homage belonging to a real king: she appointed him a guard of thirty halberdiers, and styled him the "White Rose of England." On all occasions her conduct towards him was that of an affectionate aunt, who regarded him as the head of her family, and the heir of the brightest crown in Europe.
This full acknowledgment by the duchess of the claims of the pretended prince produced the most wonderful effect on the English in Flanders, and excited a corresponding sensation in England. Not merely the common people, but men of the highest rank, who hated Henry, showed a powerful inclination to favour the pretensions of Warbeck.
Lord Fitzwater, Sir Simon Montfort, and Sir Thomas Thwaites were avowed partisans. Sir Robert Clifford and William Barley hastened over to Brussels to satisfy themselves of the real merits of the case. They were admitted by the duchess to converse with Perkin at their utmost liberty; and the result was that Sir Robert wrote to England that, as his friends there knew, he was well acquainted with the person of the Duke of York, and, after full and satisfactory examination, he was perfectly certain that this was the very prince, and that there could not be a doubt upon the subject. Information of so positive a character, from a man of so distinguished a position and reputation, produced the profoundest effect in England. The conspiracy grew amain, and an active correspondence was kept up betwixt the malcontents in Flanders and at home, for the dethronement of Henry and the restoration of the house of York.
It is not to be supposed that the tempest which was gathering around Henry had escaped his attention. On the contrary, he was aware of all that was passing, and with the caution and concealment of his character, he was at work to counteract the operations of his enemies. The first object with him was to convince the public that the real Duke of York had perished at the same time as his brother, Edward V. Nothing, he concluded, would be so effectual for this purpose as the evidence of those who had always been hold to be concerned in the death of the young princes. Of five implicated, according to universal belief, two only now survived, namely, Sir James Tyrrel—who had taken the place of Sir Robert Brackenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower, during the night of the murder—and John Dighton, one of the actual assassins. These two were secured and interrogated, and their evidence was precisely that which we have stated when relating the murder of the princes. The bodies, therefore, were sought for, but as the chaplain was dead who was supposed to have witnessed their removal, according to the order of Richard III., they could not then be found and produced. The testimony of Tyrrel and Dighton, however, was published and circulated as widely as possible, and these two miscreants, after their full and frank avowal of the perpetration of this diabolical murder, were, to the disgrace of the king and of public justice, again allowed to go free. Every one, however, must perceive at once how important it was to Henry that the real witnesses of that murder should exist, and be forth-coming to confound any one pretending to be either of these princes.
Henry next applied to the Archduke Philip, the son of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, and now sovereign of the Netherlands in his own right, to deliver up to him the impostor, Warbeck, who, he contended, was entertained in his dominions contrary to the existing treaties, and the amity betwixt the two sovereigns. But Margaret had the influence to render his application abortive. Philip professed to have every desire to oblige his great ally, Henry of England, but he pleaded that Margaret was sole ruler in her own states, and, though he might advise her in this matter, he could not control her. Henry resented the polite evasion by stopping all commercial intercourse between England and the Low Countries, by banishing all Flemings from his dominions, and recalling his own subjects from Flanders; and Philip retaliated by issuing similar edicts.
Henry, resolved to undermine and explode the whole conspiracy, dispatched his spies in all directions among the Yorkists. He sent over gentlemen of rank and position to Brussels, where Margaret held her court, to pretend adhesion to Perkin Warbeck, and thus to insinuate themselves into the confidence of the leaders of the party. These gentlemen Henry pretended to regard as the most vile traitors; he denounced them as outlaws, and had them publicly excommunicated with every sign of resentment and show of contumely. Regarded, therefore, as martyrs to the cause of Warbeck, they were all the more patronised by that adventurer and Margaret, and soon made themselves masters of the whole of their plot, and the list of their accomplices in England. They succeeded in bringing over Sir Robert Clifford and his associate, William Barley, if, indeed, Clifford had not been in Henry's pay from the first, for he was a Lancastrian, and a son of that Clifford who so ruthlessly slew the young Earl of Rutland at Wakefield. Clifford, who stood high in the favour of Margaret and Warbeck was consequently a most dangerous enemy.
Prepared with a catalogue of all the secret supporters of the plot in England, Henry suddenly arrested, on a charge of high treason, the Lord Fitzwater, Sir Simon Montfort, Sir Thomas Thwaites, Robert Ratcliffe, William Daubeney, Thomas Cressemer, and Thomas Astwood. Besides these, various clergymen were also seized; amongst them, Sir William Richeford, Doctor of Divinity, and Sir Thomas Poynes, both of them friars of St. Dominick's order; Dr. William Button; Sir William Worseley, Dean of St. Paul's; Sir Richard Lessey; and Robert Layborne. All these were arraigned, convicted, and condemned for high treason, as aiders and encouragers of Perkin Warbeck. Fitzwater, Ratcliffe, Montfort, and Daubeney were executed; Fitzwater not in the first instance, but, having been consigned to prison in Calais, he was soon convicted of endeavouring to bribe his keeper in order to his escape, and was then put to death. Those of the clerical order were reprimanded, and set at liberty; but, says the chronicler, few of them lived long after.
This seizure of so many who were engaged in this conspiracy, struck terror through all who were guilty. They saw that they were betrayed; they could not tell who were the traitors, and numbers of them fled instantly into the nearest sanctuaries.
But there remained a conspirator far higher than any who had yet been unveiled—a conspirator where it was least expected, in the immediate vicinity of the throne, and in the person who more than all others, perhaps,
