The young Earl knew why he was in the Tower. His father had died in the Tower, killed they said on the orders of his own brother the great King Edward, to whom Clarence had been a menace. That was the trouble, they were all menaces if they were in the line of succession to the throne—except Elizabeth. She had other uses. She was a Princess and by marriage had joined the Houses of York and Lancaster.
The boy looked at her pleadingly. She understood. He was saying: I should like to be free again. I should like to go into the country, to ride out, to smell the grass and the trees. Freedom is the most important gift in the world and one which is not appreciated until it is lost.
He was hopeful. Elizabeth was kind and she was the Queen now. She would remember their friendship at Sheriff Hutton. Perhaps she could persuade the King to let him go free. If he could only be released he would promise never to try to gain the throne. He would barter all his claims . . . for freedom.
So he rode through the streets where the heralds proclaimed him—Earl of Warwick, son of Clarence . . . alive and well and lodging at the Tower.
The people had seen him. They should know now that the boy those traitors were threatening to bring to England was an impostor.
At least, thought the young Earl, I have had one day of freedom because of him.
So from St. Paul’s he went back to his prison in the Tower.
Elizabeth Woodville was at Bermondsey; the young Earl of Warwick was back in the Tower; but this was not an end to the matter. It had gone too far and there were too many powerful people at the center of it.
The Earl of Lincoln had joined the not inconsiderable army gathered together in Ireland and they were ready to cross the water and make good their claim.
Young Lambert had almost forgotten the days when he had worked in his father’s baker’s shop. He had been an earl and now he was a king. People bowed to him, spoke to him with respect and all he had to do was smile at them and obey his good friend Richard Simon. He was always a little alarmed when Richard Simon was not there. The Earl of Lincoln and Sir Francis Lovell were very respectful to him but they frightened him. He need not be afraid, Richard had told him; all he had to do was speak as he had been taught to and do exactly as they told him. Then he could keep the beautiful crown which had been put on his head.
He had learned to ride and rode at the head of all the soldiers. The Earl of Lincoln was on one side of him and Sir Francis on the other. He was a little nervous because Richard Simon was some way behind. “Don’t be afraid,” Richard had told him. “I shall be there.”
So they boarded the ships and crossed to England with all the men in their splendid uniforms and all the beautiful horses. They landed near Furness in Lancashire and then they started to march.
“The people will flock to our banner,” said the Earl of Lincoln. “They are weary of the Tudor and they know he has no right to the throne.”
But by the time they had reached the town of York it was realized that the people were quite indifferent to their cause. It might be that the Tudor’s claim was slight but they had had enough of war. They had thought the royal marriage had put an end to that and now here was some remote member of the House of York trying to start it all up again.
The Earl of Lincoln grew less optimistic, especially when he heard that the King’s forces were on the march.
The opposing armies met at Stoke and battle ensued. The Germans fought valiantly and, professional soldiers that they were, came within sight of victory; but the King’s forces were too much for even them and gradually they had to face defeat.
The Earl of Lincoln was slain; Lovell managed to escape and Lambert Simnel and the priest Simon, who were not actually involved in the fighting, were surprised together in a tent and taken prisoner.
“It is all over,” said Richard Simon fatalistically. He would never be Archbishop of Canterbury now. He visualized the terrible fate which was customarily meted out to traitors, and for the first time Lambert saw him without hope. The boy was frightened. He did not quite understand what had happened but he did know that something had gone terribly wrong.
They put him on a horse and he rode to London. Richard was on another horse beside him. He supposed now that they would send him back to his father’s baker’s shop. Now that former life seemed more real to him than what had happened since the soldiers had come to the tent.
The King had expressed a wish to see the traitor priest and the boy who had dared pose as the Earl of Warwick and they were brought to the palace of Shene on the river’s edge where the King was staying at that time. They stood before Henry Tudor—the shivering priest who had been too ambitious and the bewildered boy who even now was not quite sure what this was all about.
Henry looked at them coldly.
“So you, sir priest, thought to replace me with this boy?” said the King.
Richard Simon fell on his knees. He could not speak; he could only babble. The boy watched him in bewilderment. He put out a hand to touch him, to try to comfort him in some way. He was less overawed than the priest by the cold-eyed man who was watching him so closely. That was because he did not know the magnitude of what had happened and his part in it. Perhaps it was because the King did not look as splendid as the Earl of Lincoln had when he had first seen him. Perhaps he had grown accustomed now to seeing important men. But the King was by no means the most impressive of these.
“What have you to say, boy?” asked the King.
Lambert looked at him and did not know what to say. They had always told him what to say. Now there was no one to do so.
“Speak up,” said the King.
The priest spoke then: “My lord King, it is no fault of the boy. He did as he was told.”
“So thought I,” said the King. “They took you from your baker’s shop, eh, boy? They set you up as their puppet. That was it. I knew it. You admit it, eh?”
The boy still looked dazed.
“He is a simpleton,” said the King. “What folly was this! Lincoln dead. I am sorry. I should have liked to ask him what foolishness could have possessed him to pass off this half-witted creature as the Earl of Warwick. Take them away . . . both of them.”
So they awaited their sentence. The King was smiling, which was something he rarely did.
He was not sorry that this had happened. He would show the people how he would keep order. There had been this uprising . . . yes . . . with a disgruntled earl and a boy from a baker’s shop. He had quickly suppressed that. He had shown them how he would deal with these impostors.
The ringleaders were dead or in flight and he had only the priest and the half-witted boy to deal with.
It should be a traitor’s death for them both. No. They were not important enough for that. He would show mercy to them both. The priest should be imprisoned for life because he had plotted against the King and might well take it into his knave’s head to do it again. The boy . . . well he was very young; moreover he was addlepated. How could one punish a boy like that? It was no fault of the poor half-witted creature. He had been plucked out of his father’s baker’s shop because of his pleasant looks, which the King admitted was all he had to recommend him.
He should go into the King’s kitchen. That would best suit him.
“Let this Lambert Simnel become one of our scullions,” said the King. “I doubt not he will soon forget his grand aspirations there.”
So Richard Simon, congratulating himself that he had escaped the barbarous traitor’s death, lived on in prison—a contrast to the archbishop’s palace of which he had dreamed; as for Lambert he was happy in the King’s kitchens. His fellow workers laughed at him but without malice, so Lambert laughed with them; and he worked hard and well. He was happier there than he had been sitting on an uncomfortable but very grand chair with a crown on his head.