his court completely prevented all hope of a lasting peace with England, he requested him to leave the country. The Flemings meanwhile had passed a law barring his retreat into the Low Countries. Therefore, after hiding for a time in the wilds of Ireland, he resolved to try the affections of the men of Cornwall. No sooner did he land at Bodmin, than the people crowded to his banners in such numbers, that the pretender, hopeful of success, took upon himself for the first time the title of Richard IV., king of England. Not to suffer the expectation of his followers to languish, he laid siege to Exeter; but the men of Exeter, having shut their gates in his face, waited with confidence for the coming of the king. Nor were they disappointed. The Lords D'Aubeney and Broke were despatched with a small body of troops to the relief of the city. The leading nobles offered their services as volunteers, and the king, at the head of a considerable army, prepared to follow his advanced guard. Perkin's followers, who numbered about 7000 men, would have stood by him; but the cowardly Fleming, despairing of success, secretly withdrew to the sanctuary of Beaulieu. The Cornish rebels accepted the king's clemency, and Lady Gordon, the wife of the pretender, fell into the hands of the royalists. To Henry's credit it must be mentioned that he did not visit the sins of the husband upon the poor deluded wife, but placed her in attendance upon the queen, and bestowed upon her a pension which she continued to enjoy throughout his reign, and even after his death.

It was a difficult matter to know how to deal with the impostor himself. It would have been easy to make the privileges of the church yield to reasons of state, and to take him by violence from the sanctuary; but at the same time it was wise to respect the rights of the clergy and the prejudices of the people. Therefore agents were appointed to treat with the counterfeit prince, and succeeded in inducing him, by promises that his life would be spared, to deliver himself up to King Henry. Once a captive, he was treated with derision rather than with extreme severity, and was led in a kind of mock triumph

to London. As he passed along the road, and through the streets of the city, men of all grades assembled to see the impostor, and cast ridicule upon his fallen fortunes; and the farce was ended by the publication of a confession in which Warbeck narrated his real parentage, and the chief causes of his presumption to royal honours.

But although his life was spared, he was still detained in custody. After a time he escaped from prison, and fled to the Priory of Sheen, near Richmond, where he desired the prior, who was a favourite with the king, to petition for his life and a pardon. If Henry had listened to the advice of his counsellors he would have taken advantage of the opportunity to rid himself of this persistent disturber of his peace; but he was content to give orders that "the knave should be taken out and set in the stocks." Accordingly, on the 14th of June 1499, Warbeck was exposed on a scaffold, erected in the Palace Court, Westminster, as he was on the day following at the Cross on Cheapside, and at both these places he read a confession of his imposture. Notwithstanding this additional disgrace, no sooner was he again under lock and key, than his restless spirit induced him to concoct another plot for liberty and the crown. Insinuating himself into the intimacy of four servants of Sir John Digby, lieutenant of the Tower, by their means he succeeded in opening a correspondence with the Earl of Warwick, who was confined in the same prison. The unfortunate prince listened readily to his fatal proposals, and a new plan was laid. Henry was apprised of it, and was not sorry that the last of the Plantagenets had thus thrust himself into his hands. Warbeck and Warwick were brought to trial, condemned, and executed. Perkin Warbeck died very penitently on the gallows at Tyburn. "Such," says Bacon, was the end of this little cockatrice of a king." The Earl of Warwick was beheaded on Tower Hill, on the 28th of November 1499.

66

DON SEBASTIAN-THE LOST KING OF

PORTUGAL.

ING SEBASTIAN of Portugal, who inherited the

KING

throne in 1557, seems, even from his infancy, to have exhibited a remarkable love of warlike exercises, and at an early age to have given promise of distinguishing himself. as a warrior. At the time of his accession, Portugal had lost much of her old military prestige; the Moors had proved too strong for her diminished armies; the four strongholds of Arzilla, Alcazar-Sequer, Saphin, and Azamor, had been wrested from her; and Mazagan, Ceuta, and Tangier alone remained to her of all her African possessions. Consequently, the tutors of the boy-king were delighted to see his warlike instinct, and carefully instilled into his mind a hatred of the Paynim conquerors.

