priest in the confidence of the Yorkist leaders. Lambert was recognised by the Earl of Kildare, Lord Deputy of Ireland, by John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, a nephew of Edward IV., and, of course, by the unscrupulous Margaret of Burgundy; and at Dublin the pretender was proclaimed King of England, as Edward VI., in May, 1487.
Henry replied by parading the real Warwick through the streets of London; but this measure seems to have had little or no effect upon the infatuated people, and the movement continued. It may have been owing to Henry's parsimony that the Narrow Seas were so inefficiently policed as to allow the pretender and his friends, accompanied by two thousand Germans, under Martin Schwartz, to land in Lancashire; but it is more probable that the king, realising the importance of capturing his impudent rival, deliberately preferred to permit him to invade England. Here Simnel gathered few fresh adherents, except a small body of men under Sir Thomas Broughton. He determined to attack Newark; but Henry judiciously placed himself between the rebels and that town, and so, on June 16th, 1487, provoked the battle of Stoke, where, after a well-fought action, Simnel was defeated and taken. His patron Simon was imprisoned for life. Hardly one of the remaining supporters of his claims who happened to be present escaped with his life. As for Simnel himself, he was contemptuously made a scullion in the royal kitchen, and subsequently promoted to be a falconer.
Edward, Lord Woodville, was the indirect cause of the hostilities with France. This nobleman, an uncle of the queen, was Governor of the Isle of Wight; and, happening to be in sympathy with the Duchess of Brittany, who was then in conflict with Charles VIII. of France, he took advantage of his position, and, in spite of Henry's positive orders to do nothing of the kind, raised four hundred men early in 1488, and crossed to the assistance of the princess.[1] He and his followers were cut to pieces at St. Aubin, on July 28th, and the disaster, though perhaps richly merited, gave rise to so much public feeling in England, that Henry felt himself obliged to send to Brittany eight thousand men under Lord Brooke. But he still had some kind of secret arrangement with Charles, and possibly no further forces would have been dispatched, had not Anne of Brittany, in 1491, betrayed her English friends and astonished Europe by marrying her whilom enemy Charles VIII.
- ↑ This expedition is mentioned by Holinshed.
