secret enemies and the maintenance of his authority. His first act was
to proclaim a free pardon to all his former opponents; his next, to
lead the real Earl of Warwick in procession from the Tower to St.
Paul's, and thence to the palace of Shene, where the nobility and
gentry had daily opportunities of meeting him and conversing with him.
Suspecting, not without cause, that the Queen-Dowager was implicated
in the conspiracy, Henry seized her lands and revenues, and shut her
up in the Convent of Bermondsey. But he failed to reach the active
agents; and although the English people were satisfied that the Earl
of Warwick was still a prisoner, the Irish persisted in their revolt,
and declared that the person who had been shown to the public at St.
Paul's was a counterfeit. By the orders of the Government a strict
watch was kept at the English ports, that fugitives, malcontents, or
suspected persons might not pass over into Ireland or Flanders; and a
thousand pounds reward was offered to any one who would present the
State with the body of the sham Plantagenet.

Meanwhile John, earl of Lincoln, whom Richard had declared heir to the
throne, and whom Henry had treated with favour, took the side of the
pretender, and having established a correspondence with Sir Thomas
Broughton of Lancashire, proceeded to the court of Margaret,
dowager-duchess of Burgundy--a woman described by Lord Bacon as
"possessing the spirit of a man and the malice of a woman," and whose
great aim it was to see the sovereignty of England once more held by
the house of which she was a member. She readily consented to abet the
sham Earl of Warwick, and furnished Lincoln and Lord Lovel with a body
of 2000 German veterans, commanded by an able officer named Martin
Schwartz. The countenance given to the movement by persons of such
high rank, and the accession of this military force, greatly raised
the courage of Simnel's Irish adherents, and led them to conceive the