The lesson was well learnt, and from the moment King Sebastian reached his 14th year (the period of his majority), it was evident that all his thoughts centred on an expedition to Africa, to revive the former glories of his house, and to extend his empire even beyond its former limits. In 1574 he set out, not to conquer the land, but simply to view it, and with youthful audacity landed at Tangier, accompanied by only 1500 men. Finding no opposition to his progress, he organized a hunting expedition among the mountains, and actually put his project into execution. The Moors, by this time thoroughly incensed by his audacity, mustered a force and attacked his escort, but he succeeded in beating them off, and escaped in safety to his ships, and reached his kingdom unharmed.

This peculiar reconnaissance only strengthened his resolution to wrest his former possessions from the Moslems; and although Portugal was impoverished and weak, he resolved at once to enter on a crusade against Muley Moluc and the Moors. The protests of his ministers were unheeded; he laid new and exorbitant imposts on his people, caused mercenaries to be levied in Italy and the Low Countries, and reluctantly persua

ded his uncle, Philip I. of Spain, to promise a contingent. His preparations being at last completed, and a regency established, he put to sea in June 1578. His armament consisted of 9000 Portuguese, 2000 Spaniards, 3000 Germans, and some 600 Italians-in all, about 15,000 men, with twelve pieces of artillery, embarked in fiftyfive vessels.

On the 4th of August the opposing forces met. The Moorish monarch, who was stricken with a fatal disorder, was carried on a litter to the field, and died while struggling with his attendants, who refused to allow him to rush into the thick of the fight. The Portuguese were routed with great slaughter, notwithstanding the valour with which they were led by Don Sebastian. Two horses were killed under the Christian king; the steed on which he rode was exhausted, and the handful of followers who remained with him entreated him to surrender. Sebastian indignantly refused, and again dashed into the middle of the fray. From this moment his fate is uncertain. Some suppose that he was taken prisoner, and that his captors beginning to dispute among themselves as to the possession of so rich a prize, one of the Moorish officers slew him to prevent the rivalry ending in bloodshed. Another account, however, affirms that he was seen after the battle, alone and unattended, and apparently seeking some means of crossing the river. On the following day search was made for his body, Don Nuno Mascarcuhas, his personal attendant, having stated that he saw him put to death with his own eyes. At the spot which the Portuguese noble indicated, a body was found, which, though naked, Resende, a valet of Sebastian, recognised as that of his master. It was at once conveyed to the tent of Muley Hamet, the brother and successor of Muley Moluc, and was there identified by the captive Portuguese nobles. That their grief was sincere there could be no doubt; and the Moorish king having placed the royal remains in a handsome coffin, delivered them for a heavy ransom to the Spanish ambassador, by whom they were forwarded to Portugal, where they were buried with much pomp.

But although the nobles were well content to believe that Sebastian was dead, the mob were by no means equally satisfied that the story of his fate was true, and were prepared to receive any impostor with open arms. Indeed, in some parts of Portugal, Don Sebastian is supposed by the populace to be still alive, concealed like Roderick the Goth, or our own Arthur, in some hermit's cell, or in some enchanted castle, until the fitting time for his re-appearance arrives, when he will break the spell which binds him, and will restore the faded glory of the nation. During the incursions of Bonaparte, his appearance was anxiously expected, but he delayed the day of his coming. But if the real Sebastian remains silent, there have been numerous pretenders to his throne and his name.

In 1585 a man appeared who personated the dead king. He was a native of Alcazova, and a person of low birth and still lower morals. In his earlier days he had been admitted into the monastic society of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, but had been expelled from the fraternity on account of his misconduct. Even in his later life, when, by pretended penitence, he succeeded in gaining re-admission, his vices were found so far to outweigh his virtues and his piety that it was necessary again to confide him to the tender mercies of a sacrilegious world. He fled to the hermitage of Albuquerque, and there devotees visited him. Widows and full-blooded donnas especially frequented his cell; and the results of his exercises were such that the Alcalde threatened to lay hands upon him. Once more he disappeared, but only to turn up again in the guise of Don Sebastian. Two of his accomplices who mixed among the people pointed out his resemblance to the lost monarch: the credulous crowd swallowed the story, and he soon had a respectable following. Orders from Lisbon, however, checked his prosperous career. He was arrested and escorted by 100 horsemen to the dungeons of the capital. There he was tried and condemned to death. The sentence was not, however, carried into effect; for the imposture was deemed too transparent to merit the

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