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 divers; in some upon discontent, in some upon ambition, in some upon levity and desire of change, and in some few upon conscience and belief, but in most upon simplicity, and in divers out of dependence upon some of the better sort, who did in secret favor and nourish these bruits.  And it was not long ere these rumors of novelty had begotten others of scandal and murmur against the King and his government, taxing him for a great taxer of his people and discountenancer of his nobility.  The loss of Britain and the peace with France were not forgotten.  But chiefly they fell upon the wrong that he did his Queen, in that he did not reign in her right.  Wherefore they said that God had now brought to light a masculine branch of the house of York, that would not be at his courtesy, howsoever he did depress his poor lady.