[Illustration:  TOMB OF RICHARD III.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

DISORDER STILL THE POPULAR FAD:  GENERAL ADMIXTURE OF PRETENDERS, RELIGION, POLITICS, AND DISGRUNTLED MONARCHS.

As a result of the Bosworth victory, Henry Tudor obtained the use of the throne from 1485 to 1509.  He saw at once by means of an eagle eye that with the house of York so popular among his people, nothing but a firm hand and eternal vigilance could maintain his sovereignty.  He kept the young Earl of Warwick, son of the Duke of Clarence, carefully indoors with massive iron gewgaws attached to his legs, thus teaching him to be backward about mingling in the false joys of society.

Henry Tudor is known to history as Henry VII., and caused some adverse criticism by delaying his nuptials with the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV.

A pleasing practical joke at this time came near plunging the country into a bloody war.  A rumor having gone forth that the Earl of Warwick had escaped from the Tower, a priest named Simon instructed a good-looking young man-about-town named Lambert Simnel to play the part, landed him in Ireland, and proceeded to call for troops.  Strange to say, in those days almost any pretender with courage stood a good chance of winning renown or a hospitable grave in this way.  But Lambert was not made of the material generally used in the construction of great men, and, though he secured quite an army, and the aid of the Earl of Lincoln and many veteran troops, the first battle closed the comedy, and the bogus sovereign, too contemptible even to occupy the valuable time of the hangman, became a scullion in the royal kitchen, while Simon was imprisoned.

[Illustration:  SIMON, A PRIEST OF OXFORD, TAKES LAMBERT THE PRETENDER TO IRELAND.]

For five years things were again dull, but at the end of that period an understudy for Richard, Duke of York, arose and made pretensions.  His name was Perkin Warbeck, and though the son of a Flemish merchant, he was a great favorite at social functions and straw rides.  He went to Ireland, where anything in the way of a riot was even then hailed with delight, and soon the York family and others who cursed the reigning dynasty flocked to his standard.

France endorsed him temporarily until Charles became reconciled to Henry, and then he dropped Perkin like a heated potato.  Perk, however, had been well entertained in Paris as the coming English king, and while there was not permitted to pay for a thing.  He now visited the Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV., and made a hit at once.  She gave him the title of The White Rose of England (1493), and he was pleased to find himself so popular when he might have been measuring molasses in the obscurity of his father’s store.