Battle of Stoke Field
The Battle of Stoke Field on 16 June 1487 may be considered the last battle of the Wars of the Roses, since it was the last major engagement between contenders for the throne whose claims derived from descent from the houses of Lancaster and York. The Battle of Bosworth Field, two years previously, had established Henry VII on the throne, ending the last period of Yorkist rule and initiating that of the Tudors. The Battle of Stoke Field was the decisive engagement in an attempt by leading Yorkists to unseat the King in favour of the pretender Lambert Simnel.
Though it is often portrayed as almost a footnote to the major battles between York and Lancaster, it may have been slightly larger than Bosworth, with much heavier casualties, possibly because of the terrain which forced the two sides into close, attritional combat. In the end, though, Henry's victory was crushing. Almost all the leading Yorkists were killed in the battle.
Pretender[edit]
Henry VII of England held the throne for the new royal line (the House of Tudor), and had tried to gain the acceptance of the Yorkist faction by his marriage to their heiress, Elizabeth of York, but his hold on power was not entirely secure. The chief claimant of the York dynasty was the queen's first cousin, Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of George, Duke of Clarence. This boy was kept confined in the Tower of London.[1]
An impostor claiming to be Edward (either Edward, Earl of Warwick, or Edward V, as Matthew Lewis hypothesises), whose name was Lambert Simnel, came to the attention of John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, through the agency of a priest called Richard Symonds.[2] Lincoln, although apparently reconciled with the Tudor king , had a claim on the throne; the last Plantagenet, Richard III of England, had named Lincoln, his nephew, as the royal heir. Although he probably had no doubt about Simnel's true identity, Lincoln saw an opportunity for revenge and reparation.[1]
Lincoln fled the English court on 19 March 1487 and went to the court of Mechelen (Malines) and his aunt, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy. Margaret provided financial and military support in the form of 2,000 German and Swiss mercenaries, under the commander Martin Schwartz. Lincoln was joined by a number of rebel English Lords at Mechelen, in particular Richard III's loyal supporter, Lord Lovell, Sir Richard Harleston, the former governor of Jersey and Thomas David, a captain of the English garrison at Calais. The Yorkists decided to sail to Ireland, where the Yorkist cause was popular, to gather more supporters.[3]
Aftermath[edit]
Simnel was captured, but was pardoned by Henry in a gesture of clemency which did his reputation no harm. Henry realised that Simnel was merely a puppet for the leading Yorkists. He was given a job in the royal kitchen as a spit-turner, and later promoted to falconer. The Irish nobles who had supported Simnel were also pardoned, as Henry believed he needed their support to govern Ireland effectively. However, Henry later persuaded the Pope to excommunicate the Irish clergy who had supported the rebellion.[6] Two other Yorkist conspirators were also captured: Richard Symonds and John Payne, Bishop of Meath. Symonds was the man who had introduced Lincoln to Simnel; Payne had preached the sermon at Simnel's coronation. Neither was executed: Symonds was imprisoned, and Payne was pardoned and eventually restored to royal favour.[6]
To mark his victory, Henry raised his standard on Burham Furlong. The spot is marked by a large stone memorial with the legend "Here stood the Burrand Bush planted on the spot where Henry VII placed his standard after the Battle of Stoke 16 June 1487".[13] Henry knighted many of his supporters in the aftermath of the battle. A handwritten list of the new knights by John Writhe survives inserted into a copy of the book Game and Play of Chess.[14] Thirteen new bannerets were created and fifty-two men were knighted. The following year in 1488 the two main cavalry commanders of Henry's army, Baron Scales and Sir John Savage, were both made Knights of the Garter.
Henry had hoped to capture Lincoln alive in order to learn from him the true extent of support for the Yorkists. Instead, Henry launched a series of enquiries, the outcome of which was "relatively few executions and very many fines", consistent with Henry's policy of controlling the aristocracy by weakening it financially. After the battle, he progressed north through Pontefract, York, Durham, and Newcastle to show himself in those areas that had been strongholds of Richard III's supporters.[15] Later in Henry's reign, in the 1490s, another pretender to the throne emerged, in the person of Perkin Warbeck; this time the matter was resolved without having to fight a battle, in the Second Cornish uprising of 1497.