[In the following essay, Anderson argues that Perkin Warbeck presents a lesson in kingship, where the character of Henry VII represents the ideal ruler.]

John Ford is not generally considered a political dramatist, but he would seem to be one in Perkin Warbeck (first printed in 1634). Illustrating the pragmatic viewpoint of such theorists as Machiavelli and Bacon, Ford portrays his ideal king in the person of the wise and eminently practical Henry VII, and so considerable is the playwright's attention to competent and incompetent governing that Perkin Warbeck¹ might well be called a lesson in kingship.

This aspect of the play has been overlooked by most students of Ford, denied by some, and thoroughly discussed by none.² Several of its probable causes have never been noted. Furthermore, some scholars who do recognize the political nature of Perkin Warbeck see the drama as a protest against Stuart absolutism and Divine Right,³ but there is evidence that casts some doubt on this interpretation.

Although the romance of Warbeck and Katherine is prominent in the play, also important are the politics of Henry, James IV of Scotland, and Warbeck. Henry has become the perfect monarch, his foresight much greater than in any earlier account and his avarice, stressed in many chronicles, deftly converted into financial acumen. At the other extreme is Warbeck, who, though admirable as suitor and husband, is politically as inept as Henry is efficient. In the middle is James, who in the course of the play changes from a highhanded ruler to one who has discovered and adopted, thanks to Henry's impressive examples, a more responsible and realistic philosophy.

The dominant figure in Ford's theme of kingship is Henry VII. In the pattern imposed by Ford upon the action, Henry has priority; the scenes featuring him contain those presenting James or Warbeck. The first scene of the drama portrays Henry at length and quite favorably. Also, in the three scenes of Act I, the first and third are dominated by Henry, whereas the second scene, though set in Scotland, introduces neither James nor Warbeck, who first appear in Act II (line 17). Earlier in the play several incidents encourage the audience to unsympathetic prejudgment of Warbeck and James. Warbeck is termed an impostor by Henry (I. 104-126),⁴ and Warbeck's counselors are ridiculed by the Scottish Countess of Crawford (II. 8-14); James's rashness is noted by one of his advisers, the Earl of Huntley (I. 247-250), and his imperiousness is mentioned by Huntley's daughter, Katherine (II. 6-8). Henry dominates the last acts as well as the early ones. James speaks his last lines in the middle of Act IV, and directly after Warbeck's final exit Huntley comments, “… 'tis sufficient in such cases / Iust Lawes ought to proceede” (V. 495-497). Henry concludes the play with this maxim of statecraft: “And from hence / Wee gather this fit vse; that publicke States, / ‘As our particular bodyes, taste most good’ / In health, when purged of corrupted bloud” (V. 501-504).

In both the play and the chronicles, Henry's three principal problems concerning the Warbeck incident are the treason of Stanley, the rebellion of the Cornish, and the actions of Warbeck, especially those supported by James. The play, however, increases Henry's foresight in these matters. In the chronicles, the Cornish uprising occurs between two different incursions under the joint command of James and Warbeck, and the histories point out that the Cornish rebelled chiefly because of the taxes which the first incursion had occasioned and, also, that Henry's preoccupation with the Cornish encouraged James to undertake the second border raid.⁵ In the play there is only one incursion, which comes after the Cornish rebellion but is not a result of it. Ford restricts Henry's confusion to the first act, when the king learns of Stanley's treason and of the incipient rebellion. In Act II, Sc. ii, when Henry is preparing his forces to meet the Cornish, he also anticipates trouble from Scotland:

But Surrey,
Wee haue imployment of more toyle for thee!
For our intelligence comes swiftly to vs,
That Iames of Scotland, late hath entertained
Perkin the counterfeite, with more then common
Grace and respect; nay courts him with rare favours;
The Scot is young and forward, wee must looke for
A suddaine storme to England from the North:
Which to withstand, Durham shall post to Norham. …
Surrey shall follow soone, with such an Armie,
As may relieue the Bishop.

(II. 269-281)

Ford again rearranges history when he places before instead of after the incursion the conference between Henry and Hialas, the Spanish emissary, through whom the king initiates the subsequent treaty with Scotland. Hence, when James appears on stage leading his marauding forces (III. 373), his efforts seem doubly futile: Henry has both foreseen the invasion and arranged for its termination. As Durham, Henry's chief counselor, comments, “Our Royall Masters wisedome is at all times / His fortunes Harbinger; for when he drawes / His sword to threaten warre, his providence Settles on peace, the crowning of an Empire” (IV. 14-17).

Another example of Henry's foresight occurs when the captured Warbeck is brought before him. Earlier in this scene Henry, upon learning that Warbeck has escaped after his defeat at Exeter, remains supremely confident:

The Counterfeit King Perkin is escap'd,
Escape, so let him; he is heg'd too fast
Within the Circuite of our English pale,
To steale out of our Ports, or leape the walls
Which guarde our Land; the Seas are rough, and wider
Then his weake armes can tugge with; Surrey henceforth
Your King may raigne in quiet: turmoyles past
Like some vnquiet dreame, haue rather busied
Our fansie, then affrighted rest of State.

