History - Wars Of The Roses - Rebellions Against Henry Vii

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Lovel rebellion 1486

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. Francis Lovel, a former Lord Chamberlain, and his Yorklst associates Humphrey and Thomas Stafford, plotted to raise troops in 1486 to kill the King as he progressed to the North of England

. Lovel was a councillor for Richard III and sought to overthrow Henry VII - Henry used spies to follow Lovel and the Stafford brothers following their defeat at Bosworth

. Lovel took sanctuary in Colchester Abbey and then escaped before raising troops at Middleham (Yorkshire) in a bid to overthrow Henry VII

. Henry's agents, who continued to follow them, tracked down the Staffords in Culham Church in Oxfordshire where they were arrested

. Sir Richard Edgecombe and Sir William Tyler were specifically appointed by the King to apprehend Lovel - He escaped but was forced to leave the country after an abortive rising in Yorkshire

. This was not dangerous; He failed and fled to Flanders - Part of the reason they failed was that they lacked support from their retainers

. Sir John Conyers, who was suspected of being involved in the Lovel revolt and was a major office holder in Yorkshire, lost his stewardship of Middleham and had a £2,000 bond imposed

. The Abbot Abingdon, who had secured sanctuary for the Stafford brothers, faced a 3,000 mark bond allegiance - The use of sanctuary for future traitors and rebels was denied by Henry and the Pope made no objection

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Lambert Simnel, 1486-87 (1)

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. Two years after the Battle of Bosworth, many Yorkist nobles had lost their positions and patronage and so plotted to remove Henry VII and replace him with a Yorkist king

. Lambert Simnel was the 12 year old son of an Oxford joiner who was trained to impersonate the Earl of Warwick, a Yorkist claimant to the throne

. He was probably the front for the real Yorkist claimant John de la Pole - Dynastic/Factions/lrish issues. . When Henry VII seized the throne in 1485, he had a very weak claim to the throne - He was the leader of the Lancastrian faction and had defeated the Yorkist King Richard III

. Henry attempted to heal the rift between the two factions by marrying Elizabeth of York and also pardoned many Yorkist supporters - Henry hoped this would give him more security

. However, many Yorkist supporters lost their lands and positions as a result of their support for Richard III. . Richard III had allowed Ireland to virtually rule themselves - There was great concern that Henry would change this and take away their freedom

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Lambert Simnel, 1486-87 (2)

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. In 1486, Simnel was taken over to Dublin where Irish chiefs believed he was genuine and proclaimed him King

. Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy and head of the Yorkists abroad, sent 2,000 mercenaries to Dublin

. Henry VII paraded the real Earl of Warwick in London

. In 1487, the rebels landed in England, but few joined their ranks - They were defeated by Henry’s forces at Stoke, a hard, bloody battle; The Earl of Lincoln was killed, and Simnel was made Henry's kitchen boy

. Dangers - Henry was new and insecure on the throne; The throne had changed hands 3 times in 3 years, so people wouldn't have been surprised if it changed again; Stoke was a close battle, It could have been lost especially as some troops waited on the battlefield to see who was winning before joining

. Not dangerous - The English did not support it, they hated and feared the Irish; Warwick could be shown to be alive

. They had hoped more would join their ranks as they marched towards London but few did

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Lambert Simnel, 1486-87 (3)

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. Many of the rebels were killed at Stoke - 28 others had acts of attainder passed

. Henry married Elizabeth of York and initially pardoned the Irish

. Henry later sent Poyning to crack down on Ireland - This resulted in a loss of their castles and a restriction of the meeting of parliament only when they had the authority of the King

. English laws were made valid in lreland and a heavier taxation was placed on them . The Earl of Kildare was made deputy in Ireland - as Henry knew he was too powerful to alienate completely

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Yorkshire rebellion, 1489 (1)

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. In 1489, Yorkshire objected to having to pay for a war which did not concern them - People in Yorkshire believed that it was unfair for people in Yorkshire to be forced to pay for Henry's war with France

. In addition, the counties of Northumberland, Westmoreland and Cumberland had been made exempt on the grounds of poverty and Yorkshire saw this as unfair

. The Earl of Northumberland was chosen to lead the commission but this was an unpopular choice and it was his murder that sparked the revolt. . People in Yorkshire were unwilling to pay taxes to fund the war against France - they felt that this war did not concern them as they were so geographically removed from it

. Parliament had voted Henry Vll £100,000 to meet the costs of the campaign in France, but the prevailing view was that the tax was unfair

. Traditionally, people in the south funded wars against France while people in the North funded wars against Scotland

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The Yorkshire rebellion, 1489 (2)

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. The protestors had also been effected by bad harvests of 1488 - Rebels, led by Sir John Egremont, killed the Earl of Northumberland before royal troops dispersed them

. It has been suggested that the murder of Percy, which had sparked off the revolt, was orchestrated by the King to take over Percy’s lands and gain control of the North - but there is no extant evidence to support this theory

. The Earl was very unpopular but so was the prospect of paying taxation - Some rebels were executed but Sir John Egremont escaped to France

. Dangers - required a royal force to put the rebellion down; Henry VII did not collect the tax for fear of another rebellion; Resulted in the death of a member of the nobility

. Not dangerous - Far from London; put down easily

. Most of the ring leaders of the Yorkshire and Cornish tax revolts were rounded up, tried and executed - but the rank and file members were allowed to return home and await the King's judgement

. Some 1,500 men were pardoned and only 6 were executed, including John Chamber the leader of the revolt

. The tax was not collected - The Yorkshire rebellion discouraged Henry VII from making any further novel demands on the county

