e King for Perkin's life only, leaving him otherwise to the
King's discretion. Many about the King were again more hot than ever to
have the King take him forth and hang him. But the King, that had a high
stomach and could not hate any that he despised, bid, "Take him forth and
set the knave in the stocks"; and so, promising the prior his life, he
caused him to be brought forth. And within two or three days after, upon
a scaffold set up in the palace court at Westminster, he was fettered and
set in the stocks for the whole day. And the next day after the like was
done by him at the cross in Cheapside, and in both places he read his
confession, of which we made mention before; and was from Cheapside
conveyed and laid up in the Tower.

But it was ordained that this winding-ivy of a Plantagenet should kill
the true tree itself. For Perkin, after he had been a while in the Tower,
began to insinuate himself into the favor and kindness of his keepers,
servants of the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Digby, being four in
number--Strangeways, Blewet, Astwood, and Long Roger. These varlets, with
mountains of promises, he sought to corrupt, to obtain his escape; but
knowing well that his own fortunes were made so contemptible as he could
feed no man's hopes, and by hopes he must work, for rewards he had none,
he had contrived with himself a vast and tragical plot; which was, to
draw into his company Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, then prisoner
in the Tower, whom the weary life of a long imprisonment, and the often
and renewing fears of being put to death, had softened to take any
impression of counsel for his liberty.

This young Prince he thought these servants would look upon, though not
upon himself; and therefore, after that, by some message by one or two of
them, he had tasted of the Earl's consent, it was agreed that these four
should murder their master, the lieutenant, secretly, in the night, and
make their best of such money and portable goods of his as they should
find ready at hand, and get the keys of the Tower, and presently let
forth Perkin and the Earl. But this conspiracy was revealed in time,
before it could be executed. And in this again the opinion of the King's
great wisdom did surcharge him with a sinister fame, that Perkin was but
his bait to entrap the Earl of Warwick. And in the very instant while
this conspiracy was in working, as if that also had been the King's
industry, it was fated that there s