His escapade had roused anger in the court.
"Take the rogue and hang him forthwith," was the hot advice of the
king's council.
"The silly boy is not worth a rope," answered the king. "Take the knave
and set him in the stocks. Let the people see what sort of a prince this
is."
Life being promised, the prior brought forth his charge, and a few days
after Perkin was set in the stocks for a whole day, in the palace-court
at Westminster. The next day he was served in the same manner at
Cheapside, in both places being forced to read a paper which purported
to be a true and full confession of his imposture. From Cheapside he was
taken to the Tower, having exhausted the mercy of the king.
In the Tower he was placed in the company of the Earl of Warwick, the
last of the acknowledged Plantagenets, who had been in this gloomy
prison for fourteen years. It is suspected that the king had a dark
purpose in this. To the one he had promised life; the other he had no
satisfactory reason to remove; possibly he fancied that the uneasy
temper of Perkin would give him an excuse for the execution of both.
If such was his scheme, it worked well. Perkin had not been long in the
Tower before the quick-silver of his nature began to declare itself.
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