Dorset, the earl of Richmond himself, and most of the fugitives had
taken refuge in Bretagne, not with Margaret; and yet was she so
informed of every trifling story, even those of the nursery, that
she was able to pose Henry himself, and reduce him to invent a tale
that had not a shadow of probability in it. Why did he not convict
Perkin out of his own mouth? Was it ever pretended that Perkin
failed in his part? That was the surest and best proof of his being
an impostor. Could not the whole court, the whole kingdom of
England, so cross-examine this Flemish youth, as to catch him in one
lie? So; lord Bacon's Juno had inspired him with full knowledge of
all that had passed in the last twenty years. If Margaret was Juno,
he who shall answer these questions satisfactorily, "erit mihi
magnus Apollo."

Still farther: why was Perkin never confronted with the queen
dowager, with Henry's own queen, and with the princesses, her
sisters? Why were they never asked, is this your son? Is this your
brother? Was Henry afraid to trust to their natural emotions?--Yet
"he himself," says lord Bacon, p. 186, "saw him sometimes out of a
window, or in passage." This implies that the queens and princesses
never did see him; and yet they surely were the persons who could
best detect the counterfeit, if he had been one. Had the young man
made a voluntary, coherent, and credible confession, no other
evidence of his imposture would be wanted; but failing that, we
cannot help asking, Why the obvious means of detection were not
employed? Those means having been omitted, our suspicions remain in
full force.

Henry, who thus neglected every means of confounding the impostor,
took every step he would have done, if convinced that Perkin was the