HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 283 



ready to be gone, doubting he might be caught up 

 under-hand. He therefore took his way into Flan 

 ders, unto the Duchess of Burgundy ; pretending 

 that having been variously tossed by fortune, he di 

 rected his course thither as to a safe harbour : no ways 

 taking knowledge that he had ever been there before, 

 but as if that had been his first address. The duchess, 

 on the other part, made it as new and strange to see 

 him ; pretending, at the first, that she was taught 

 and made wise by the example of Lambert Simnel, 

 how she did admit of any counterfeit stuff; though 

 even in that, she said she was not fully satisfied. 

 She pretended at the first, and that was ever in the 

 presence of others, to pose him and sift him, thereby 

 to try whether he were indeed the very Duke of 

 York or no. But seeming to receive full satisfac 

 tion by his answers, she then feigned herself to be 

 transported with a kind of astonishment, mixt of joy 

 and wonder, at his miraculous deliverance ; receiving 

 him as if he were risen from death to life : and in 

 ferring, that God, who had in such wonderful man 

 ner preserved him from death, did likewise reserve 

 him for some great and prosperous fortune. As for 

 his dismission out of France, they interpreted it not, 

 as if he were detected or neglected for a counterfeit 

 deceiver ; but contrariwise, that it did shew mani 

 festly unto the world, that he was some great mat 

 ter ; for that it was his abandoning that, in effect, 

 made the peace ; being no more but the sacrificing 

 of a poor distressed prince unto the utility and am 

 bition of two mighty monarchs. Neither was Perkin, 

 VOL. 3. R 



