Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/117

A.D. 1497.] through the city, along Cheapside, Cornhill, and to the Tower, and thence to Westminster. As the king had promised him his life, he kept his word, he was repeatedly examined by the Privy Council, but it seems as if something had transpired there which Henry deemed better concealed, for a profound silence was preserved on the subject of these disclosures. So far from even being



degraded, like Lambert Simnel, to some menial occupation, Warbeck was suffered to enjoy a certain degree of liberty, and was treated as a gentleman. The probability is, that the king satisfied himself that this mysterious personage was in reality a son of Edward IV., by the handsome Jewess, Catherine de Faro, his birth being in Flanders, and agreeing exactly with the time of Edward's exile there. This might account for his admirable support of the character of a prince—for his confidence in his assertion of it for so many years, and the power he had of winning the strong attachment of persons of the highest rank and education. If this were true, he was, moreover, the queen's brother, though an illegitimate one, and might win the interest of herself and sisters by his resemblance in person, and in spirit and ambition, to her father.

But however this might be, he was too dangerous a person to be allowed to get loose again. He lived at Court under a strict surveillance, and he grew so weary of it, that he contrived to make his escape on the 8th of June, 1498. The alarm was instantly given; numbers of persons were out in pursuit of him; every road by which he might escape to sea was vigilantly beset, and the unhappy man, finding himself pressed on all sides,