Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) / From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion

by Anonymous

The moment that Henry Tudor learned the flight of the Earl of Lincoln, he set out on a progress through the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, in which the chief interest of the earl lay. He was at Kenilworth when news was brought him that the Earl of Lincoln and Lord Lovel had landed with the pretended Edward VI., supported by Martin Schwarz and his German legion, at the pile of Foudray, an old keep in the southern extremity of Furness. Henry advanced by Coventry and Leicester to Nottingham; Lincoln had already approached Newark. The royal army advancing to oppose the whole force lost its way between Nottingham and Newark, and there was such confusion in consequence, and such rumours of the enemy being upon them, that numbers deserted. But five guides were procured from Ratcliff-on-Trent, and soon afterwards the vanguard of Henry's army, led by the Earl of Oxford, encountered the forces of Lincoln at Stoke, a village near Newark. The battle lasted for three hours, and was obstinately contested. The veteran Germans, under Schwarz, fought till they were exterminated almost to a man. The Irish displayed not the less valour; but, being only armed with darts and skeans—for the English settlers had adopted the arms of the natives—were no match for the royal cavalry. The whole of the troops of the insurgents, expecting no mercy if they were taken, seemed prepared to perish rather than to yield. Four thousand of the insurgents and 2,000 of the king's best troops are said to have fallen in this desperate engagement; but nearly all the leaders of the rebel army, the Earl of Lincoln, Sir Thomas Broughton, the brave Schwarz, and the Lords Thomas and Maurice Fitzgerald, having fallen, the victory on Henry's part became complete.

THE LAST STAND OF SCHWARZ AND HIS GERMANS

The pretender Lambert Simnel and the priest Simon were captured by Sir Robert Bellingham, one of the king's esquires; but nothing was seen of Lord Lovel. He was believed to have escaped, but no traces of him were discoverable; many thought that he had perished in attempting to swim his horse across the Trent. But nearly two centuries afterwards a subterranean chamber was discovered accidentally by some workmen at Minster Lovel, in Oxfordshire, the ancient seat of his family. In this chamber was seated a skeleton in a chair, with its head resting on a table; and this was supposed to be the remains of this same Lord Lovel, who had reached his house, and secreted himself in this apartment, where he had perished by some unknown cause.

After the battle, Henry travelled northward to ascertain that all was secure in the tract through which the insurgents had passed, and to punish such as had aided the rebels, and those who just before the battle had spread the rumour of his defeat. The royal punishments did not consist in putting his enemies to death, but in fining them severely, for Henry Tudor much preferred making a profit of a man to killing him. The late insurrection had taught him that if he did not wish for a repetition of it, he must concede something to the Yorkist party, and must pay some respect to the queen. Accordingly, on the 25th of November, 1487, Elizabeth was crowned with much state at Westminster.

Having thus made this amende to public opinion, Henry, instead of giving Simnel consequence by putting him to death, or making a State prisoner of him in the Tower, turned him into his kitchen as a scullion, thus showing his contempt of him. "He would not take his life," says Lord Bacon, "taking him but as an image of wax that others had tempered and moulded;" and considering that if he was made a continual spectacle, he would be "a kind of remedy against the like enchantments of people in time to come." The priest Simon he shut up in a secret prison, saying he was but a tool, and did not know the depths of the plot. He even professed to regret the death of the Earl of Lincoln, who, had his life been spared, he said, "might have revealed to him the bottom of his danger." In his peculiar way he threw much mystery over the matter, for mystery was one of his greatest pleasures.

Having settled these matters, which he did on his own authority, Henry summoned a Parliament to grant him supplies, and to increase those supplies by bill of attainder against all those who had been engaged in the late conspiracy. To prevent similar risings, he demanded that the law should be rigorously put in force against the practice of maintenance. This maintenance was the association of numbers of persons under a particular chief or nobleman, whose badge or livery they wore, and to whom they were bound by oath to support him in his private quarrels against other noblemen. But the instrument was too convenient not to be turned on occasion against the Crown, whenever rich chiefs took up the opposite party, and by this means it was that such numbers of troops could be brought at the shortest notice into the field against the monarch. Various laws had been passed on this subject, and heavy penalties decreed; but now it was ordained that, instead of calling such offenders before the royal council, as had been the custom, a particular Court should be established for the purpose. The chancellor, the treasurer, the keeper of the privy seal, or two of them, one bishop, one lay peer, and the judges of the King's Bench and Common Pleas, were empowered to summon all such persons before them, and to punish the guilty just as if they had been convicted by ordinary course of law. This was the origin of what came to be called the Court of the Star Chamber, from the walls or ceiling of the room where it met being decorated with stars.

The affairs on the Continent were now in a state which demanded the most serious attention, but which were by no means likely to be settled to the honour of the country by a monarch of the penurious character of Henry VII. If ever a monarch was bound by gratitude to succour another prince, it was Henry VII. He had been protected in Brittany from all the attempts of the Yorkist monarch for years. The Duke Francis, who had been his host and friend during his long exile, was now growing old. He appears never to have been of a very vigorous mind, and now mind and body were failing together. He had two daughters, and the hope of securing the patrimony of the eldest, Anne, drew the attention of many suitors, the chief of whom were Maximilian, King of the Romans; the Duke of Orleans, the first prince of the blood in France; and the Count D'Albret, a powerful chieftain, at the foot of the Pyrenees. But hostile alike to all these wooers was Charles VIII. of France, who, though he was under engagement to marry the daughter of Maximilian, and therefore apparently debarred from the hand of Anne of Brittany, was resolved, if possible, to secure her territory. In this dilemma, Francis sent repeated importunate entreaties to Henry to come to his rescue. France, at the same time, sent to him, praying him to be neutral, alleging that Charles was only seeking to drive his revolted subjects out of Brittany. Henry was bound by honour to give prompt succour to his old friend; he had received from Parliament two-fifteenths for the purpose, and was urged by it to send efficient aid to prevent France from seizing this important province. But Henry could not find it in his heart to spend the money in active service; he proposed to mediate between the parties. This suited the views of France exactly, because while Henry was negotiating they could continue to press on their victories. The poor Duke Francis was compelled to submit to a treaty, in August, at Verger, by which he surrendered to the French all the territory they had conquered, and was bound never again to call in assistance from England or any other country, nor to marry either of his daughters without the consent of the King of France. Having signed this humiliating treaty, the duke died of a broken heart, on the 7th of September, 1488, only three weeks afterwards.

The people of England received these tidings with undisguised indignation. Twice had they voted large sums to enable their ungrateful and pusillanimous king to aid his old benefactor and the ally of England; twice had he put the money in his coffers, and sold the honour of the country and the fortunes of the unfortunate ally to the French, wholly insensible to honour or shame. But whilst the public were foaming in wrath over this despicable conduct, the indefatigable French were pressing on. Anne, the young orphan duchess, was a mere child of only twelve years of age. Around her were contending rivals and their adherents. But all this time the French were seizing town after town. The news of this awoke such a fermentation in England, and Henry was upbraided in such vehement terms for thus, as the sovereign of a great people, sacrificing the honour of the nation, and permitting the helpless orphan of his benefactor to become the prey of France, that he was compelled to rouse himself. He determined to send ambassadors to Maximilian, to his son, the Archduke Philip, to the Kings of Spain and Portugal, inviting them to act in concert with him for the repression of French ambition. Having taken this magnanimous, and, if it had really been intended to follow it up vigorously, most admirable step, Henry called a Parliament, and demanded more money to carry on the war.