After the second reading of this "confession," which was so badly
composed that it served rather to confirm than dissipate the belief
that the so-called "Perkin" was the personage he had assumed to be, the
prisoner was again incarcerated in the Tower, where he became the
companion and friend of the unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, whom
Lambert Simnel had formerly counterfeited. Such was the fascination of
the claimant's manners that he not only won the friendship of his
fellow-prisoners, but also the favour of his keepers, the four servants
of Sir John Digby, the Lieutenant, who, apparently, conspired together
to permit the escape of the two captives, and to aid them to excite
another insurrection. The whole plot in all probability originated in
the cunning of Henry, who made it a pretext for the trial and execution
of both his troublesome prisoners. "The opinion of the King's great
wisdom," as Bacon dexterously recounts it, "did surcharge him with a
sinister fame, that Perkin was but his bait to entrap the Earl of
Warwick."
About the time of this presumed plot, and most opportunely for Henry,
another claimant to the name and title of the young Earl of Warwick
appeared in Suffolk. Although this pretender was speedily taken and
executed, the state of disquietude these events kept the country in
afforded the King ample excuse for proceeding to extremities,
notwithstanding the fact that the whole affair was regarded as a subtle
device of the Sovereign. Accordingly, on the 16th November, 1419,
Perkin was brought to trial, and was found guilty upon the indictment
of having conspired, in company with the hapless Earl of Warwick, "to
raise sedition and destroy the King." Upon the 23rd of the month
Perkin was taken from the Tower to Tyburn, and, after having again read
his confession and vouched for its truth, was executed. Such was the
end of this strange drama, which was, as Bacon remarks, "one of the
longest plays of that kind."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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