The second of these impostors, known as Perkin Warbeck, contrived to make himself a figure of some importance in the history of England. Supposedly born in Flanders, he first appears upon the historic stage in 1492, when he landed at Cork. Going soon after to France, he was recognized by the court as Duke of York, according to his claim. How he was coached for his part, and how the drama in which he played it was acted out, are told by Bacon in what is perhaps the best specimen we have of that great author's style in historical composition. Warbeck was executed in 1499, and, although Bacon gives us no dates, the whole history, covering about seven years, may be said to form a practically continuous series of incidents. The character of this adventurer has been made quite prominent in literature, having been the subject of Ford's tragedy, _The Chronicle History of Perkin Warbeck_ (1634), of a play by Charles Macklin, _King Henry VII, or the Popish Impostor_ (1716), and of Joseph Elderton's drama, _The Pretender_. This youth of whom we are now to speak was such a mercurial as the like hath seldom been known, and could make his own part if at any time he chanced to be out. Wherefore, this being one of the strangest examples of a personation that ever was in elder or later times, it deserveth to be discovered and related at the full--although the King's manner of showing things by pieces and by dark lights hath so muffled it that it hath been left almost as a mystery to this day. The Lady Margaret,[1] whom the King's friends called Juno, because she was to him as Juno was to Aeneas, stirring both heaven and hell to do him mischief, for a foundation of her particular practices against him, did continually, by all means possible, nourish, maintain, and divulge the flying opinion that Richard, Duke of York, second son to Edward IV, was not murdered in the Tower, as was given out, but saved alive. For that those who were employed in that barbarous act, having destroyed the elder brother, were stricken with remorse and compassion toward the younger, and set him privily at liberty to seek his fortune. There was a townsman of Tournai, that had borne office in that town, whose name was John Osbeck, a convert Jew, married to Catherine de Faro, whose business drew him to live for a time with his wife at London, in King Edward's days. During which time he had a son[2] by her, and being known in the court, the King, either out of a religious nobleness because he was a convert, or upon some private acquaintance, did him the honor to be godfather to his child, and named him Peter. But afterward, proving a dainty and effeminate youth, he was commonly called by the diminutive of his name, Peterkin or Perkin. For as for the name of Warbeck, it was given him when they did but guess at it, before examinations had been taken. But yet he had been so much talked of by that name, as it stuck by him after his true name of Osbeck was known.