rmies lay opposite to each
other, he mounted a swift horse and fled. When morning dawned, the poor
confiding Cornish men, discovering that they had no leader, surrendered
to the King's power. Some of them were hanged, and the rest were
pardoned and went miserably home.
Before the King pursued Perkin Warbeck to the sanctuary of Beaulieu in
the New Forest, where it was soon known that he had taken refuge, he sent
a body of horsemen to St. Michael's Mount, to seize his wife. She was
soon taken and brought as a captive before the King. But she was so
beautiful, and so good, and so devoted to the man in whom she believed,
that the King regarded her with compassion, treated her with great
respect, and placed her at Court, near the Queen's person. And many
years after Perkin Warbeck was no more, and when his strange story had
become like a nursery tale, _she_ was called the White Rose, by the
people, in remembrance of her beauty.
The sanctuary at Beaulieu was soon surrounded by the King's men; and the
King, pursuing his usual dark, artful ways, sent pretended friends to
Perkin Warbeck to persuade him to come out and surrender himself. This
he soon did; the King having taken a good look at the man of whom he had
heard so much--from behind a screen--directed him to be well mounted, and
to ride behind him at a little distance, guarded, but not bound in any
way. So they entered London with the King's favourite show--a
procession; and some of the people hooted as the Pretender rode slowly
through the streets to the Tower; but the greater part were quiet, and
very curious to see him. From the Tower, he was taken to the Palace at
Westminster, and there lodged like a gentleman, though closely watched.
He was examined every now and then as to his imposture; but the King was
so secret in all he did, that even then he gave it a consequence, which
it cannot be supposed to have in itself deserved.
At last Perkin Warbeck ran away, and took refuge in another sanctuary
near Richmond in Surrey. From this he was again persuaded to deliver
himself up; and, being conveyed to London, he stood in the stocks for a
whole day, outside Westminster Hall, and there read a paper purporting to
be his full confession, and relating his history as the King's agents had
originally described it. He was then shut up in the Tower again, in the
company of the Earl of Warwick, who had now been there for fourteen
years: ever since his removal out of Y
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