The Cornish Rebellion was an episode in the history of the Perkin
Warbeck business. The men of Cornwall refused to pay taxes and resolved
to march upon London. Led by Lord Audley they advanced through
Salisbury and Winchester into Kent: they were there opposed, and moved
towards London, finally lying at Blackheath. The battle that followed
was chiefly fought at the bridge at Deptford Strand. Two thousand
of the rebels were killed; fifteen hundred were taken; Lord Audley
was beheaded; two demagogues who had instigated the rising, namely,
Flammock an attorney, and Joseph a farrier, were hanged; the rest were
not pursued or punished.
The City, meantime, showed its loyalty by a loan of £4000 to the King
and by putting London into a state of defence. Six Aldermen and a
number of representatives from the Livery Companies were deputed to
attend to the City ordnance; houses built close to the wall were taken
down; the Mayor was allowed an additional twelve men, and the Sheriffs
forty serjeants and forty valets to keep the peace.
Among those appointed to guard the City gates was Alderman Fabyan the
Chronicler.
The next episode in Perkin’s career which touches London is that ride
which he undertook, very much against his will, from Westminster to the
Tower. Everybody knows how he gave himself up to the Prior of Shene.
The King granted him his life, but he imposed certain conditions. He
was placed in the stocks opposite the entrance to Westminster Hall,
where he sat the whole day long, receiving “innumerable reproaches,
mocks and scornings.” The day after he was carried through London
on horseback, in sham triumph. They were ingenious in those days in
their methods of putting offenders to open shame. At an earlier date
the traitor Turberville had to ride in shameful guise; and when Lord
Audley, Captain of the Cornish Rebels, was led out to execution, he
was attired in a paper robe painted with his arms, the robe being
slashed and torn. No doubt Perkin was handsomely attired in coloured
paper, with a tinsel crown upon his head; no doubt, too, he bestrode
a villainous hack, while all the ’prentices of London ran after him,
laughing and mocking. They placed him on a scaffold by the Standard in
Chepe and kept him there all day long. In the course of the day he read
aloud his own confession, which is a very curious document.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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