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The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck

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Title page from an 1857 edition ofPerkin Warbeck

The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: A Romanceis an 1830historical novelbyMary Shelleyabout the life ofPerkin Warbeck.The book takes aYorkistpoint of view and proceeds from the conceit that Perkin Warbeck died in childhood and the supposed impostor was indeedRichard of Shrewsbury.Henry VII of Englandis repeatedly described as a "fiend" who hatesElizabeth of York,his wife and Richard's sister, and the futureHenry VIII,mentioned only twice in the novel, is a vile youth who abuses dogs. Her preface establishes that records of theTower of London,as well as the histories ofEdward Hall,Raphael Holinshed,andFrancis Bacon,the letters ofSir John Ramsayto Henry VII that are printed in the Appendix toJohn Pinkerton's History of Scotland[1]establish this as fact. Each chapter opens with a quotation. The entire book is prefaced with a quotation in French byGeorges ChastellainandJean Molinet.

Plot and themes

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In this novel, Mary Shelley returned toThe Last Man's message that an idealistic political system is impossible without an improvement in human nature.[2]Thishistorical novel,influenced by those ofSir Walter Scott,[3]fictionalises the exploits of Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the throne ofKing Henry VIIwho claimed to beRichard, Duke of York,the second son ofKing Edward IV.

Shelley believed that Warbeck really was Richard and had escaped from theTower of London.[4]She endows his character with elements of Percy Shelley, portraying him sympathetically as "anangelicessence, incapable of wound ", who is led by his sensibility onto the political stage.[5]She seems to have identified herself with Richard's wife, Lady Katherine Gordon, who survives after her husband's death by compromising with his political enemies.[6]

Lady Gordon stands for the values of friendship, domesticity and equality; through her, Mary Shelley offers a female alternative to the masculine power politics that destroy Richard, as well as the typical historical narrative which only relates those events.[7]

Shelley also creates a strong female character in the round-faced, half-Moor, half-Fleming, Monina de Faro, Richard's adoptive sister, whom Robin Clifford demands as his wife. Monina is a versatile young lady who acts as decoy, messenger, and military organizer, in addition to her close friendship with both Richard and Katherine. Robin Clifford epitomizes mixed loyalties—an old friend descended from Lancastrians, who is constantly divided against himself. Stephen Frion, secretary to Henry VII and betrayed by him, is an elder foil, whose loyalties shift back and forth dependent on Henry's grace, whereas Clifford's wavering is based on genuine emotion.

The book opens immediately after theBattle of Bosworthon August 22, 1485 (a scanning error in theDodo Press2000 edition gives the date as 1415). Three knights are fleeing from the battle, Sir Henry Stafford, Lord Lovel, and Edmund Plantagenet, although the latter two are not identified until they split from Stafford and arrive at a church. All three are members of the defeated Yorkist contingency.

With the aid of John de la Pole, the Earl of Lincoln, Lovel and Edmund are involved in spiriting away Richard, Duke of York into the hands of Mynheer Jahn Warbeck, a Flemish moneylender who had previously housed him and pretended that Richard was his deceased son, Perkin Warbeck. This is not considered safe enough for the youth at the present time, so it is arranged for Richard to go with Madeline de Faro, Warbeck's 25-year-old sister. Madeline is married to mariner Hernan de Faro, and the two have a daughter named Monina, and Richard and Monina develop a strong sibling bond, Richard aware he could never marry a commoner. It is she who rescues and nurses him back to health after his first taste of battle in theGranada War.

Characters

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in flashbacks

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Quotations

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Each chapter opens with a quotation, sometimes two. The quotations come from the following authors:

Notes

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  1. ^Pinkerton, John,History of Scotland,vol.2 (1791), 438-441
  2. ^Frank, "Perkin Warbeck".
  3. ^Spark, 201; Lynch, 135-41. Mary Shelley consulted Scott while writing the book.
  4. ^"It is not singular that I should entertain a belief that Perkin was, in reality, the lost Duke of York... no person who has at all studied the subject but arrives at the same conclusion." Mary Shelley, Preface toPerkin Warbeck,vi–vii, quoted in Bunnell, 131.
  5. ^Bunnell, 132; Brewer, "Perkin Warbeck".
  6. ^Wake, 246–47; Brewer, "Perkin Warbeck".
  7. ^Bunnell, 132; Lynch, 143-44.

Bibliography

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  • Bennett, Betty T. "The Political Philosophy of Mary Shelley's Historical novels:ValpergaandPerkin Warbeck".The Evidence of the Imagination.Eds. Donald H. Reiman, Michael C. Jaye, and Betty T. Bennett. New York: New York University Press, 1978.
  • Brewer, William D. "William Godwin, Chivalry, and Mary Shelley'sThe Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck".Papers on Language and Literature35.2 (Spring 1999): 187–205. Rpt. on bnet. Retrieved on 20 February 2008.
  • Bunnell, Charlene E."All the World's a Stage": Dramatic Sensibility in Mary Shelley's Novels.New York: Routledge, 2002.ISBN0-415-93863-5.
  • Garbin, Lidia. "Mary Shelley and Walter Scott:The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeckand the Historical Novel ".Mary Shelley's Fiction: From Frankenstein to Falkner.Eds. Michael Eberle-Sinatra and Nora Crook. New York: Macmillan; St. Martin's, 2000.
  • Hopkins, Lisa. "The Self and the Monstrous".Iconoclastic Departures: Mary Shelley after "Frankenstein": Essays in Honor of the Bicentenary of Mary Shelley's Birth.Eds. Syndy M. Conger, Frederick S. Frank, and Gregory O'Dea. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1997.
  • Lynch, Deidre. "Historical novelist".The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley.Ed. Esther Schor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.ISBN0-521-00770-4.
  • Sites, Melissa. "Chivalry and Utopian Domesticity in Mary Shelley'sThe Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck".European Romantic Review16.5 (2005): 525–43.
  • Spark, Muriel.Mary Shelley.London: Cardinal, 1987.ISBN0-7474-0318-X.
  • Wake, Ann M Frank. "Women in the Active Voice: Recovering Female History in Mary Shelley'sValpergaandPerkin Warbeck".Iconoclastic Departures: Mary Shelley after "Frankenstein". Essays in Honor of the Bicentenary of Mary Shelley's Birth.Ed. Syndy M. Conger, Frederick S. Frank, and Gregory O'Dea. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1997.ISBN0-8386-3684-5.
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