Perkin Warbeck - Warbeck in Popular Culture

Warbeck in Popular Culture

Warbeck's story subsequently attracted writers—most notably by the dramatist John Ford, who dramatized the story in his play Perkin Warbeck, first performed in the 1630s.

• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, best known as the author of Frankenstein, wrote a romance on the subject of Warbeck, the The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, published in London in 1830.
• Warbeck is the central character in Philip Lindsay's historical novel They Have Their Dreams.
• Warbeck features in Robert Hume's Ruling Ambition
• Channel 4 and RDF Media produced a drama about Warbeck for British television in 2005, Princes in the Tower. Directed by Justin Hardy, it starred Mark Umbers as Warbeck.
• Warbeck was portrayed by British actor Richard Warwick in the 1972 BBC television series The Shadow of the Tower.
• The American Shakespeare Center (ASC) in Staunton, Virginia, produced a comedy entitled The Brats of Clarence, written specifically for the ASC 'Blackfriars' stage by Paul Menzer. The play tracks the progress of Perkin Warbeck from the Scottish court towards London to claim his birthright as heir to the throne.
• Warbeck and his wife are characters in the novel The Crimson Crown by Edith Layton (1990). The main character is Lucas Lovat, a spy in the Court of Henry VII, and a subplot of the novel is his indecision as to whether Warbeck is, or is not, Prince Richard.
• English comedians Stewart Lee and Richard Herring both make references to Warbeck, and fellow pretender Lambert Simnel in much of their work, both as Lee and Herring and individually. Simnel & Warbeck's names have appeared sporadically throughout their material over the years.
• Warbeck's story is retold through the eyes of Grace Plantagenet in The King's Grace, by Anne Easter Smith (2009). Grace, an illegitimate daughter of Edward IV, attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding the man who claims to be her half-brother Richard.
• In Philippa Gregory's 2009 novel The White Queen, the young Duke of York is sent into hiding in Tournai, Belgium by his mother, Elizabeth Woodville, while a changeling is sent to the Tower. While in hiding, the Duke takes on the assumed name Perkin, returning as an eleven year old later in the novel, ready to reclaim his birthright.
• Warbeck is mentioned by Jennifer, the heroine of Judith McNaught's 1989 novel A Kingdom of Dreams.
• Wabeck is mentioned very briefly in the video game Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, alongside fellow pretender Lambert Simnel, as Templar pretenders to the throne attempting to secure England for the Templars.
• A public house in Taunton is named after Warbeck, a cafe and shop in Fife