Meanwhile Warbeck was received in Scotland as the rightful heir to the English crown, and James III. believed his story so firmly, and favoured him to such an extent, that he ordered his relative, Catherine Gordon, Lord Huntley’s daughter, to marry the Pretender. Warbeck now styled himself Richard IV., and advanced into England with an army; but at the first reverse, he fled in panic, taking refuge in Ireland. In 1497 he made a second descent upon England; but after suffering defeat, and again taking to flight, he was finally made prisoner at the Abbey of Beaulieu in the New Forest, whence he was sent to the Tower, and hanged on the 23rd November 1499.
More festivities took place in the Tower in the year 1501, when the nuptials of Henry’s eldest son, Prince Arthur, with Catherine of Arragon were solemnised there, the execution of the Earl of Warwick having at length enabled the Spanish King to give his consent to the match. The bride and bridegroom were little more than children, Arthur being fourteen, and Catherine a year older; but the marriage—that was to be so fruitful of trouble and death in the next reign—was solemnised with the greatest splendour, there being daily banquets within the walls, and daily tournaments without. In the next year, Sir James Tyrell met with his deserts for the part he had played in the murder of the little princes in the Tower, being beheaded on Tower Hill; he should have been hanged, but pleading his privilege of knighthood, he was allowed death by the axe. In 1503 Henry’s Queen gave birth to a daughter in the Tower, but soon afterwards mother and child followed each other to the grave; and when six years had passed, Henry VII. himself was taken to that stately mausoleum which he had created in the Abbey of Westminster, and Henry VIII. reigned in his stead.
After succeeding to the throne, Henry VIII. passed a few tranquil days in the Tower, but his sanguinary nature soon showed itself, and his first victims were his father’s most trusted counsellors. Having formed a new Council, Henry had Sir Henry Stafford (the Duke of Buckingham’s brother), Sir Richard Empsom, and Edmund Dudley arrested, the former on some slight charge of disaffection of which he was able to clear himself, and the two others on the charge of extortion during the late reign.