in the end, by hanging some men and
seizing on the rich possessions of others;
and granting more popular pardons to the
followers of the late King than could, at
first, be got from him; and by employing
about his Court some not very scrupulous
persons who had been employed in the previous
reign.

As this reign was principally remarkable
for two very curious impostures which have
become famous in history, we will make those
two stories its principal feature:

There was a priest at Oxford of the name of
Simons, who had for a pupil a handsome boy
named Lambert Simnel, who was the son of a
baker. Partly to gratify his own ambitious
ends, and partly to carry out the designs of a
secret party formed against the King, this
priest declared that his pupil, the boy, was
no other than the young Earl of Warwick;
who (as everybody might have known) was
safely locked up in the Tower of London.
The priest and the boy went over to Ireland,
and at Dublin enlisted in their cause all ranks
of the people: who seem to have been generous
enough, but exceedingly irrational. The
Earl of Kildare, the governor of Ireland,
declared that he believed the boy to be what
the priest represented; and the boy, who had
been well tutored by the priest, told them
such things of his childhood, and gave them
so many descriptions of the Royal family,
that they were perpetually shouting and
hurrahing, and drinking his health, and making
all kinds of noisy and thirsty demonstrations,
to express their belief in him. Nor was
this feeling confined to Ireland alone, for the
Earl of Lincoln whom the late usurper had
named as his successor, went over to the
young Pretender; and, after holding a secret
correspondence with the Dowager Duchess
of Burgundy—the sister of Edward the
Fourth, who detested the present King and
all his race—sailed to Dublin with two
thousand German soldiers of her providing.
In this promising state of the boy's fortunes,
he was crowned there, with a crown taken off
the head of a statue of the Virgin Mary;
and was then, according to the Irish custom
of those days, carried home on the shoulders
of a big chieftain possessing a great deal more
strength than sense. Father Simons, you
may be sure, was mighty busy at the coronation.

Ten days afterwards, the Germans, and
the Irish, and the priest, and the boy, and
the Earl of Lincoln, all landed in Lancashire
to invade England. The King, who had good
intelligence of their movements, set up his
standard at Nottingham, where vast numbers
resorted to him every day, while the Earl of
Lincoln could gain but very few. With his
small force he tried to make for the town of
Newark; but the King's army, getting between
him and that place, he had no choice
but to risk a battle at Stoke. It soon ended
in tke complete destruction of the Pretender's
forces, one half of whom were killed; among
them, the Earl himself. The priest and the
baker's boy were taken prisoners. The priest,
after confessing the trick, was shut up in
prison, where he afterwards died—suddenly
perhaps; the boy was taken into the King's
kitchen and made a turnspit. He was afterwards
raised to the station of one of the
King's falconers and so ended this strange
imposition.

There seems reason to suspect that the
Dowager Queen—always a restless and busy
woman—had had some share in tutoring the
baker's son. The King was very angry with
her, whether or no. He seized upon her property,
and shut her up in a convent at Bermondsey.

One might suppose that the end of this
story would have put the Irish people on
their guard; but, they were quite ready to
receive a second impostor, as they had received
the first, and that same troublesome
Duchess of Burgundy soon gave them the
opportunity. All of a sudden there appeared
at Cork, in a vessel arriving from Portugal,
a young man of excellent abilities, of
very handsome appearance and most winning
manners, who declared himself to be Richard,
Duke of York, the second son of King Edward
the Fourth. "O," said some, even of those
ready Irish believers; " but surely that young
Prince was murdered by his uncle in the
Tower! "—" It is supposed so," said the
engaging young man; " and my brother was
killed in that gloomy prison; but I escaped
—it don't matter how, at present—and have
been wandering about the world for seven
long years." This explanation being quite
satisfactory to numbers of the Irish people,
they began again to shout and to hurrah, and
to drink his health, and to make the noisy and
thirsty demonstrations all over again. And
the big chieftain in Dublin began to look
out for another coronation, and another
young King to be carried home on his back.

Now, King Henry being then on bad
terms with France, the French King, Charles
the Eighth saw that, by pretending to believe
in the handsome young man, he could trouble
his enemy sorely. So, he invited him over
to the French Court, and appointed him a
body-guard, and treated him in all respects
as if he really were the Duke of York.
Peace, however, being soon concluded between
the two Kings, the pretended Duke was
turned adrift, and wandered for protection
to the Duchess of Burgundy. She, after
feigning to inquire into the reality of his
claims, declared him to be the very picture
of her dear departed brother; gave him a
body-guard at her Court, of thirty halberdiers;
and called him by the sounding name
of the White Rose of England.

The leading members of the White Rose
party in England sent over an agent, named
Sir Robert Clifford, to ascertain whether the
White Rose's claims were good; the King