(V. 115-123)

Having dismissed Warbeck from his mind, Henry discusses with Urswick and Surrey such matters as restitution for the incursion and thanking the “westerne Gentlemen” and young Buckingham for their assistance at Exter (V. 124-144). Into this atmosphere of efficiency is led the captured Warbeck, apparently already forgotten by his farsighted adversary.

Also significant in the political pattern of Perkin Warbeck is Ford's characterization of James IV of Scotland. Unlike the chronicles, the play depicts in the Scottish king a gradual change from folly to wisdom.⁶ In his initial speech, which precedes Warbeck's first words, James regards as obligatory the aiding of fallen foreign princes:

The right of Kings (my Lords) estends not onely
To the safe Conservation of their owne;
But also to the ayde of such Allies
As change of time, and state, hath often times
Hurld downe from careful crownes, to vndergoe
An exercise of sufferance in both fortunes:
So English Richard surnam'd Cor-de-lyon,
So Robert Bruce our royall Ancestor,
Forc'd by the tryall of the wrongs they felt,
Both fought, and found supplyes, from forraigne Kings
To repossesse their owne: then grudge not (Lords)
A much distressed Prince, King Charles of Fraunce,
And Maximilian of Bohemia both,
Haue ratified his Credit by their Letters.
Shall wee then be distrustfull? No, Compassion
Is one rich Iewell that shines in our Crowne,
And we will haue it shine there.

(II. 17-33)

James is impressed by Warbeck's eloquence (II. 102-103) and his appearance (II. 358-361). Furthermore, in offering his support to Warbeck, James ignores the de facto and relies completely on the de iure basis of sovereignty; he says to Huntley, “Kings are counterfeits / In your reput (graue Oracle) not presently / Set on their thrones, with Scepters in their fists” (II. 322-324).

After presenting in Act II an intractable autocrat, Ford in the next two acts converts James into a political realist. In a sense, the pivotal incident of the play occurs in the last scene of Act III, for there clash the two opposing concepts of kingship, carefully kept apart in England and Scotland for almost three acts until both can be fully stated. In their siege of Norham Castle James and Warbeck are confronted by Henry's most able spokesman, Foxe, Bishop of Durham. In arguing for peace, Durham, besides asserting Warbeck's imposture, points out to James such considerations as an alliance with Henry, Warbeck's lack of support in England, and James's responsibility to his subjects (III. 386-419). James pauses, “serious, / Deepe in his meditation.” And, like a good and a bad angel, Durham and Warbeck exhort him to peace and to war. The situation, illustrating the design of the entire play, is emphasized by Daliell's aside to Crawford; like most of the Scottish, Daliell opposes the raid upon England: “Lift them vp / To heaven his better genius!” After deliberation, James decides to continue the incursion. But Durham's arguments have impressed him, for a few lines later, when Warbeck weeps at the barbarities that must ensue, James rebukes him:

You foole your pietie
Ridiculously, carefull of an interest
Another man possesseth! Wheres your faction?
Shrewdly the Bishipp ghest of your adherents,
When not a pettie Burgesse of some Towne,
No, not a Villager hath yet appear'd
In your assistance, that should make 'ee whine,
And not your Countryes sufferance as you tearme it.

(III. 439-446)

Thereafter, with one exception, James is conspicuously practical. The one lapse is his rash challenge of Surrey to single combat. However, James is off-stage when the challenge is discussed by Durham and Surrey in a scene which serves chiefly to illustrate Henry's masterful delegation of authority. James uses the language of a realist when he accepts the peace proposals of Durham and Hialas (IV. 235-239) and when, in his final lines, he dismisses Warbeck:

Cosen, our bountie, favours, gentlenesse,
Our Benefits, the hazard of our person,
Our peoples liues, our Land hath evidenc't,
How much wee haue engag'd on your behalfe:
How triviall, and how dangerous our hopes
Appeare, how fruitlesse our attempts in warre,
How windie rather smokie your assurance
Of partie shewes, wee might in vaine repeated!
But now obedience to the Mother Church,
A Fathers care vpon his Countryes weale,
The dignitie of State directs our wisedome:
To seale an oath of peace through Christendome.

(IV. 244-255)

The growth in James's political insight is noted in Act V by Henry and Surrey:

K: H: But Surrey, why in articling a peace
With Iames of Scotland, was not restitution
Of Losses, which our Subjects did sustaine
By the Scotch inrodes, questioned?
Sur: Both demanded
And vrg'd (my Lord,) to which the King reply'd
In modest merriment, but smiling earnest,
How that our Master Henrie was much abler
To beare the detriments, then he to repay them.
K: H: The young man I beleeue spake honest truth,
'A studies to be wise betimes.

(V. 124-133)⁷

As for Warbeck, Ford utilizes him to make the illustration of kingship in the play threefold instead of twofold. When James dismisses Warbeck, the latter might just as well be a full-blooded Plantagenet as a Flemish counterfeit; he is rejected not for lack of royal blood but for lack of faction and power. In the final scenes Warbeck continues to rely solely on Divine Right. His philosophy is like that of the earlier James:

A thousand blessings guard our lawfull Armies!
A thousand horrors pierce our enemies soules!
Pale feare vnedge their weapons sharpest poynts,
And when they draw their arrowes to the head,
Numnesse shall strike their sinewes; such advatage
Hath Majestie in its pursuite of Iustice,
That on the proppers vp, of truth olde throne,
It both enlightens counsell, and giues heart
To execution: whiles the throates of traytors
Lye bare before our mercie. O Divinitie
Of royall birth? how it strikes dumbe the tongues
Whose prodigallitie of breath is brib'd
By traynes to greatnesse? Princes are but men,
Distinguisht in the finenesse of their frailtie.
Yet not so grosse in beautie of the minde,
For there's a fire more sacred, purifies
The dross of mixture. Herein stands the odds
“Subjects are men, on earth Kings men and gods.”

