The records of the Tower are not entirely of the sombre colour of imprisonments and executions. In the month of November 1487, we read of the pageant that took place at the coronation of Henry’s Queen, Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV.; their marriage united the rival factions of the White and Red Roses. A few days before her coronation at Westminster, Elizabeth had been brought to the Tower from the palace at Greenwich by water, in barges “freshely furnyshed with baners and stremers of silk, richly besene”; one barge was “a great red dragon, spowting Flamys of Fyer into the Temmys.” She landed at the Tower Wharf, where the “Kyngs Hyghnesse welcomede her in suche maner and form as was to al th’ Æstats, and other ther being present, a very good sight, and right joyous and comfortable to beholde,” as writes a chronicler of the scene. The following day the Queen, being “rially apparelde” in cloth of gold and damask, and a mantle of ermine, “her faire yelow hair hanging downe playne byhynd her Bak, with a Calle of Pypes over it, and a Serkelet of Golde richely garnyshed with precious Stonys upon her Hede,” was borne in a litter which was “coverde with Cloth of Golde of damaske, and large Pelowes of downe covered with lik Clothe of Golde,” to the Abbey, through streets hung with tapestry and lined with “the crafts in their Lyveryes,” through lines of children, “some arrayde like Angells and others lyke Vyrgyns, to singe sweete Songes as her Grace passed by” (Leland).
The most serious danger to the stability of Henry’s monarchy was the insurrection brought about by the impostor Perkin Warbeck, a man who, by some writers, is said to have been a Florentine Jew, whilst by others he is declared to have been a Fleming. Warbeck gave out that he was Richard, Duke of York, the younger son of Edward IV., and that he had not been murdered in the Tower, but had escaped. In 1491 he landed at Cork with some followers. In Ireland he was supported by Desmond, and was also assisted from Flanders by Margaret of Burgundy. Until the year 1495, when he made a descent upon England, little was heard of him. By this time Henry, owing to his avarice and tyrannical form of government, had made himself extremely unpopular, and consequently his enemies gladly availed themselves of such an opportunity, as Warbeck’s claim presented, of injuring the King. In an evil moment for himself, Sir William Stanley, who had so powerfully aided Henry in his victory at Bosworth, and who had placed the crown, taken from Richard the Third’s dead body, upon his head, and whom Henry had made his Lord Chamberlain, declared that, “if he certainly knew” Perkin Warbeck to be the son of Edward IV., he would never draw his sword or bear arms against him. He was impeached upon a charge of uttering these words, and tried by a Council summoned by the King, who was then in residence in the Tower. He was found guilty, and executed on Tower Hill.