utable station about the queen and assigned her a pension,
which she enjoyed even under his successor.

{1498.} Henry deliberated what course to take with Perkin himself. Some
counselled him to make the privileges of the church yield to reasons of
state, to take him by violence from the sanctuary, to inflict on him
the punishment due to his temerity, and thus at once to put an end to
an imposture which had long disturbed the government, and which the
credulity of the people and the artifices of malcontents were still
capable of reviving. But the king deemed not the matter of such
importance as to merit so violent a remedy, He employed some persons to
deal with Perkin, and persuade him, under promise of pardon, to deliver
himself into the king's hands.[*] The king conducted him in a species of
mock triumph to London. As Perkin passed along the road and through
the streets of the city, men of all ranks flocked about him, and the
populace treated with the highest derision his fallen fortunes. They
seemed desirous of revenging themselves, by their insults, for the shame
which their former belief of his impostures had thrown upon them. Though
the eyes of the nation were generally opened with regard to Perkin's
real parentage, Henry required of him a confession of his life and
adventures; and he ordered the account of the whole to be dispersed soon
after, for the satisfaction of the public. But as his regard to decency
made him entirely suppress the share which the duchess of Burgundy had
had in contriving and conducting the imposture, the people, who knew
that she had been the chief instrument in the whole affair, were
inclined, on account of the silence on that head, to pay the less credit
to the authenticity of the narrative.

* Polyd. Virg. p. 606.

{1499.} But Perkin, though his life was granted him, was still detained
in custody; and keepers were appointed to guard him. Impatient of
confinement, he broke from his keepers, and flying to the sanctuary of
Shyne, put himself into the hands of the prior of that monastery. The
prior had obtained great credit by his character of sanctity; and he
prevailed on the king again to grant a pardon to Perkin. But in order
to reduce him to still greater contempt, he was set in the stocks at
Westminster and Cheapside, and obliged in both places to read aloud to
the people the confession which had formerly been published in his name.
He was then confined to the Tower, where his ha