Perkin Warbeck Biography
(Pretender to English Throne)
Born: 1474
Born In: Tournai, Belgium
Perkin Warbeck was a pretender to the English throne, who surfaced in Great Britain during the reign of King Henry VII of England. Born in Flanders, he possibly lost his parents around the age of ten or twelve. Thereafter, he started working as a servant under various employers, eventually landing in the Irish city of Cork with a Breton silk merchant at the age of seventeen. Here, he was taken as an aristocrat and eventually persuaded by the King’s Yorkist enemies to impersonate as Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, who had mysteriously disappeared from the Tower of London at the age of ten. Thereafter, he was sent to Europe, where he was recognized as the true claimant of the English throne, eventually returning to Great Britain to make his claim. But after a few unsuccessful ventures, he was captured by the English force and made to sign a confession before being executed by hanging. The little that we know about him comes from this confession.