Perkin

"Perkin Warbeck claims to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower who went missing in 1483. The two princes, of course, were the Yorkist heirs to the throne. The fact that they disappear – and are presumed to be dead – is crucial to Henry VII being able to claim the throne. But the great problem for Henry is that he can’t prove that the princes ever died. Just the possibility, then, of Richard, Duke of York’s existence serves to cast fundamental doubt on Henry’s right to the throne. Perkin Warbeck appears in the early 1490s. His performance as Richard, Duke of York is so convincing – and so many people want to believe that he is who he says he is – that he manages to destabilise, and at one point almost bring down, Henry VII’s reign for a decade. Yes, it does. And Ann Wroe’s book is a wonderful evocation of the uncertainty of the age, as encapsulated in the shadowy figure of Perkin Warbeck. The point is that we – like Perkin’s contemporaries – never quite know whether Perkin is who he says he is. History tends to be written by the winners. Inevitably the picture we have is the Tudor one – that Perkin was an impostor, pure and simple. On the balance of probabilities, you’d have to say that he was. But one of the terrific things about Ann Wroe’s book is its exploration of how someone can assume a role and play it so convincingly that they come to believe that they are who they act. It’s a beautifully textured book."