to scatter.  Cade, not slow to perceive the danger which threatened him, fled towards Lewis, but was overtaken by Iden, the sheriff of Kent, who killed him in a garden in which he had taken shelter.  A reward of 1000 marks followed this deed of bravery.  Some of the insurgents were afterwards executed as traitors; but the majority even of the ringleaders escaped unpunished, for Henry’s seat upon the throne was so unstable, that it was deemed better to win the people by a manifestation of clemency, rather than to provoke them by an exhibition of severity.

LAMBERT SIMNEL—­THE FALSE EARL OF WARWICK.

After the downfall of the Plantagenet dynasty, and the accession of Henry VII. to the English throne, the evident favour shown by the king to the Lancastrian party greatly provoked the adherents of the House of York, and led some of the malcontents to devise one of the most extraordinary impostures recorded in history.

An ambitious Oxford priest, named Richard Simon, had among his pupils a handsome youth, fifteen years of age, named Lambert Simnel.  This lad, who was the son of a baker, and, according to Lord Bacon, was possessed of “very pregnant parts,” was selected to disturb the usurper’s government, by appearing as a pretender to his crown.  At first it was the intention of the conspirators that he should personate Richard, duke of York, the second son of Edward IV., who was supposed to have escaped from the assassins of the Tower, and to be concealed somewhere in England.  Accordingly, the monk Simon, who was the tool of higher persons, carefully instructed young Simnel in the role which he was to play, and in a short time had rendered him thoroughly proficient in his part.  But just as the plot was ripe for execution a rumour spread abroad that Edward Plantagenet, earl of Warwick, and only male heir of the House of York, had effected his escape from the Tower, and the plan of the imposture was changed.  Simnel was set to learn another lesson, and in a very brief time had acquired a vast amount of information respecting the private life of the royal family, and the adventures of the Earl of Warwick.  When he was accounted thoroughly proficient, he was despatched to Ireland in the company of Simon—­the expectation of the plotters being that the imposition would be less likely to be detected on the other side of the channel, and that the English settlers in Ireland, who were known to be attached to the Yorkist cause, would support his pretensions.

These anticipations were amply fulfilled.  On his arrival in the island, Simnel at once presented himself to the Earl of Kildare, then viceroy, and claimed his protection as the unfortunate Warwick.  The credulous nobleman listened to his story, and repeated it to others of the nobility, who in time diffused it throughout all ranks of society.  Everywhere the escape of the Plantagenet was received with satisfaction, and at last the people of Dublin