Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/96

82 to put faith in his story. He asked, indeed, various questions of Simnel, as to his identity and the means by which he had escaped and come into the hands of a priest, himself only twenty-seven years of age. But he was easily satisfied, and, without waiting to ascertain whether the real Earl of Warwick was still in the Tower, he introduced the youth to all his friends as the genuine heir of the Plantagenets. His brother, Lord Fitzgerald, the Chancellor of Ireland, took him by the hand, assembled about him the nobility of the island and the citizens of Dublin, and promised him his protection against all his enemies and the enemies of his family. The people were enthusiastic in his favour. They conducted him in great pomp from his lodgings to the castle of Dublin, where he was attended as a prince, and was there proclaimed King of England and France and Lord of Ireland, by the style of Edward VI.

When Henry received this news, he hastened to do what he ought to have done long before. He took the Earl of Warwick out of the Tower, conducted him publicly to St. Paul's, so that all might see him, and all who desired it were allowed to approach him, and converse with him. The nobility and gentry were personally introduced to him, and the king then took him with him to Sheen, where he held his court, and gave familiar access to all those who had seen or known him before. By this politic act he completely satisfied the people of England, who laughed at the impostor in Ireland; but the Irish, on the contrary, declared that Henry's Warwick was the impostor, and theirs the real one.

To consult on the best measures for defeating this plot, Henry called a great council at Sheen; but at its breaking up, the public were thrown into still greater surprise and perplexity by the king, who, instead of offering to crown the queen, seized her mother, the queen-dowager, confiscated her property, and consigned her to the custody of the monks of Bermondsey. The reason assigned was, that the queen-dowager, in the last reign, had promised her daughter to Henry, and then put her into the hands of Richard. Such a reason, if really put forward, was a simple absurdity, because since then Elizabeth Wydville had been living at court as the queen-mother, in all public honour. The real cause was undoubtedly connected with the business in hand—the Simnel conspiracy. This has been treated as highly improbable, seeing that it would have been an act of madness in the queen-dowager to dethrone Henry, with whom must fall her own daughter, her grandson, the heir-apparent, and the fortunes of the whole family. But on the supposition which we have ventured to suggest, that there was no real intention to dethrone Henry, but by showing him the insecurity of his position to compel him to act more generously to the members of the York party, what was so natural as the conduct of this lady? She had been all her life a woman fond of state intrigues, restless and ambitious, and especially zealous in promoting her family and friends. Here she saw the king the cold and settled enemy of all those friends and that party. Though he had married her daughter, he had done it with the utmost reluctance, if not the most marked aversion. He had delayed the marriage; had never associated the queen in his public life; and still left her uncrowned, though the mother of the heir of England. For herself, though he tolerated her at her daughter's court, he had deprived her of her dowry, or rather, neglected to restore it to her, and allowed her a paltry pittance out of his own coffers. All these circumstances were likely to gall the sensitive and proud mind of the widow of Edward IV., and to render her willing to engage in anything which might mortify her oppressor, though her own son-in-law, while it stopped short of ruining him, and yet compelled him to a more honourable course of treatment.

That something like this was really the truth appears the more probable because Elizabeth Wydville never again resumed her position at Henry's court, and died in poverty and neglect. What has been advanced, as her own choice, that of retiring from court, and to the convent of Bermondsey, where, it is represented, she had a sort of right of retreat, is far from being in keeping with the character of Elizabeth Wydville; and we may rest assured that she would never have suddenly quitted the court of her daughter, and the proud position of queen-mother, unless there had been some urgent reason not originating in her own will. She was sent there now, at this crisis, as the result of a council on the plot of the Yorkists, and she never again, except on a rare and casual visit, returned. That speaks for itself. And, after all, her conduct was little less strange than that of Margaret of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV., the aunt of Elizabeth the queen, who, with an openness and promptness which no one has ever questioned, supported both this plot and the subsequent still more formidable one of Perkin Warbeck. The secrets of royal houses are such as continually contradict all our ordinary reasonings, and baffle all ideas which are based on the general principles of social life. Not only was the queen-dowager put into confinement, but her son, the Marquis of Dorset, brother to the queen, uncle to the heir-apparent, was arrested and committed to the Tower. If the conduct of the queen was contrary to belief in engaging in such a conspiracy, certainly that of Dorset was scarcely less so. This is the opinion of the great Lord Bacon, who had certainly much better means of knowing the truth than writers of our time, and whose powerful mind penetrated far below the surfaces of things. Speaking of Simons, he says:—"It cannot be but that some great person, that knew particularly and familiarly Edward Plantagenet, had a hand in the business, from whom the priest might take his aim. That which is most probable out of the preceding and subsequent acts is, that it was the queen-dowager from whom this action had the principal source and motion; for certain it is that she was a busy, negotiating woman, and in her withdrawing-chamber had the fortunate conspiracy for the king against Richard III. been hatched, which the king knew, and remembered, perhaps, but too well; and was at this time extremely discontented with the king, thinking her daughter—as the king handled the matter—not advanced but depressed; and none could hold the book so well to prompt and instruct this stage-play as she could."

But the most formidable and unwearied enemy of Henry VII. was Margaret, the Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy. As the sister of Edward IV. and of Richard, no circumstance could induce her to tolerate Henry Tudor, in her eyes a low-born man, who had thrust that line from the throne. It mattered little to her that he was