(IV. 497-514)

On the other hand, Ford's portrayal of Warbeck is more favorable than that of the chronicles, in which Warbeck finally confesses imposture; in the play, he is an eloquent speaker, a devoted suitor and husband, and a defiant foe of Henry to the end. Thus Ford presents Warbeck as an attractive lover but ineffectual leader. Very helpful to the playwright are Warbeck's advisers, whose scatterbrained counsel makes their leader's plans seem foolish but does not impair his dignity.⁸ The remarks of Astley and Sketon on the decision to invade Cornwall are typical:

Astl: Ah sweet young Prince? Secretarie, my fellow Counsellors and I, haue consulted, and jumpe all in one opinion directly, that if this Scotch garboyles doe not fadge to our mindes, wee will pell mell runne amongst the Cornish Chaughes presently, and in a trice.

Sket: 'Tis but going to Sea, and leaping ashore, cut tenne or twelue thousand vnnecessary throats, fire seaven or eight townes, take half a dozen Cities, get into the Market place, crowne him RICHARD THE FOURTH, and the businesse is finisht.

(IV. 142-150)

How is one to account for Ford's emphasis on kingship in Perkin Warbeck? A logical step is to look at the two principal sources of the play: Bacon's History of the Reign of King Henry VII (1622) and Gainsford's True and Wonderful History of Perkin Warbeck (1618). That Ford uses these two works is indicated by numerous verbal parallels between them and lines in his play.⁹ His dependence upon Bacon seems more nearly certain and more pervasive: more nearly certain because Ford very likely refers to Bacon as the “late, both learned, and honourable pen” in his dedication of Perkin Warbeck to the Earl of Newcastle, and more pervasive because Bacon's Henry VII, unlike Gainsford's, illustrates practical kingship. At the same time, Ford and Bacon differ in that the latter often is critical of the king. Two of Bacon's censures contrast markedly with Ford's everfavorable portrayal. The first concerns avarice:

Of nature assuredly he coveted to accumulate treasure; and was a little poor in admiring riches. … This excess of his had at that time many glosses and interpretations. Some thought the continual rebellions wherewith he had been vexed had made him grow to hate his people: Some thought it was done to pull down their stomachs and to keep them low: Some, for that he would leave his son a golden fleece: Some suspected he had some high design upon foreign parts. But those perhaps shall come nearest the truth that fetch not their reasons so far off; but rather impute it to nature, age, peace, and a mind fixed upon no other ambition or pursuit.

(XI, 357-358)¹⁰

Bacon's second censure finds Henry lacking in foresight, the cornerstone of Ford's characterization:

His wisdom, by often evading from perils, was turned rather into a dexterity to deliver himself from dangers when they pressed him, than into a providence to prevent and remove them afar off. And even in nature, the sight of his mind was like some sights of eyes; rather strong at hand than to carry afar off. For his wit increased upon the occasion; and so much the more if the occasion were sharpened by danger. Again, whether it were the shortness of his foresight, or the strength of his will, or the dazzling of his suspicions, or what it was; certain it is that the perpetual troubles of his fortunes (there being no more matter out of which they grew) could not have been without some great defects and main errors in his nature, customs, and proceedings, which he had enough to do to save and help with a thousand little industries and watches.

(XI, 363-364)

On the question of foresight, Ford also parts company with Gainsford. The latter's description of Henry confronted simultaneously by Scottish incursion and Cornish rebellion hardly presents a master strategist at work:

When the King was advertised of these Troubles, and exorbitant Attempts, which gathered like a Cloud, threatening a Tempest round about him, and saw into what Perplexity he was now detruded, having War on every Side, he compared himself to a Man rising in a dark Night, and going undressed into a Room, striking his Head against this Post, running against that Table, meeting with his Shins such a Stool or Form, and staggering up and down against one Block or another; and so stood, for the Time, amazed, not knowing what to say, what to do, or with whom to find fault. … Whereupon he called his Council together, and they without any great Difficulty, determined the Business.

(p. 196)

To explain these differences between Perkin Warbeck and its two principal sources, one finds little in earlier English drama. So far as is known today, only one play before Ford's dealt with the Warbeck episode in Henry's reign, and that play is lost. Gainsford refers to it in his True History of the Earl of Tyrone (1619):

How Perkin Warbeck, for all his exhaled vapouring, went forward assisted by the Scottish policie, Flemmish credulitie, and inueterat malice of the Duches of Burgundy, against the house of Lancaster, our stages of London, haue instructed those which cannot read.¹¹

The extant plays depicting Henry (except for Greene's romantic and largely fictitious The Scottish History of James the Fourth) present him as the young Earl of Richmond, conqueror of Richard III on the Bosworth battlefield but overshadowed by him on the stage, being a fifth-act foil of righteousness to the colorful tyrant. Into this category fall Legge's Richardus Tertius (1579), the anonymous The True Tragedy of Richard III (1594), and Shakespeare's Richard III. Their characterization of Henry would have been inadequate for a drama about him and Warbeck.

