The king's authority was fully established at home; and every rebellion which had been attempted against him, had hitherto tended only to confound his enemies, and consolidate his power and influence.

His reputation for policy and conduct was daily augmenting; his treasures had increased even from the most unfavorable events; the hopes of all pretenders to his throne were cut off, as well by his marriage as by the issue which it had brought him.

In this prosperous situation, the king had reason to flatter himself with the prospect of durable peace and tranquillity; but his inveterate and indefatigable enemies, whom he had wantonly provoked, raised him an adversary, who long kept him in inquietude, and sometimes even brought him into danger.
The duchess of Burgundy, full of resentment for the depression of her family and its partisans, rather irritated than discouraged by the ill success of her past enterprises, was determined at least to disturb that government which she found it so difficult to subvert.

By means of her emissaries, she propagated a report that her nephew, Richard Plantagenet, duke of York, had escaped from the Tower when his elder brother was murdered, and that he still lay somewhere concealed: and finding this rumor, however improbable, to be greedily received by the people, she had been looking out for some young man proper to personate that unfortunate prince.
There was one Osbec, or Warbec, a renegade Jew of Tournay, who had been carried by some business to London in the reign of Edward IV., and had there a son born to him.

Having had opportunities of being known to the king, and obtaining his favor, he prevailed with that prince, whose manners were very affable, to stand godfather to his son, to whom he gave the name of Peter, corrupted, after the Flemish manner, into Peterkin, or Perkin.