did admit of
any counterfeit stuff, though, even in that, she said she was not fully
satisfied.

She pretended at the first, and that was ever in the presence of others,
to pose him and sift him, thereby to try whether he were indeed the very
Duke of York or no. But, seeming to receive full satisfaction by his
answers, she then feigned herself to be transported with a kind of
astonishment, mixed of joy and wonder, at his miraculous deliverance,
receiving him as if he were risen from death to life, and inferring that
God, who had in such wonderful manner preserved him from death, did
likewise reserve him for some great and prosperous fortune. As for his
dismission out of France, they interpreted it, not as if he were detected
or neglected for a counterfeit deceiver, but, contrariwise, that it did
show manifestly unto the world that he was some great matter, for that it
was his abandoning that, in effect, made the peace, being no more but the
sacrificing of a poor, distressed prince unto the utility and ambition of
two mighty monarchs.

Neither was Perkin, for his part, wanting to himself, either in gracious
or princely behavior, or in ready or apposite answers, or in contenting
and caressing those that did apply themselves unto him, or in petty scorn
and disdain to those that seemed to doubt of him; but in all things did
notably acquit himself, insomuch as it was generally believed, as well
among great persons as among the vulgar, that he was indeed Duke Richard.
Nay, himself, with long and continued counterfeiting, and with oft
telling a lie, was turned by habit almost into the thing he seemed to be,
and from a liar to a believer. The Duchess, therefore, as in a case out
of doubt, did him all princely honor, calling him always by the name of
her nephew, and giving the delicate title of the "White Rose of England,"
and appointed him a guard of thirty persons, halberdiers, clad in a
party-colored livery of murrey and blue, to attend his person. Her court
likewise, and generally the Dutch and strangers, in their usage toward
him, expressed no less respect.

The news hereof came blazing and thundering over into England that the
Duke of York was sure alive. As for the name of Perkin Warbeck, it was
not at that time come to light, but all the news ran upon the Duke of
York; that he had been entertained in Ireland, bought and sold in France,
and was now plainly avowed and in great honor in Flanders. These fames
took hold of