More helpful to Ford would have been the chronicles. In regard to Henry's foresight and avarice, many of them are much closer to Ford than are Bacon and Gainsford. Henry's wisdom is praised without qualification by Andre (writing around 1500), Vergil (1534), Halle (1548) and Hollinshed (1577).¹² And the historians are not alone in this respect.¹³ As for Henry's financial policies, they evoke less unanimity. Vergil accuses the king of avarice and hence is a forerunner of Bacon; Halle, apparently in rebuttal to Vergil, concludes his account of Henry with the most vigorous defense of his economy in all the chronicles.¹⁴ The rest of the historians, as well as other writers, are divided, some charging avarice and some admiring monetary gains.¹⁵

The general reputation of Henry VII in Ford's day helps account for the playwright's deviations from Bacon and Gainsford, but it does not explain why Ford's portrayal of Henry is much more idealized than any other one. An answer is provided by Ford's own pamphlet, A Line of Life (1620). Long accepted as part of the Ford canon, this prose work shows a considerable interest in political theory and concludes with a discussion on kingship that bears noteworthy similarities to Perkin Warbeck. The pamphlet also reveals Ford's acquaintance with numerous ancient writers¹⁶ and refers to the Basilicon Doron of James I (p. 67), a work concerned with the proper conduct of a prince.

Taking his title from palmistry, Ford applies it metaphorically to “resolution,” which he defines as a “consultation first held within …, for determining the commoditie, the convenience and commendation of all actions, as well in doing as when they are done.” Resolution, according to Ford, has three branches, those of “a private man,” “a publike man,” and “a good man.” In discussing “a private man” (pp. 49-55), Ford cites the superiority of reason over pleasure and criticizes Raleigh for being “in policie so unstedie, that his too much apprehension was the foile of his judgment” (p. 55). The section on the “publike man” (pp. 55-64) attacks those who undermine men in high positions, such as Essex, Byron, and Barnevelt. Essex “felt the miserie of greatnesse, by relying on such as flattered and envyed his greatnesse” (p. 61); Barnevelt was guilty of “enforcing his publike authoritie too much to bee seruant to his priuate ambition” (p. 61). Barnevelt also is praised by Ford for qualities much like those he later admires in Henry:

Hee was the only one that traffiqued in the counsels of foreine princes, had factors in all courts, intelligencers amongst all Christian nations; stood as the ORACLE of the prouinces, and was even the moderator of policies of all sorts; was reputed to bee second to none on earth for soundnesse of designes.

(p. 61)

But most pertinent to Perkin Warbeck is the third section, concerning “a good man” (pp. 64-79). By a good man is meant “such a man as doth (beside the care he hath of himselfe in particular) attend all his drifts and actions to bee a seruant for others, for the good of others, as if it were his owne” (p. 64). Into this category Ford places kings, for—

as one king traffiques with another, another, and another, either for repressing of hostilities, inlarging a confederacie, confirming an amitie, settling a peace, supplanting an heresie, and such like, not immediately concerning his owne particular, or his peoples, but for moderating the differences betweene other princes; in this respect euen kings and priuate men, and so their actions belong wholly and onely to themselues, printing the royalty of their goodnes in an imorrtalitie of a vertuous and euerlasting name.

(p. 67)

Hence the ideal king is a statesman, a promoter of international peace. As his one example of such a king, Ford uses James I:

A good man that, euen with his entrance to the crowne, did not more bring peace to all Christian nations, yea, almost to all nations of the Westerne World, then since the whole course of his glorious reigne hath preserued peace amongst them. A good man who hath thus long sought, as an equal and vpright moderatour, to decide, discusse, conclude, and determine all differences between his neighbouring princes and fellowes in Europe.

(p. 68)

Here, as in Perkin Warbeck, the competent ruler constantly strives for and achieves peace among nations.¹⁷

If Ford wished to write a play about kingship, where might he have found material for a model king? One plentiful source would have been the treatise of the type de regimine principum.¹⁸ That Ford owes much to any single political writer is doubtful; he very likely relies on his general knowledge of this oft-discussed subject. Two phases of kingship emphasized in Perkin Warbeck are economy and the use of counsel. Both of these, as well as other facets of Henry's characterization, are frequently treated by the writers de regimine principum.¹⁹ Most of Henry's actions in these two respects are not found in the chronicles; Ford's creation of them probably is influenced by the political theories of his day.

In the play, economy is Henry's constant concern. When the Cornish rebel because of his taxes, he says:

Wee'le not abate one pennie, what in Parliament
Hath freely beene contributed; we must not;
Money giues soule to action; Our Competitor,
The Flemish Counterfeit, with Iames of Scotland,
Will proue, what courage neede, and want, can nourish
Without the foode of fit supplyes.

