Perkin, informed of these great preparations, immediately raised the siege of Exeter, and retired to Taunton. Though his followers now amounted to the number of near seven thousand, and seemed still resolute to maintain his cause, he himself despaired of success, and secretly withdrew to the sanctuary of Beaulieu, in the new forest. The Cornish rebels submitted to the king’s mercy, and found that it was not yet exhausted in their behalf. Except a few persons of desperate fortunes, who were executed, and some others who were severely fined, all the rest were dismissed with impunity Lady Catharine Gordon, wife to Perkin fell into the hands of the victor, and was treated with a generosity which does him honor. He soothed her mind with many marks of regard, placed her in a reputable station about the queen and assigned her a pension, which she enjoyed even under his successor. {1498.} Henry deliberated what course to take with Perkin himself. Some counselled him to make the privileges of the church yield to reasons of state, to take him by violence from the sanctuary, to inflict on him the punishment due to his temerity, and thus at once to put an end to an imposture which had long disturbed the government, and which the credulity of the people and the artifices of malcontents were still capable of reviving. But the king deemed not the matter of such importance as to merit so violent a remedy, He employed some persons to deal with Perkin, and persuade him, under promise of pardon, to deliver himself into the king’s hands.[*] The king conducted him in a species of mock triumph to London. As Perkin passed along the road and through the streets of the city, men of all ranks flocked about him, and the populace treated with the highest derision his fallen fortunes. They seemed desirous of revenging themselves, by their insults, for the shame which their former belief of his impostures had thrown upon them. Though the eyes of the nation were generally opened with regard to Perkin’s real parentage, Henry required of him a confession of his life and adventures; and he ordered the account of the whole to be dispersed soon after, for the satisfaction of the public. But as his regard to decency made him entirely suppress the share which the duchess of Burgundy had had in contriving and conducting the imposture, the people, who knew that she had been the chief instrument in the whole affair, were inclined, on account of the silence on that head, to pay the less credit to the authenticity of the narrative. * Polyd. Virg. p. 606.