“Why?”
“To wear it, of course. Oh you are too young. . . .”
“No, no Arthur. I am growing up more every day. I wish I was older. I wish I were older than you.”
“Then you’d be Prince of Wales, brother.”
“You wouldn’t like that.”
Arthur hesitated again. He was always hesitant, weighing everything up before he answered. “I shouldn’t mind,” he said slowly. “In fact perhaps I might be rather glad.”
A wild excitement possessed Henry. Arthur didn’t want to be Prince of Wales. Perhaps they could change places. He cried: “I’ll be it for you.”
That made Arthur laugh. “Thank you, little brother, but it is not possible.”
Little brother! He had betrayed his youth again. It was maddening.
“Tell me about Sir William,” he said.
It‘s merely that he was corresponding with Perkin Warbeck who pretends he is our uncle who disappeared in the Tower, and if he was alive would be King.”
“King? Then our father . . .”
“Oh you have a lot to learn, Henry.”
Henry was bewildered, raging against his youth and inexperience.
He was going to find out though and if it was ever possible, he was going to change places with Arthur.
Whenever they rode out from Eltham to join their parents at Westminster or Shene he saw heads on poles. They fascinated him.
“Whose heads are they?” he wanted to know.
The heads of traitors, he was told.
That was the right way to treat traitors. Their heads should be cut off and put on poles for everyone to see. The thought of someone taking his father’s crown away frightened and angered him, for if his father were no longer King, Arthur would not be Prince of Wales—then how could Henry Duke of York change places with him when the time came?
There was more talk of Perkin Warbeck that summer, for the young man had taken an action which implied that he was very determined in his attempt to get possession of the throne.
News spread throughout the country that a fleet of ships led by the Pretender had appeared off the port of Deal.
The people of that town crowded onto the beaches to watch them, fearing that war was inevitable and that they were in the front line. And where were the King’s forces and how long would it take them to reach the coast?
Some of the spirited members of the community of Sandwich, a town a little way along the coast, gathered together a fighting force. After all the executions which had taken place not so long ago they were not going to be accused of conspiring with the invaders.
Coming in close to land Perkin saw the hostile crowds assembled there and decided that he would not risk all of his troops. It would be difficult to land and he could see that while this operation was in progress he could be attacked and lose many of his men and much equipment.
He decided therefore to land a few men who could persuade the people that they came to deliver them from one who had no right to the throne while he, the true King, Richard the Fourth, was preparing to come and be their good lord.
But the people were not to be persuaded. The Mayor of Sandwich was there to meet them as they attempted to land. “We want none of you Pretenders here,” he declared. “We’re content with what we have and that’s an end to fighting. We’re not having that on our soil.”
Perkin’s troops realized that they were at a disadvantage and many of them rowed back to the ships. The others who had landed were immediately taken prisoner and their equipment captured.
When Henry heard what had happened he was delighted with his good people of Sandwich and Deal. They had taken over a hundred and sixty prisoners to send him, and the rest of the invading force at sea decided to give up the attempt, for the time at least, and make other plans for landing which might have a chance of success.
The people of Sandwich excitedly tied up their prisoners and sent them on to London in carts where they were received into the Tower and immediately sentenced to hanging. That the country might realize what happened to men who indulged in such actions against the King, they were publicly hanged in the coastal areas and from London to as far as Norfolk.
It was unfortunate that Perkin was not among them, but he had sailed on to Ireland.
Am I never to be free of this Perkin Warbeck? wondered the King. It was four years since he had first heard that name and it had haunted him ever since.
When would it end? Perhaps more important still, where would it end?
That September a sad event took place in the royal nurseries. The little Princess Elizabeth died. Young Henry had never taken much interest in her. She was a year or so younger than he was and that made her quite a baby. She was delicate and had to be specially taken care of, which to one in his robust health seemed a little contemptible.