(III. 27-32)

After the Cornish have been defeated, Henry orders “the Collection of our Subsidies / Through all the West, and that speedily” (III. 106-107). Later, he contrasts his financial policies with those of James:

Such voluntarie favours as our people
In dutie ayde vs with, wee never scatter'd
On Cobweb Parasites, or lavish't out
In ryot, or a needlesse hospitalitie:
No undeserving favourite doth boast
His issues from our treasury; our charge
Flowes through all Europe, prooving vs but steward
Of every contribution, which provides
Against the creeping Cankar of Disturbance.

(IV. 398-406)

To illustrate the use of counsel, Ford devotes three scenes to the varying reactions of Henry, James, and Warbeck to unpleasant but honest advice: Henry, despite the shock of Stanley's treason, defers to his advisers (I. 439-451); James rudely rejects Huntley's protests about Warbeck (II. 307-354); and Warbeck responds to Frion's counsel with ungoverned passion (IV. 109-137). Ford's views on money and counsel have numerous parallels among the works de regimine principum.²⁰

While indebted to any and all philosophers for his particulars, Ford's overall outlook is that of the more pragmatic ones, such as Bacon and Machiavelli. Machiavelli states his position when he says:

For many Republics and Princedoms have been imagined that were never seen or known to exist in reality. And the manner in which we live, and that in which we ought to live, are things so wide asunder, that he who quits the one to betake himself to the other is more likely to destroy than to save himself.

(Ch. XV, p. 53)

Bacon has the same viewpoint,²¹ for he finds in Henry a practicality not seen by previous historians: Henry's use of the laws without their impeding his will, his attending battle partially from distrust of his aides, his tendency to increase fines when decreasing a punishment. Ford, although he does not follow Bacon's specific points of emphasis, uses the same general approach.

Is Perkin Warbeck affected by contemporary events? Does Ford support or oppose Charles I? Struble has considered these questions and concluded that the play sides with the lawyers, led by Coke, in a struggle against Stuart absolutism and Divine Right: “What more natural, then, than a young barrister [Ford], who was also a dramatist, should endeavour tactfully to insinuate against the pernicious dogma which the legal profession felt must lead to anarchy?” (p. 33).

This interpretation of Perkin Warbeck is open to question.²² For one thing, although the play clearly criticizes excessive dependence upon Divine Right, Henry at times supports it. Not only does he believe his throne guarded by “Angells” (I. 73) but he sees as sacrilegious the rebelling Cornish, whose “disobedience, like the sonnes 'oth earth, / Throw a defiance 'gainst the face of Heaven” (III. 3-5). More than once Henry stresses not the duties but the privileges of sovereignty. Surrey speakes for his king when he states that “In affayres / ‘Of Princes, Subjects cannot trafficke rights’ / Inherent to the Crowne” (IV. 47-49). Henry supports the rights of sovereignty when he calls his taxes “voluntarie favours as our people / In dutie ayde vs with” (IV. 398-399) and when he states that the Cornish by rebelling “Denie vs what is ours, nay, spurne their liues / Of which they are but owners by our gift” (IV. 413-415). Hence Perkin Warbeck does not deny Divine Right. Rather, Ford accepts the theory while pointing out that it must be implemented intelligently.

Furthermore, Ford's education at and subsequent connection with the Middle Temple do not prove him hostile to the throne. In fact, at this time the Inns of Court were seeking royal favor, principally to atone for the notorious Histrio-Mastix (1633) of William Prynne, utter-barrister and pamphleteer of Lincoln's Inn, when they presented for Their Majesties a sumptuous masque, The Triumph of Peace, written by James Shirley.²³ Also uncertain is Ford's relationship with the Middle Temple during his dramatic career; aside from several dedications and commendatory verses in his plays,²⁴ nothing connects him with the legal profession. Nor as a playwright does Ford seem to have been a prominent figure in the organization; its masques during this period were written by Shirley and D'Avenant. Whitelocke, master of the revels for the Middle Temple, makes no mention of Ford in his lengthy Memorials.

The hypothesis that Perkin Warbeck criticizes Charles I also must explain Ford's dedication of the earliest edition of the play (1634) to the Earl of Newcastle. In 1633 and 1634 Newcastle was host to Their Majesties in two costly entertainments at Welbeck and Bolsover. It seems unlikely that Ford, in what appears to be a bid for patronage,²⁵ would submit a play attacking Charles to a lord so openly seeking royal favor.²⁶

As for possible allusion to contemporary events, Perkin Warbeck in many ways seems closer to English foreign policy than to the Divine Right issue. As Gardiner and other modern historians of the Stuart period have stated, there were in the early 1630's two conflicting views on foreign affairs: one favored isolation, the other involvement in continental matters. A leading isolationist was the Lord Treasurer, Richard Weston, Earl of Portland. Weston discouraged English intervention in the Thirty Years' War because he believed that wars cost money and that money in turn would force Charles to call upon Parliament for aid. Charles, probably recalling the militarily and financially disastrous campaigns of the late Buckingham, as well as the recalcitrant Parliament of 1629, seems to have inclined towards Weston's views; there is evidence that in 1634 Charles was against involvement in the Palatinate dispute.²⁷ Admittedly, in the play Warbeck and James exemplify highhanded sovereignty, but to confine political allusion to them is to overlook Ford's carefully developed idealization of Henry, who as a peace-seeking and financially astute ruler has aims much like those of Weston.²⁸ One should also recall Ford's earlier A Line of Life, which praises James I as a peacemaker.²⁹

