For a time Warbeck remained in Scotland; but when King James discovered that his continued presence at his court completely prevented all hope of a lasting peace with England, he requested him to leave the country.  The Flemings meanwhile had passed a law barring his retreat into the Low Countries.  Therefore, after hiding for a time in the wilds of Ireland, he resolved to try the affections of the men of Cornwall.  No sooner did he land at Bodmin, than the people crowded to his banners in such numbers, that the pretender, hopeful of success, took upon himself for the first time the title of Richard IV., king of England.  Not to suffer the expectation of his followers to languish, he laid siege to Exeter; but the men of Exeter, having shut their gates in his face, waited with confidence for the coming of the king.  Nor were they disappointed.  The Lords D’Aubeney and Broke were despatched with a small body of troops to the relief of the city.  The leading nobles offered their services as volunteers, and the king, at the head of a considerable army, prepared to follow his advanced guard.  Perkin’s followers, who numbered about 7000 men, would have stood by him; but the cowardly Fleming, despairing of success, secretly withdrew to the sanctuary of Beaulieu.  The Cornish rebels accepted the king’s clemency, and Lady Gordon, the wife of the pretender, fell into the hands of the royalists.  To Henry’s credit it must be mentioned that he did not visit the sins of the husband upon the poor deluded wife, but placed her in attendance upon the queen, and bestowed upon her a pension which she continued to enjoy throughout his reign, and even after his death.

It was a difficult matter to know how to deal with the impostor himself.  It would have been easy to make the privileges of the church yield to reasons of state, and to take him by violence from the sanctuary; but at the same time it was wise to respect the rights of the clergy and the prejudices of the people.  Therefore agents were appointed to treat with the counterfeit prince, and succeeded in inducing him, by promises that his life would be spared, to deliver himself up to King Henry.  Once a captive, he was treated with derision rather than with extreme severity, and was led in a kind of mock triumph to London.  As he passed along the road, and through the streets of the city, men of all grades assembled to see the impostor, and cast ridicule upon his fallen fortunes; and the farce was ended by the publication of a confession in which Warbeck narrated his real parentage, and the chief causes of his presumption to royal honours.