. In the aftermath of the Yorkshire rebellion, Surrey was appointed Lieutenant of the Council of the North, a royal council begun by Edward IV but lapsed in 1485, and lands which had belonged to the Earl of Northumberland were transferred to the crown

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Perkin Warbeck, 1491-7 (1)

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. Warbeck was a young Frenchman who was persuaded to impersonate the Earl of Warwick and then Richard, Duke of York (one of the princes in the tower) - in attempts to re-establish Yorkist dominance

. Warbeck was first supported by the Desmonds in Ireland and then by Charles VIII of France, who wanted to stop Henry VII supporting Brittany, which he was trying to take over

. Warbeck was also supported by Margaret of Burgundy (the sister of the Yorkist Edward IV), and by Maximilian, the Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Netherlands, over the cloth trade In Flanders - also supported by James IV of Scotland who was insecure and wanted to get Berwick back from England

. In 1491, Warbeck was first spotted in Cork and trained as a pretender

. Warbeck gained little support, so he went to France - but was sent away by Charles VIII after the treaty of Etaples (1492) and went to Burgundy

. In 1494, Warbeck was with Maximilian in Netherlands

. In 1495, the English parliament rounded up Yorkist plotters - Warbeck’s landing in Deal in Kent is a fiasco

. Warbeck flees to Ireland, where Waterford is besieged

. Warbeck flees to Scotland - Warbeck and the Scots invade England but gain no support from the English

. James makes a deal with Henry (Ayton 1497) - In 1497, Warbeck flees to Cornwall via Ireland but the West Country gives almost no support to Warbeck and he surrenders, confesses and is pardoned; Executed in 1499 with Warwick

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Perkin Warbeck, 1491-7 (2)

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. Dangers - In that Warbeck had support at various times from all of Henry‘s powerful neighbours, the real Richard of York could not be shown as he had been murdered in the tower

. Not dangerous - In that none of the foreign countries gave Warbeck adequate support, and he gained almost no support each of the three times he got into England

. Warbeck himself was not very determined - Henry’s navy disrupted his efforts; Overall very little real danger of Warbeck taking Henry's throne

. Henry, anxious to make friends abroad and to cut off Yorkist support, made several treaties - 1492, Treaty of Etaples with France had a clause denying help to each other’s enemies

. Henry strengthened the 1489 Treaty of Medina Del Campo with Spain - Also made the Magnus lntercursus treaty in 1496 with Maximilian, resuming cloth trade with Flanders

. Henry married his daughter, Margaret, to James IV of Scotland

. In 1506, a treaty with Philip of Burgundy caused Philip to give up Edmund de la Pole (the leading Yorkist) into captivity in England, where he was executed in 1513

. In England, although parliament passed the De Facto Act of 1495 to reassure ex-Yorkists, saying service to the Yorkist Kings had not been treason, others like Stanley were executed

. Sir James Tyrell allegedly confessed to the murder of the princes of the tower (on orders of Richard III) before he was executed, thus clearing Henry of suspicion

. Overall, no big changes in government cause by rebellion

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The Cornish Rebellion, 1497 (1)

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. The Cornish rebellion began in January 1497 when parliament voted £60,000 to fund a war against the Scots

. This grant was in fact an innovation as it would only be collected if war broke out - as it happened, war did not break out

. However, the Cornish felt that the events of the northern border should not impact on them

. Perhaps they remembered the events in Yorkshire where they rebelled against a tax for war

. Henry VlI needed money to deal with the threat of Perkin Warbeck and Scotland, so parliament granted him a subsidy of 120,00 - far more than any other year (only once had more than £31,000 been collected!)

. The people of Cornwall did not see events in the North as being a threat to them, and did not want to pay for a war that was none of their business

. Many Cornishmen thought that a scutage or land tax on knight’s fees, raised in the north, was a fairer way at raising the money

. They were persuaded by a lawyer, Thomas Flamank, to direct their resentment at Henry's 'evli advisers’ Cardinal Morton and Sir Reginald Bray

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The Cornish rebellion, 1497 (2)

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. Led by Flamank and a blacksmith called Michael Joseph An Gof, the rebels marched through Devon to wells, where they acclaimed an Impoverlsh nobleman Lord Audley as their leader

. They marched to London, 15,000 strong, brushing aside Daubeny’s royal force of 500 men at Guilford - Henry had been caught unawares, as he had been concentrating on Scotland

. The rebels camped at Blackheath outside London, but began to lose heart when men of Kent did not rise with them, and when the King did not negotiate with them

. Some rebels wanted to surrender to the King, but the leaders did not let this happen - Desertions left the rebels with 10,000 men comparesd to the King’s 25,000

. The battle was a rout, and Audley was executed, Flanmark and Gof were hung, drawn and quartered, while most of the rebels were heavily fined - 15,000 was raised from them, and more from those who helped them along their route

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The Cornish rebellion, 1497 (3)

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. Not dangerous - The rebels gained sympathy but almost had no support outside Cornwall, and did not gain the vital credible aristocratic leadership

. They had no plans to remove Henry from the throne, so when Henry decided not to negotiate with them, but to attack them, they had little hope or resolution left - Henry was able to use the mercenary army raised to fight the Scots against the rebels

. Henry never again asked for so much money, but he never really needed to - In fact, the crown only received about £30,000 in subsidy in 1497

. His strategy of heavy fines worked well - Cornwall was no trouble for Tudors again until 1548, and gained Henry useful cash

. There was no obvious effect on Tudor government, which continued to raise taxation through Parliamentary taxation when needed, although it may have been the 1497 events that persuaded Henry to abandon his plans in 1504 to raise additional money in a time of peace - in the end he raised the 1504 subsidy in the same way as the 1497 one and received £30,000 again