The question of a more specific allusion in Perkin Warbeck is raised by Gardiner's comments on Massinger's Believe as You List. In this drama, licensed in 1631, Gardiner sees an extended and pointed allusion to Charles and Weston which criticizes them for not giving military and financial aid to Charles's brother-in-law Frederick, the Elector Palatine.³⁰ If one accepted Gardiner's interpretation of Believe as You List, one might regard Perkin Warbeck as counterpropaganda. That is, whereas Massinger would represent Frederick as the shamelessly deserted Antiochus, Ford would represent him as the presumptuous Warbeck,³¹ who involves James IV in futile fighting and expenditures.³² However, Perkin Warbeck does not contain the specific parallels to current affairs that Massinger's play seemingly does, and the likelihood of allusion in the latter is no argument for allusion in the former. Furthermore, the topic of a fallen prince was a popular one, so presumably familiar to both playwrights.³³

Kingship, then, is one of Ford's main concerns in Perkin Warbeck. This intention is revealed both by the structure of his play and by his deviations from Bacon and Gainsford. Reasons for the unique nature of his political emphasis, especially his idealization of Henry VII, are provided by Henry's general reputation, Ford's A Line of Life, and the treatises de regimine principum. The matter of Ford's supporting or attacking Charles I—and perhaps the playwright is entirely disinterested—may never be settled; at any rate, the interpretation of Perkin Warbeck as a criticism of Stuart absolutism seems doubtful.

Notes

1. Of help to the reader may be the following summary of Bacon's account of the Warbeck episode in his History of the Reign of King Henry VII, Ford's chief source: Perkin Warbeck, a comely and clever Flemish youth, claims he is Richard Duke of York, second son of Edward IV, and hence the rightful king of England. One of his English supporters, Sir William Stanley (Henry's Lord Chamberlain), confesses treason and is executed. Warbeck, abandoning an invasion of Kent when finding the subjects loyal, goes to Scotland, where he is accepted as Richard by James IV and marries Katherine Gordon. James and Warbeck make an incursion into Northumberland but withdraw when no Englishmen support Warbeck. The Cornish rebel over Henry's taxes; Henry defeats them at Blackheath. James makes a second border raid but retires when Surrey comes to the aid of Durham. When James and Henry agree to a truce, James dismisses Warbeck, who invades England, besieges Exeter, flees to sanctuary, and is captured. Trying to escape from prison, Warbeck is caught and executed. See The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding, Robert L. Ellis, and Douglas D. Heath (Boston, 1857-1864), XI, 199-305.

2. Scholars denying political emphasis in Perkin Warbeck are Ashley H. Thorndike, Tragedy (Boston, 1908), p. 227; Felix E. Schelling, Typical Elizabethan Plays (New York, 1928), p. 672; M. Joan Sargeaunt, John Ford (Oxford, 1935), p. 69; and Lord David Cecil, The Fine Art of Reading (Indianapolis, 1957), pp. 115-116. Those affirming it are Mildred C. Struble, A Critical Edition of Ford's Perkin Warbeck (Seattle, 1926), pp. 30-37; Henry W. Wells, Elizabethan and Jacobean Playwrights New York, 1939), p. 106; U. M. Ellis-Fermor, The Jacobean Drama (London, 1936), p. 233; Robert Davril, Le Drame de John Ford (Paris, 1954), p. 378; and Irving Ribner, The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare (Princeton, 1957), pp. 299-305.

3. Struble, p. 33, and Ribner, p. 302. Ribner cites Struble and agrees with her.

4. This and all subsequent references to Perkin Warbeck are from Struble's edition.

5. See, for example, Bacon, XI, 264 and 275.

6. No historian presents the overbearing king of Ford's play. Vergil, Halle, Holinshed, and Bacon admit of alternatives: either James was deceived or he feigned belief as a pretext to war on Henry. Buchanan and Gainsford state that James's advisers first advocated aid to Warbeck and that the king merely voted along with them. See Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia, ed. and trans. Denys Hay (London, 1950), p. 87; Edward Halle, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York (London, 1550), xxxix; Raphael Holinshed, Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (London, 1808), III, 463; Bacon, XI, 249; George Buchanan, History of Scotland (London, 1733), II, 105; and Thomas Gainsford, The True and Wonderful History of Perkin Warbeck (appendix to Struble's edition of Perkin Warbeck), p. 191.

7. In Bacon (XI, 279-280) this refusal to make restitution is attributed to the Scottish commissioners, not to James.

8. Ford introduces these advisers into the story much earlier than do Bacon and Gainsford, his two principal sources, who first mention them after Warbeck has left Scotland.

9. For Ford's use of Gainsford, see Struble, “The Indebtedness of Ford to Gainsford,” Anglia, XLIX (1924), 80-91, and E. Koeppel, Quellen-Studien zu den Dramen Chapman's Massinger's und J. F.'s (Strassburg, 1897), p. 189.

