The Comic History of EnglandÀ Beckett, Gilbert Abbott
History
The Comic History of England
À Beckett, Gilbert Abbott
Great Britain -- History -- Humor
Henry, desirous of exposing the fraud, had the real Plantagenet taken
out of the Tower, for exhibition in the London streets; but the Irish
declared that the real thing was a mere imposition, and the mock duke
the genuine article. They, in fact, illustrated that instructive fable,
in which an actor, having been applauded for his imitation of a pig, was
succeeded by a rival who went the whole hog and concealed in the folds
of his dress a rear brute, whoso squeak was pronounced very far
less natural than that of the original representative of the porcine
character.
Henry becoming a little alarmed at these proceedings, began rushing into
the extremes of levity and severity; now pardoning a host of political
offenders, and the next day, packing off the Queen Dowager--marked
"Carriage paid, with care,"--to the monks at Bermondsey. Lambert Simnel,
for so the impostor was called, held out as long as he could, and even
got up, by subscription, one coronation during the season; but
upon Henry's taking measures to chastise him he soon shrunk into
insignificance. After a battle at Stoke, the pretender and his friend,
the priest, were taken into custody, when the latter was handed over
to the church for trial, and the former received a contemptuous pardon,
including the place of scullion, to wash up the dishes and run for the
beer in the royal household. He was at once placed in the kitchen, where
his perquisites, probably in the way of kitchen stuff, enabled him to
save a little money, and, in order to better himself, he subsequently
sought and obtained the office of superintendent of the poultry yard,
under the imposing title of the king's falconer. The priest, his tutor,
seems to have dropped down one of those gratings of the past which lead
to the common sewer of obscurity, in which it is quite impossible to
follow him. We hear of him last looking through the bars of a prison,
where he was left till called for, and, as nobody ever called, he never
seems to have emerged from his captivity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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