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From France the young aspirant made his way into Flanders, and presented himself at the court of the Duchess of Burgundy, with every appearance of never having been there before. He sought her, he said, as his aunt. The duchess received him with an air of doubt and suspicion. He was, she acknowledged, the image of her dear departed brother, but more evidence was needed. She questioned him, therefore, closely, before the members of her court, making searching inquiries into his earlier life and recollections. These he answered so satisfactorily that the duchess declared herself transported with astonishment and joy, and vowed that he was indeed her nephew, miraculously delivered from prison, brought from death to life, wonderfully preserved by destiny for some great fortune. She was not alone in this belief. All who heard his answers agreed with her, many of them borne away by his grace of person and manner and the fascination of his address. The duchess declared his identity beyond doubt, did him honor as a born prince, gave him a body-guard of thirty halberdiers, who were clad in a livery of murrey and blue, and called him by the taking title of the “White Rose of England.” He seemed, indeed, like one risen from the grave to set afloat once more the banners of the White Rose of York.

The tidings of what was doing in Flanders quickly reached England, where a party in favor of the aspirant’s pretensions slowly grew up. Several noblemen joined it, discontent having been caused by certain unpopular acts of the king. Sir Robert Clifford sailed to Flanders, visited Margaret’s court, and wrote back to England that there was no doubt that the young man was the Duke of York, whose person he knew as he knew his own.

While these events were fomenting, secretly and openly, King Henry was at work, secretly and openly, to disconcert his foes. He set a guard upon the English ports, that no suspicious person should enter or leave the kingdom, and then put his wits to task to prove the falsity of the whole neatly-wrought tale. Two of those concerned in the murder of the princes were still alive,–Sir James Tirrel and John Dighton. Sir James claimed to have stood at the stair-foot, while Dighton and another did the murder, smothering the princes in their bed. To this they both testified, though the king, for reasons unexplained, did not publish their testimony.

Henry also sent spies abroad, to search into the truth concerning the assumed adventurer. These, being well supplied with money, and bidden to trace every movement of the youth, at length declared that they had discovered that he was the son of a Flemish merchant, of the city of Tournay, his name Perkin Warbeck, his knowledge of the language and manners of England having been derived from the English traders in Flanders. This information, with much to support it, was set afloat in England, and the king then demanded of the Archduke Philip, sovereign of Burgundy, that he should give up this pretender, or banish him from his court. Philip replied that Burgundy was the domain of the duchess, who was mistress in her own land. In revenge, Henry closed all commercial communication between the two countries, taking from Antwerp its profitable market in English cloth.

Now tragedy followed comedy. Sir Robert Clifford, who had declared the boy to be undoubtedly the Duke of York, suffered the king to convince him that he was mistaken, and denounced several noblemen as being secretly friends to Perkin Warbeck. These were arrested, and three of them beheaded, one of them, Sir William Stanley, having saved Henry’s life on Bosworth Field. But he was rich, and a seizure of his estate would swell the royal coffers. With Henry VII. gold weighed heavier than gratitude.

For three years all was quiet. Perkin Warbeck kept his princely state at the court of the Duchess of Burgundy, and the merchants of Flanders suffered heavily from the closure of the trade of Antwerp. This grew intolerable. The people were indignant. Something must be done. The pretended prince must leave Flanders, or he ran risk of being killed by its inhabitants.