10. Bacon also implies avarice in Henry's subsidies from Parliament in connection with the border raids of James and Warbeck: “His wars were always to him as a mine of treasure of a strange kind of ore; iron at the top, and gold and silver at the bottom” (XI, 263).

11. Gainsford, Trus History of the Earl of Tyrone (London, 1619), Introduction, p. 4. See also John J. O'Connor, “A Lost Play of Perkin Warbeck,” MLN, LXX (December, 1955), 566. There is no indication that Ford knew this drama. No evidence suggests that it was ever printed, but Ford might have seen it acted. There is always the chance that Ford had a manuscript, that a friend wrote the lost play, or that Ford himself wrote it. On the other hand, his presence in London does not prove that he saw the play. About the content of the lost work, we know only what Gainsford tells us.

12. Andre calls him “sapientissimus”; Vergil, “wise and prudent” (p. 145). Halle entitles his section on Henry's reign “the politike gouernance” (Introduction); Holinshed praises him for his “politike prouision” (III, 542). For Bernard Andre, see Memorials of King Henry the Seventh, ed. James Gairdner (London, 1858), p. 74.

13. Elyot (1531) praises him at length for his “circumspection,” Davies (1603) refers to him as “England's Salomon” and “spectacle of Kingly providence,” and Raleigh (1614) states that he “always weighted his undertakings by his abilities; leaving nothing more to hazard than so much as cannot be denied it in all human actions.” See Sir Thomas Elyot, The Governour, ed. Ernest Rhys (London, 1907), p. 101; Sir John Davies, Microcosmus (London, 1603), p. 152; and Sir Walter Raleigh, The History of the World (London, 1687), I, xiv.

14. See Vergil, p. 145, and Halle, lxi.

15. Among the chroniclers, Holinshed is favorable (III, 542); Speed, critical. Among the other writers, Warner and Taylor charge avarice but Spenser is complimentary. Aleyn, writing several years after Ford, admits that Henry's desire for money was “the noted blemish of his time” but argues that the king saw “the Exigents / The want of Treasure, brought some Princes to, / And taught himselfe by these experiements / The danger to be unprovided so.” See John Speed, The History of Great Britaine (London, 1623). p. 740; William Warner, Albions England (London, 1602), p. 186; John Taylor, The Workes of John Taylor, the Water-Poet (London, 1630), p. 315; Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene, II.10.75, lines 1-5; and Charles Aleyn, The Historie of Henrie the Seventh (London, 1638), p. 149.

16. Among the authorities cited—usually for short quotations—are Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Pliny, Plutarch, Seneca, and Horace. Seneca and Pliny are used more frequently, and the former's dictum “Let a publike man rejoyce in the true pleasures of a constant resolution” could be taken as the theme of Ford's pamphlet. See Ford, Honour Triumphant; and A Line of Life, reprinted from the original copies published in 1606 and 1620 (London: Printed for the Shakespeare Society, 1843), p. 48.

17. This similarity between Henry VII and James I is noted in 1621 by William Slatyer, who refers to James as “Jacobus, of him a plant of that pacifique Oliue, fortunate Peace-maker, of famous memorie HENRY the seuenth; now anew also planting peace, and vniting foure Kingdomes” and dedicates his book to “Potentissimo, simvlac serenissimo Iacobo.” See The History of Great Britaine (London, 1621), iii.

18. The number and variety of these treatises were considerable. Gilbert estimates, “Between the years 800 and 1700 there were accessible some thousand books and large, easily distinguished sections of books telling the king how to conduct himself.” See Allan H. Gilbert, Machiavelli's Prince and Its Forerunners (Durham, North Carolina, 1938), p. 4.

19. There is a similarity between Ford's idealization of Henry and the chapter headings used by the writers de regimine principum. The following comparison of Erasmus and Machiavelli is offered by Gilbert (p. 15) to illustrate the traditional nature of these headings: Erasmus's are “On the prince's avoidance of flattery,” “On taxes and exactions,” “On the good deeds of the prince,” “On magistrates and their duties,” and “On treaties”; Machiavelli's are “In what way flatterers are to be escaped,” “On liberality and parsimony,” “What a prince should do that he may be held excellent,” “On those things because of which men and especially princes are praised or blamed,” “On those whom princes choose as secretaries,” and “In what way faith is kept by princes.”

20. In regard to money, James I, in his Basilicon Doron, states, “Before ye take on warre, play the wise Kings part described by Christ; foreseeing how ye may beare it out with all necessarie prouision: especially remember, that money is Neruus belli”; Erasmus, “The most desirable way of increasing the revenue is to cut off the worse than useless extravagances, to abolish the idle ministries, and to avoid wars and long travels.” Machiavelli says that the prudent prince will not object to being called miserly, for eventually he will be thought more liberal when it is seen that by his parsimony he has acquired sufficient revenue. As for counsel, Machiavelli believes that a prince should consult his advisers about everything (Ch. XXIII, p. 80); Raleigh, in his Maxims of State, says that two eyes are better than one and that a king should “not lean overmuch to his own advice”; and Bacon, in his essay “Of Counsel” (XII, 146), states, “The wisest princes need not think it any diminution to their greatness, or derogation to their sufficiency, to rely on counsel.” See James I, The Political Works of James I, ed. C. H. McIlwain (Cambridge, Mass., 1918), p. 29; Desiderius Erasmus, The Education of a Christian Prince, ed. and trans. Lester K. Born (New York, 1936), pp. 215-216; Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Ninian H. Thomson (New York, 1910), Ch. XVI, p. 55; Raleigh, Remains of Sr. Walter Raleigh (London, 1675), p. 32.

