spouse. Some writers say that Laodice
murdered Antiochus, and took Artemon for her
husband instead; keeping up the deception for
above two years, so wonderfully like to the dead
king was he. The best feature in old stories is,
that you have so many versions, and all so
directly contradicting one another, that you may
make your choice according to your fancy; which
is an historical luxury in general, extending even
down to later times than the classical.

Coming into somewhat more intelligible
company and on to firmer English ground, we find
ourselves face to face with Jack Cade, who in
the sixth Henry's generation spoilt a good and
reasonable cause by giving himself out as
Mortimer, whom he resembled, and who was believed
in by thousands, not only as "the Captain of
the Great Assembly in Kent," but also as the
close relative of the House of York. He finally
got himself and his pretensions fully settled by
one Alexander Iden, who had no eye for
likenesses. And in fourteen hundred and eighty-
six, Lambert Simnel, well tutored by Richard
Simon, priest, and backed by the Duchess of
Burgundy, sister to the late King Edward the
Fourth and aunt to the poor young murdered
boys, set himself forward to play the part of
Richard, second son of Edward, who, it was
reported, had escaped from the Tower, and was
now wandering through Europe. Finding this
personation would not do, he then said that he
was Edward Earl of Warwick; under which name
he was warmly supported by the Irish people,
who crowned him in Dublin Castle with the
diadem taken from the Virgin, and publicly
proclaimed him King Edward the Sixth. During
the height of the craze, Henry caused the real
Warwick to be led through London, that
men might see the difference; but that did not
prevent their saying that Henry's was the
counterfeit and Lambert Simnel was the original;
for could not every one see how much more like
to the Plantagenets he was than Henry's
mummer? Encouraged by so much apparent
success, Lambert Simnel landed in England,
prepared to carry all before him, but after one
or two trials of strength was fairly defeated
instead—the king, disdainfully enough, granting
him a life which was too insignificant for his
high mightiness to take. He made him a
scullion in the royal kitchen, as about the
most contemptible thing he could be; though
afterwards he was raised to the more honourable
post of falconer. There was a fine irony in
Henry's treatment of the would-be king—that
fragment of plebeian stuff which nature had
wound off the loom in the likeness of the
Plantagenets; and history would be less sad reading
if all conquerors had been as contemptuous
and as humane.

Six years after Simnel's defeat, the Duchess
of Burgundy again brought forward a counterfeit
presentment. This time it was Perkin
Warbeck, or Osbeck, a handsome youth of fine
parts, made even more like to the Plantagenets
than Simnel had been; sufficiently like to
personate to the life Lambert's first venture—young
Richard of York, who had been murdered by Sir
John Tyrrell, as all readers of Shakespeare know.
Perhaps Warbeck had a left-handed kind of
right to be like the son of Edward the Fourth;
for his beautiful mother had been honoured with
much notice from king's majesty, given to
honour pretty women with special and peculiar
regard; and when she and her crafty,
complaisant husband, the renegade Jew of Tournay,
settled in England, they were so greatly patronised
by court and king, that Edward actually
condescended to stand godfather for the little
Perkin, when that small Hebrew was made into
a Christian. Rumour said, indeed, that he was
the father without any godliness preceding.
However that might have been, it is certain
that handsome young Perkin was not only
exceedingly like Edward's family, but also that he
had something regal and distinguished in
himself, and so was doubly fitted for his part. The
Duchess of Burgundy sent him men and moneys,
calling him her dear nephew, and the White
Rose of England; Charles of France and James
of Scotland espoused his cause, as did many
gentlemen of note in England. James, indeed,
gave him his own cousin, Lady Catherine Gordon,
to wife, and more substantial, but not lavish,
aid into the bargain. But fate and Lancaster
were too strong for Warbeck and the Yorkists.
At a great battle fought near Taunton he lost
his army and his cause, was taken prisoner by
the king, locked up in the Tower, and after
some time of imprisonment executed, on the
plea of breaking ward and plotting his escape.
This is the last historical counterfeit presentment
to be found in England.

In 1554 was born Sebastian of Portugal,
posthumous son of Don John, and heir to the
crown; and in 1578 he led his men at the
disastrous battle of Alcaçar, when Christians and
Moors hacked to pieces thousands of the divine
image in honour of the God who made them.
After the battle, Sebastian was missing: some
said he was dead; others, taken prisoner; but
the general belief was that he had been slain,
though, to be sure, there was just the chance of
the prisoner theory. Sufficient chance to
encourage a host of adventurers, all more or less
like the missing youth, all wanting one eye, all
of the same complexion and stature as himself,
and all owning their adherents from pure
conviction, as well as from design and crafty
insight. First, there was Gabriel Spinosa, the
one-eyed cook of Madrigal, who, in 1585, got
even Doña Anna of Austria on his side, and
prevailed on her to give him her jewels, by
which means he was arrested, it being thought
more than suspicious that such a ragged robin
as he should have regal jewels for sale. Yet he
was strangely like the princely Sebastian, one-
eyed cook though he was. Then there was the
son of a tiler at Alcobaça, with two notable
adherents, Don Christopher de Tavora and the
Bishop of Guarda. This tiler's son of Alcobaça
had been a man of loose life and more than
doubtful morals, who had become converted,
and then turned hermit; but, being exceedingly