mall army was met by the
king with an overpowering force, half of it killed, the rest scattered,
and the young imposter taken captive.

Henry was almost the first king of Norman England who was not cruel by
instinct. He could be cruel enough by calculation, but he was not
disposed to take life for the mere pleasure of killing. He knew this boy
to be an impostor, since Edward, Earl of Warwick, was still in the
Tower. The astute king deemed it wiser to make him a laughing-stock than
a martyr. He made inquiry as to his origin. The boy proved to be the son
of a baker of Oxford, his true name Lambert Simnel. He had been tutored
to play the prince by an ambitious priest named Simons. This priest was
shut up in prison, and died there. As for his pupil, the king
contemptuously sent him into his kitchen, and condemned him to the
servile office of turnspit. Afterwards, as young Simnel showed some
intelligence and loyalty, he was made one of the king's falconers. And
so ended the story of this sham Plantagenet.

[Illustration: BATTLE IN THE WAR OF THE ROSES.]

Hardly had this ambitious boy been set to the humble work of turning a
spit in the king's kitchen, when a new claimant of the crown
appeared,--a far more dangerous one. It is his story to which that of
Lambert Simnel serves as an amusing prelude.

On one fine day in the year 1492--Columbus being then on his way to the
discovery of America--there landed at Cork, in a vessel hailing from
Portugal, a young man very handsome in face, and very winning in
manners, who lost no time in presenting himself to some of the leading
Irish and telling them that he was Richard, Duke of York, the second son
of Edward IV. This story some of his hearers were not ready to believe.
They had just passed through an experience of the same kind.

"That cannot be," they said: "the sons of King Edward were murdered by
their uncle in the Tower."

"People think so, I admit," said the young stranger. "My brother _was_
murdered there, foully killed in that dark prison. But I escaped, and
for seven years have been wandering."

The boy had an easy and engaging manner, a fluent tongue, and told so
well-devised and probable a story of the manner of his escape, that he
had little difficulty in persuading his credulous hearers that he was
indeed Prince Richard. Soon he had a party at his back, Cork shouted
itself hoarse in his favor, there was banqueting and drinking, and in
this humble fashion the caus