Lambert Simnel.
The earlier years of Henry's reign were much disturbed by petty rebellions, the last ground-swell of discontent and lawlessness which lingered on after the great tempest of the Wars of the Roses had abated. Richard III. had left behind him a few devoted partisans who had resolved never to submit; the chief were John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, who had been declared heir to the throne by the late king, and Lord Lovel, the sole survivor of the three favourites who had "ruled all England under the Hog." They were bold reckless men, ready to risk all for ambition and revenge. Before Henry had been a year on the throne, Lovel secretly collected a band of desperate friends, and tried to kidnap him while he was visiting York. Foiled in this scheme, Lovel fled to Flanders, where he was sheltered by Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, the widowed sister of King Edward IV. With her and with Lincoln he concerted a second plan of rebellion. They resolved to try to rouse the wrecks of the Yorkist party in the name of Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of Clarence, who had been put to death in 1478, and the only male heir of the house of York. This prince was in King Henry's hands, safely kept in custody in the Tower of London. Till they could liberate him they resolved to make an impostor assume his name and title. So they instructed a clever boy named Lambert Simnel, the son of an organ-maker at Oxford, to act the part of the young Clarence, reasoning that Henry would not dare to put the real prince to death, but would keep him alive in order to make the imposture clear, and so they could free the real Clarence if they succeeded, and dismiss the false one when he was no longer needed.
Battle of Stoke.
Ireland had always been friendly to the house of York, and there was no one there who knew the young prince or could detect his counterfeit. So Lambert Simnel was first sent thither, to try the temper of the Irish, giving out that he had just escaped from the Tower. The Earl of Kildare and other prominent Anglo-Irish barons were wholly cozened by the young impostor, and saluted him as king. Four thousand men under Lord Thomas Fitzgerald were raised to aid him; Lincoln and Lovel joined him with 2000 veteran German mercenaries under a captain named Martin Schwartz. They crossed to England and landed in Lancashire, where a few desperate Yorkists joined them. Then advancing inland, they met King Henry at Stoke, near Newark. But their ill-compacted army was routed, the Germans and Irish were cut to pieces, and Lincoln, Schwartz, and Fitzgerald all slain. Lovel escaped to his manor of Minster Lovel, in Oxfordshire, and lurked in a secret chamber, where he was starved to death in hiding. Lambert Simnel fell into the hands of the king, who treated him with contempt instead of slaying him. He lived many years after as a cook in the royal kitchen. The rebels in Ireland were pardoned on submission, for Henry was loth to stir up further troubles in that distressful country (1488).
French war.—Brittany united to France.
Thinking perhaps to turn the attention of the nation from domestic troubles by the old expedient of a war with France, the king in the next year joined in a struggle which was raging in Brittany. Charles VIII., the son of Lewis XI., was trying to annex the duchy, whose heiress was a young girl, the Duchess Anne. Henry agreed to aid this ancient ally of England, and sent over troops both to Brittany and to Calais. The war went not unprosperously at first, and the garrison of Calais won a considerable victory at Dixmuide, in Flanders. But after a time the Bretons grew weary of the struggle, and the Duchess Anne surrendered herself to King Charles, and became his wife (1491). Thus the last of the great French feudal states was united to the crown. For the future the English could get no support from them, and as a consequence all English invasions of France in the ensuing age met with little good fortune. There was never again any chance of dismembering a divided France, such as that with which Edward III. and Henry V. had to deal. The king recognized his powerlessness, and gladly made peace with Charles VIII. on receiving a subsidy of 745,000 crowns, a better bargain than Edward IV. had made under similar circumstances at Picquigny (1492).
Perkin Warbeck.
Henry was wise to make an early and profitable peace, for new troubles were brewing for him at home. News came from Ireland that a young man was secretly harboured at Cork, who gave himself out to be Richard of York, the younger of the two princes smothered in the Tower nine years before. When Henry ordered his arrest, he fled to Flanders and took refuge with Duchess Margaret, who at once recognized him as her true nephew, and gave him a royal reception and a safe refuge for two years. There is no doubt, however, that he was really Perkin Warbeck, the son of a citizen of Tournay, who had plunged very young into a life of adventure, and hoped to gain something by fishing in the troubled waters of English politics. By Margaret's help Perkin engaged in secret intrigues with the few Yorkists who yet survived in England. But King Henry traced out all his plots, and beheaded Lord Fitzwalter and Sir William Stanley, who had listened to his tempting. Stanley's case was a bad one: he had betrayed Richard III. at Bosworth—like his brother Lord Stanley—and had been lavishly rewarded by Henry VII., yet would not keep faithful to his new master because he was refused an earldom (1495).
Though his friends had been detected, the pretender persisted in venturing an attack on England. With 2000 men raised with money lent him by Duchess Margaret, he tried to land in Kent; but the Kentishmen rose and drove him off. He then sailed to Ireland, where—like his predecessor Lambert Simnel—he met with some support. But hearing that James IV. of Scotland was on the brink of war with the English, he soon passed over to the Scottish court, where he was received with royal state. James IV. married him to his cousin, Lady Catherine Gordon, and placed him at the head of an expedition with which he was to try and raise rebellion in Yorkshire, where the supporters of the house of York were still supposed to be numerous. But when Perkin crossed the Border, not an Englishman would join him, and he was obliged to return ignominiously to Scotland. From thence the restless adventurer soon set out on a new quest.
Cornish rising.