Perkin soon brought the king's complaisance to an end. His mercurial disposition counselled flight, and, deceiving his guards, he slipped from the palace and fled to the sea-shore. Here he found all avenues of escape closed, and so diligent was the pursuit that he quickly turned back, and again took sanctuary in Bethlehem priory, near Richmond. The prior came to the king and offered to deliver him up, asking for his life only. His escapade had roused anger in the court. "Take the rogue and hang him forthwith," was the hot advice of the king's council. "The silly boy is not worth a rope," answered the king. "Take the knave and set him in the stocks. Let the people see what sort of a prince this is." Life being promised, the prior brought forth his charge, and a few days after Perkin was set in the stocks for a whole day, in the palace-court at Westminster. The next day he was served in the same manner at Cheapside, in both places being forced to read a paper which purported to be a true and full confession of his imposture. From Cheapside he was taken to the Tower, having exhausted the mercy of the king. In the Tower he was placed in the company of the Earl of Warwick, the last of the acknowledged Plantagenets, who had been in this gloomy prison for fourteen years. It is suspected that the king had a dark purpose in this. To the one he had promised life; the other he had no satisfactory reason to remove; possibly he fancied that the uneasy temper of Perkin would give him an excuse for the execution of both. If such was his scheme, it worked well. Perkin had not been long in the Tower before the quick-silver of his nature began to declare itself. His insinuating address gained him the favor of his keepers, whom he soon began to offer lofty bribes to aid his escape. Into this plot he managed to draw the young earl. The plan devised was that the four keepers should murder the lieutenant of the Tower in the night, seize the keys and such money as they could find, and let out Perkin and the earl. It may be that the king himself had arranged this plot, and instructed the keepers in their parts. Certainly it was quickly divulged. And by strange chance, just at this period a third pretender appeared, this time a shoemaker's son, who, like the baker's son, pretended to be the Earl of Warwick. His name was Ralph Wilford. He had been taught his part by a priest named Patrick. They came from Suffolk and advanced into Kent, where the priest took to the pulpit to advocate the claims of his charge. Both were quickly taken, the youth executed, the priest imprisoned for life.