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The Earl of Warwick was still, however, allowed to live.

The King, who was magnanimous when it was politic, could also exhibit the opposite quality on occasion. He had never found it easy to forgive Edward’s Queen for submitting herself and her daughters to Richard after she had consented to Henry’s attempt upon the Crown, on the condition of his marrying the eldest. He laid the matter before his Council, who determined that Elizabeth, late Queen, should forfeit all her lands and possessions, and should continue for the rest of her life in honourable confinement in the Abbey of Bermondsey. Here, in fact, she died, not long afterwards, the second Queen who breathed her last in that House.

One Pretender removed, another arose. Perkin Warbeck professed, as we know, to be the younger son of Edward IV., namely, Richard, Duke of York, who, it was pretended, had escaped from the Tower. The strange adventures of Perkin are told in every history of England. He is connected with that of London on three occasions. The first was after his abortive attempt to land in Kent. The Kentish men, refusing to join him, attacked his followers, drove some of them back to their ships, and took prisoners a hundred and sixty men with four Captains. These prisoners were all brought to London roped together, a curious sight to see. Those who lived on London Bridge saw many strange sights, but seldom anything more strange than these poor prisoners, who were not Englishmen but aliens, thus tied together. They were all hanged, every one: some on the seashore, where their bodies might warn other aliens not to come filibustering into England; and the rest at Tyburn.