the duchess of Burgundy, and craving her protection and assistance,
offered to lay before her all the proofs of that birth to which he laid
claim. The princess affected ignorance of his pretensions; even put
on the appearance of distrust: and having, as she said, been already
deceived by Simnel, she was determined never again to be seduced by
any impostor. She desired before all the world to be instructed in his
reasons for assuming the name which he bore; seemed to examine every
circumstance with the most scrupulous nicety; put many particular
questions to him; affected astonishment at his answers; and at last,
after long and severe scrutiny, burst out into joy and admiration at
his wonderful deliverance, embraced him as her nephew, the true image of
Edward, the sole heir of the Plantagenets, and the legitimate successor
to the English throne.

{1493.} She immediately assigned him an equipage suited to his pretended
birth; appointed him a guard of thirty halberdiers; engaged every one to
pay court to him; and on all occasions honored him with the appellation
of the White Rose of England. The Flemings, moved by the authority which
Margaret, both from her rank and personal character, enjoyed among them,
readily adopted the fiction of Perkin's royal descent: no surmise of his
true birth was as yet heard of little contradiction was made to the
prevailing opinion: and the English, from their great communication with
the Low Countries, were every day more and more prepossessed in favor of
the impostor.

It was not the populace alone of England that gave credit to Perkin's
pretensions. Men of the highest birth and quality, disgusted at Henry's
government, by which they found the nobility depressed, began to turn
their eyes towards the new claimant; and some of them even entered into
a correspondence with him. Lord Fitzwater, Sir Simon Mountfort, Sir
Thomas Thwaites, betrayed their inclination towards him: Sir William
Stanley himself, lord chamberlain, who had been so active in raising
Henry to the throne, moved either by blind credulity or a restless
ambition, entertained the project of a revolt in favor of his enemy.[*]

* Bacon, p. 608.

Sir Robert Clifford and William Barley were still more open in their
measures: they went over to Flanders, were introduced by the duchess of
Burgundy to the acquaintance of Perkin, and made him a tender of their
services. Clifford wrote back to England, that he knew perfectly the