist restoration and renewed civil war.
Peace with Scotland had been preserved, at first. War had threatened in October 1485 and again
early in 1488, but a three-year truce concluded in July had held, surviving the death in June 1488
of James III in battle against his rival lords at Sauchieburn. That further truces were made in 1488,
1491 and 1492 signalled not amity, but lack of it. With France, England's other ancient enemy and
Scotland's old ally, Henry had at first attempted neutrality while Charles VIII sought to annexe
Brittany. Henry tried to arbitrate a settlement between the kingdom and the duchy which had harboured him in exile, but he failed. In 1489 and again in 1490 he sent forces to protect Breton independence, and planned a third expedition. Such provocative intervention was buttressed by
parallel alliances concluded with Maximillian, Holy Roman Emperor at Dordrecht in February 1489
and with Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile at Medina del Campo in March. When Charles VIII married Duchess Anne of Brittany in December 1491 Brittany's independence was lost, and
with it so much English expenditure. It was in the midst of this intense diplomatic activity, and as
an instrument of it, that Perkin Warbeck appeared.
As before, the pretender came first to Ireland. Arriving at Cork in November 1491, 'Richard Plantagenet' received the allegiance of Desmond and with him, of Munster. Kildare offered no
support: neither did  he oppose. Forces were sent from England to secure the midlands and the
south of Ireland, and in  the shadow of this military presence in June 1492 Kildare was removed
from the office of chief governor. Kildare's disgrace and the King's patronage of the Fitzgeralds' 
Butler rivals inexorably renewed the old feud, and fighting between their retinues followed.
Abandoned by Kildare, the English colony lay open to plundering and burning by the Irish.
Warbeck left Ireland, but would return.
Warbeck's removal to the French court in the spring of 1492 spurred preparations for a campaign
against France. Great forces and taxes were levied for a war which was hardly fought at all.
After postponing the expedition three times, Henry crossed to Calais at the head of an army of
15,000 in October 1492, and in November was effectively paid by Charles VIII to go away: the
price of his freedom to pursue grand designs in Italy. In Utopia More's Hythloday recalled a king
and his council devising a make-believe war so that a fortune could be raised on the pretext of
waging it, and then when the money was collected a ceremonious peace would follow. Certainly
this was how the more cynical of Henry's subjects regarded the French campaign. At Étaples in
November 1492 Charles promised to expel the pretender. Warbeck was bought and sold.
From France, he migrated to the court of Margaret of Burgundy. Relieved of foreign war, Henry
was more ready to meet any challenge from home, and he would need to be.
Now Henry turned to pacify Ireland; not only to tame the disloyal colony but also - so he told
the French king - to conquer the 'wild Irish'. Rebellion in Ireland posed a double danger, for it
opened the way for the King's enemies to use the island for the invasion of England. At Trim in
September 1493 a great Council was held to seal the reconciliation of the Anglo-Irish lords with
the King, and with each other. Kildare and fifteen other lords entered massive bonds to keep the
peace and to relinquish Gaelic customs. A year later a new lieutenant was appointed: the King's
younger son Henry, Duke of York, aged four, with Sir Edward Poynings as his deputy, the chief
governor. Poynings' mission to Ireland that October - intended to curb the disruptive tenddencies
of the feudal lords and to prevent the subversion of royal institutions of government - left a lasting
political legacy. That winter the Irish Parliament, meeting at Drogheda, enacted measures which
affirmed Ireland's constitutional inferiority, the subordination of Crown government in Ireland to
that of England. 'Poynings' law' provided that no Irish Parliament could meet without royal licence
and that all measures to be submitted to Parliament had first to be approved by King and Council
in England. English officials replaced Anglo-Irish ones in high offices of state and in the judiciary.
Early in 1495 the restive Kildare was arrested, charged with treasonable contact with the King's
Gaelic enemies and with conspiring with the Earl of Desmond and James IV of Scotland to overthrow
English rule in Ireland. He was sent captive to England.
Far from their being peace in Ireland, universal rebellion threatened. Forswearing allegiance to Henry,
Desmond rallied support throughout Munster for Warbeck. Gaelic chiefs of the north - O'Donnell of
Tirconell and O'Neill of Clandeboyne - declared for Warbeck, and so did Clanrickard Burke in
the west. In August 1495 O'Donnell sailed to Scotland to form a league with James IV. That the
real ambitions of the Irish lords were for their own dynasties rather than that of York made their
hostility and confederacy no less alarming. In July 1495 Warbeck - cast back from a disastrous
invasion attempt in Kent - landed at Youghal, and the rebel army besieged Waterford, but without
success. Desmond withdrew into the wilds of Munster, and Warbeck fled to refuge at the Scottish
court. Henry, always suspicious, always reluctant to trust his magnates, had particular reason to
dsitrust the Anglo-Irish lords who, distrusting him, had been manifestly disloyal. Yet the King
now determined to rest his rule in Ireland upon Kildare and to use the Earl's personal lordship in
Ireland to strengthen his own. Kildare returned to Ireland as chief governor in October 1496.