His
insinuating address gained him the favor of his keepers, whom he soon
began to offer lofty bribes to aid his escape. Into this plot he managed
to draw the young earl. The plan devised was that the four keepers
should murder the lieutenant of the Tower in the night, seize the keys
and such money as they could find, and let out Perkin and the earl.
It may be that the king himself had arranged this plot, and instructed
the keepers in their parts. Certainly it was quickly divulged. And by
strange chance, just at this period a third pretender appeared, this
time a shoemaker's son, who, like the baker's son, pretended to be the
Earl of Warwick. His name was Ralph Wilford. He had been taught his part
by a priest named Patrick. They came from Suffolk and advanced into
Kent, where the priest took to the pulpit to advocate the claims of his
charge. Both were quickly taken, the youth executed, the priest
imprisoned for life.
And now Henry doubtless deemed that matters of this kind had gone far
enough. The earl and his fellow-prisoner were indicted for conspiracy,
tried and found guilty, the earl beheaded on Tower Hill, and Perkin
Warbeck hanged at Tyburn. This was in the year 1499. It formed a
dramatic end to the history of the fifteenth century, being the closing
event in the wars of the White and the Red Roses, the death of the last
Plantagenet and of the last White Rose aspirant to the throne.
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