Royal agents that he had been in
the service of Lady Brompton, the wife of an exiled English nobleman, and
that the Duchess of Burgundy had caused him to be trained and taught,
expressly for this deception. The King then required the Archduke
Philip--who was the sovereign of Burgundy--to banish this new Pretender,
or to deliver him up; but, as the Archduke replied that he could not
control the Duchess in her own land, the King, in revenge, took the
market of English cloth away from Antwerp, and prevented all commercial
intercourse between the two countries.

He also, by arts and bribes, prevailed on Sir Robert Clifford to betray
his employers; and he denouncing several famous English noblemen as being
secretly the friends of Perkin Warbeck, the King had three of the
foremost executed at once. Whether he pardoned the remainder because
they were poor, I do not know; but it is only too probable that he
refused to pardon one famous nobleman against whom the same Clifford soon
afterwards informed separately, because he was rich. This was no other
than Sir William Stanley, who had saved the King's life at the battle of
Bosworth Field. It is very doubtful whether his treason amounted to much
more than his having said, that if he were sure the young man was the
Duke of York, he would not take arms against him. Whatever he had done
he admitted, like an honourable spirit; and he lost his head for it, and
the covetous King gained all his wealth.

Perkin Warbeck kept quiet for three years; but, as the Flemings began to
complain heavily of the loss of their trade by the stoppage of the
Antwerp market on his account, and as it was not unlikely that they might
even go so far as to take his life, or give him up, he found it necessary
to do something. Accordingly he made a desperate sally, and landed, with
only a few hundred men, on the coast of Deal. But he was soon glad to
get back to the place from whence he came; for the country people rose
against his followers, killed a great many, and took a hundred and fifty
prisoners: who were all driven to London, tied together with ropes, like
a team of cattle. Every one of them was hanged on some part or other of
the sea-shore; in order, that if any more men should come over with
Perkin Warbeck, they might see the bodies as a warning before they
landed.

Then the wary King, by making a treaty of commerce with the Flemings,
drove Perkin Warbeck out of that country; and, by completel