The heavy taxation which King Henry raised from his subjects to pay for an army to resist the Scots had provoked much murmuring in some parts of England. Most of all had it been resented in the remote shire of Cornwall, where the local discontent took the form of armed gatherings to resist the taxes. Flammock, a lawyer, and Michael Joseph, a farrier of Bodmin, two turbulent demagogues, put themselves at the head of the rioters, and persuaded them to march on London, there to expostulate with the king. Lord Audley, an unwise south-country baron, joined their company, and led them as far as Blackheath, close to the gates of London. From thence they sent the king messages, bidding him to dismiss his extortionate ministers, and remove his taxes. Henry was taken by surprise, as he had just sent off his army against the Scots, but he promptly recalled the expedition and gave battle to the Cornishmen. The fight of Blackheath ended in their complete discomfiture: Audley, Flammock, and Joseph were taken and executed, but the king let the rest go away unharmed, as mere deluded tools of their leaders (June, 1497).
Failure of Warbeck.
Warbeck had heard of the rising of the Cornishmen, and thought that he discerned in it his best opportunity of making head against King Henry. He landed at Whitesand Bay, but found that he was too late, as the insurgents had already been defeated and scattered. But he rallied around him the wrecks of their bands, and made an attack on Exeter. Being foiled by the stout resistance of the citizens, and hearing that the king was coming against him with a great host, the pretender suddenly lost heart, left his men in the lurch, and fled away to take sanctuary in the abbey of Beaulieu (August, 1497).
Warbeck and the Earl of Warwick executed.
King Henry showed extraordinary moderation in dealing with the insurgents: he fined Cornwall heavily, but ordered no executions. He promised Warbeck his life if he would leave his sanctuary, and when the impostor gave himself up, he was merely placed in honourable custody in the Tower. He was only made to publish the confession of his fraud, and to give a full account of his real life and adventures. Perkin might have lived to old age, like Lambert Simnel, if he had been content to keep quiet. But he made two attempts to escape from England, which roused the king's wrath. On the second occasion he persuaded another State prisoner, Edward of Clarence, the true heir of York, to fly with him; but they were detected, and the king, provoked at last, executed Warbeck, and made the unfortunate Prince Edward share his fate (1499). Perkin had merited his end, but it is impossible to pardon Henry's dealings with the unlucky heir of Clarence, who had been a prisoner ever since Richard III. sent him to the Tower sixteen years before. There is no doubt that Henry was glad of the excuse to lop off another branch from the stem of York. Noting this fact, the next heir of that line, Edmund de la Pole, brother of the Earl of Lincoln who fell at Stoke, wisely fled from England, lest his royal blood should be his ruin.
Suppression of livery and maintenance.
After Warbeck's failure, King Henry was for the future free from the danger of dynastic risings against the house of Tudor. He was able to develop his policy both at home and abroad without any further danger of insurrections. In domestic matters he strove very successfully to put an end to the turbulence which had been left behind from the times of the civil war. His chief weapon was legislation against "livery and maintenance," the evil custom by which a great lord gave his badge to his neighbours, and undertook to support them in their quarrels and lawsuits. This abuse of local influence was sternly suppressed, and no man, however great, was permitted to keep about him more than a limited number of liveried retainers. It is on record that Henry punished his oldest friend and supporter, the Earl of Oxford, for breaking this rule. On the occasion of a royal visit to his castle of Hedingham, Oxford received the king at the head of many hundreds of his followers, all clad in the de Vere livery, and was promptly made to pay a heavy fine for his ostentation.
The Star Chamber founded.
Henry established a special tribunal for dealing with the offences of men, whose power and influence might foil and divert the ordinary course of justice. This was the new and unconstitutional "Court of Star Chamber," a committee of trusted members of the Privy Council, which met in a room at Westminster whose roof was decorated with a pattern of stars. The court was useful at the time, but grew to be a serious grievance in later days, because it stood over and above the ordinary law of the land, and was used to carry out any illegal punishment that the king might devise.
Reduction of the surviving barons.