21. Bacon was familiar with Machiavelli's writings; he refers to them five times in his Advancement of Learning and four times in his essays. Raleigh in Maxims of State and Aleyn in The Historie of Henrie the Seventh also cite Machiavelli.

22. Bentley disagrees with Struble on this point: “This [Struble's] contention is wholly unjustified by the evidence cited from the play and most improbable in the light of the recorded actions of Sir Henry Herbert, of the licensers for the press, and of the attitude of Ford and his friend James Shirley to the reforming lawyer, William Prynne, as set forth in 1632/33 in the front matter for Love's Sacrifice.” See Gerald E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage (Oxford, 1941-1956), III, 455. Bentley is here referring to Ford's censure of those who “dote on their own singularity” and to Shirley's castigation of one “‘voluminously’—ignorant” for his “impudence” and “malice to the Stage.”

23. Such a reason for this masque is given by Whitelocke, who in 1628 was chosen master of the revels and treasurer of the Middle Temple: “This [the giving of the masque] was hinted at in the court, and by them intimated to the chief of these societies [the four Inns], that it would be well taken from them, and some held it the more seasonable, because this action would manifest the difference of their opinion from Mr. Prynne's new learning, and serve to confute his Histrio-Mastix.” See Bulstrode Whitelocke, Memorials (London, 1853), I, 53.

24. Edward Greenfield addresses his commendatory verses for The Fancies Chaste and Noble to “Master John Ford, of the Middle Temple”; Ford dedicates The Lover's Melancholy to, among others, “all the rest of the noble society of Gray's Inn” and dedicates Love's Sacrifice to “my worthiest kinsman, John Ford, of Gray's Inn, Esq.”

25. Famous authors who enjoyed the patronage of Newcastle were Jonson, Shirley, and Hobbes. See Henry Ten Eyck Perry, The First Duchess of Newcastle and Her Husband as Figures in Literary History (Boston, 1918), pp. 89, 95, and 100.

26. Newcastle's goal was the highly coveted post of tutor to Prince Charles, a position that he finally obtained on March 19, 1637/1638 (Perry, p. 18).

27. Whitelocke states (I, 64-65) that in 1634 Chancellor Oxenstierne of Sweden sent his son, “Grave John,” as ambassador to England. “But [the latter] was … so unworthily slighted in our Court who were not willing to give any assistance to the prince elector against the emperor, that in great distaste, Grave John … went away in discontent from England, and neither he nor his father nor family were friends to our king after this affront put upon; which I have cause to know.”

28. Searching for contemporary allusion in literature is always precarious. Hence it is not idle to cite an undeniable instance of it in Stuart drama: Middleton's A Game of Chess (1624), a bold attack on Spain that incurred royal displeasure. This is, of course, no proof that Perkin Warbeck must allude to current events; in fact, one could argue that Ford's knowledge of the king's reaction prompted the playwright to make no allusions whatsoever, or at least favorable rather than unfavorable ones.

29. An examination of Perkin Warbeck reveals Ford's interest in peace. Peace appears twenty-two times, and over two-thirds of these require the meaning of “friendly international relationship” (I. 13; II. 285; III. 12, 42, 322, and 387; IV. 17, 64, 182, 203, 213, 225, 232, and 255; and V. 124). State, in the abstract sense of “matters of government,” is used four times (II. 406, IV. 254 and 407, and V. 124), amitie is used three times (II. 295, III. 313, and IV. 180), and league is used three times (III. 388 and IV. 180 and 235).

30. Gardiner believes that the play was the one refused a license by Sir Henry Herbert and that this was done not because, as Herbert records, it contained “dangerous matter, as the deposing of Sebastian, King of Portugal,” but because it pointed to Frederick. Gardiner contends that the actions of Massinger's Antiochus (dismissed by Prusias) are much closer to those of Frederick than to those of Sebastian. See Samuel R. Gardiner, “The Political Element in Massinger,” The Contemporary Review (August, 1876), pp. 495-507.

31. Frederick had died in 1632, but his supporters continued to press the claim of his son. In the summer of 1633 Nethersole sought to raise money in England for Frederick's widow and children through voluntary contributions. See Gardiner, History of England 1603-1642 (London, 1901-1905), VII, 343.

32. Any allusion seen in Perkin Warbeck is made more tentative by the uncertain date of its composition. The earliest known edition was printed in 1634, but Ford could have written the play as early as 1622, the year Bacon's History appeared. Granting this possibility, Ford still could be alluding to the Palatinate issue, for it had been a prominent one throughout the 1620's. On the other hand, no evidence proves that he wrote Perkin Warbeck before 1633.

33. A noteworthy example is Gainsford's True History of the Earl of Tyrone (1619), which has the thesis that there is “no confidence in Princes, further then the reuolts of others may second their own businesse,” for among his illustrations Gainsford includes Warbeck, Sebastian, and Prusias (Introduction, pp. 2-5).