Henry, who thus neglected every means of confounding the impostor, took every step he would have done, if convinced that Perkin was the true duke of York.  His utmost industry was exerted in sifting to the bottom of the plot, in learning who was engaged in the conspiracy, and in detaching the chief supporters.  It is said, though not affirmatively that to procure confidence to his spies, he caused them to be solemnly cursed at Paul’s cross.  Certain it is, that, by their information, he came to the knowledge, not of the imposture, but of what rather tended to prove that Perkin was a genuine Plantagenet:  I mean, such a list of great men actually in his court and in trust about his person, that no wonder he was seriously alarmed.  Sir Robert Clifford,(39) who had fled to Margaret, wrote to England, that he was positive that the claimant was the very identical duke of York, son of Edward the Fourth, whom he had so often seen, and was perfectly acquainted with.  This man, Clifford, was bribed back to Henry’s service; and what was the consequence?  He accused Sir William Stanley, lord Chamberlain, the very man who had set the crown on Henry’s head in Bosworth field, and own brother to earl of Derby, the then actual husband of Henry’s mother, of being in the conspiracy?  This was indeed essential to Henry to know; but what did it proclaim to the nation?  What could stagger the allegiance of such trust and such connexions, but the firm persuation that Perkin was the true duke of York?  A spirit of faction and disgust has even in later times hurried men into treasonable combinations; but however Sir William Stanley might be dissatisfied, as not thinking himself adequately rewarded, yet is it credible that he should risk such favour, such riches, as lord Bacon allows he possessed, on the wild bottom of a Flemish counterfeit?  The lord Fitzwalter and the other great men suffered in the same cause; and which is remarkable, the first was executed at Calais —­another presumption that Henry would not venture to have his evidence made public.  And the strongest presumption of all is, that not one of the sufferers is pretended to have recanted; they all died then in the persuasion that they had engaged in a righteous cause.  When peers, knights of the garter, privy councellors, suffer death, from conviction of a matter of which they were proper judges, (for which of them but must know their late master’s son?) it would be rash indeed in us to affirm that they laid down their lives for an imposture, and died with a lie in their mouths.

(39) A gentleman of fame and family, says lord Bacon.

What can be said against king James of Scotland, who bestowed a lady of his own blood in marriage on Perkin?  At war with Henry, James would naturally support his rival, whether genuine or suppositious.  He and Charles the Eighth both gave him aid and both gave him up, as the wind of their interest shifted about.  Recent instances of such conduct have been seen; but what prince has gone so far as to stake his belief in a doubtful cause, by sacrificing a princess of his own blood in confirmation of it?