Entry taken from the book The Plantagenet.
Several are the blog entries related to the conflict for the English throne between the houses of York and Lancaster known as the War of the Roses, already about its main characters (Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York; Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, Edward IV, Henry VI, Richard III or Henry VII) and on the development of the conflict itself, from its antecedents (Treaty of Tours, 1444) to its conclusion (Battle of Bosworth, 1485).
It is precisely this last battle, which marked the end of the Plantagenet dynasty with the death of Richard III and the accession to the throne of the first Tudor king, Henry VII, that It is generally identified with the end of the Wars of the Roses:Henry Tudor, head of the House of Lancaster, proclaimed himself king and married Elizabeth of York, thus uniting the two branches of the royal house. Why then, less than two years later, did Henry Tudor have to return to the battlefield and face an army that included those who had been loyal to the house of York?
The traditionally accepted story is that the army that met and was defeated by Henry Tudor at Stoke Field on June 16, 1487 was led by a young man who had been crowned shortly before as King of England in Dublin and claiming to be Edward, Earl of Warwick. Warwick was the son of Edward IV and Richard III's brother, George of Clarence, who was tried and executed for treason in 1478, during the reign of Edward IV. However, Henry VII claimed that the man who had himself crowned in Dublin was an impostor whom he identified as a miller's son named Lambert Simnel (although the name and circumstances were later added by sources close to the Tudor) and it reminded everyone that the Earl of Warwick, who had been under the tutelage of Richard III, had been a prisoner in the Tower of London since the Battle of Bosworth.
That what happened in Dublin caused Henry VII great concern is understandable. If the young man crowned in Ireland was who he claimed to be, he could assert his rights as heir to the House of York as a descendant of the brother of King Edward IV and Richard III and also of the House of Lancaster, since in 1470 his father George of Clarence had been designated heir to that branch by Henry VI in the event that he and his son died childless, as they did.
But what does not seem very likely is that a clumsy attempt to supplant a young man ostensibly installed in the Tower had the support of characters as significant to the Yorkist cause as John de La Pole, Earl of Lincoln and nephew of Edward IV and Richard III (and therefore cousin of the Earl of Warwick), Francis Lovell, close friend and loyal servant of Richard III, or by a contingent of two thousand Swiss mercenaries financed by Margaret , Dowager Duchess of Burgundy and sister of Edward IV, Clarence and Richard III.
In the record of the trial for treason that culminated in the execution of Jorge de Clarence there is a text that can contain the answer to this question, since it details his plan, already in 1477, to replace his son with another boy and send him to Ireland or Flanders to protect him from the risks of his increasingly strained relationship with Edward IV. It must be remembered that George was born in Dublin and that Ireland had a very special relationship with the House of York since the time of Clarence's father, Richard Plantagenet. And in Flanders was the sister closest to Jorge, Margarita, Duchess of Burgundy. Keep in mind that if Clarence decided to replace his son with another, no one could be sure that one boy did not look like the other, since he was just two years old and unknown to practically everyone. Q>
This forces us to track down the young man who was officially the Earl of Warwick. Following the execution of his father, he was placed in the custody of his uncle, Richard III. This prepared for him a careful education, foreseeing that he would carry out some important position when the time came (as evidenced by the fact that he was granted the important title of Earl of Warwick). It is significant that he sent him to the north of the country, where he himself had taken his first steps during the reign of Edward IV and where the affairs of the Royal Council (and the education of Warwick) were carried out by one of his most faithful followers, the already mentioned John de la Pole (son of other of the sisters of Richard III and Edward IV) whom everyone pointed out as Richard's heir if he died without issue.
The defeat and death of Richard III at Bosworth upset any plans he might have envisioned for the Earl of Warwick. Aware of the threat that the possible heir to the houses of York and Lancaster posed to him, Henry VII demanded that De la Pole deliver the young man to him and locked him up in the Tower of London. When he learned of the coronation as King of England of a boy who claimed to be the Earl of Warwick, he exhibited the prisoner publicly during a Royal Council in January 1487 and confronted him with the man who had been his guardian, John de la Pole, to observe the reaction of both. It is not known what happened during that meeting, but what is certain is that after De la Pole fled from England, he took refuge on the continent with Margaret of Burgundy and both began to plan the invasion of England that culminated in the battle of Stoke. Field, in which they were defeated by Henry VII.
On May 5, 1487, the Earl of Lincoln John de la Pole, Francis Lovell, two thousand Swiss mercenaries in the pay of Margaret of Burgundy, and the man who claimed to be the Earl of Warwick landed in Ireland, where they were cordially received, especially by the intervention of the Earl of Kildare, an old supporter of the house. of York. On May 24, he was crowned King Edward of England in Dublin Cathedral in a ceremony attended by five major Irish bishops, including the Bishop of Dublin.
On June 4 the pretender and his supporters, joined by some five thousand Irishmen (poorly armed and poorly equipped) provided by the Earl of Kildare, landed at Furness Falls, North West England. They did not find much support on English soil, possibly because of the terrifying and bedraggled appearance of the Irish contingent. The pretender to the throne wrote a letter to the city of York requesting that his army be provided with supplies and aid. But the city closed its gates to the rebels.
After several skirmishes both armies met at Stoke Field on June 16, 1487. The royal troops, led by the Earl of Oxford, defeated the rebels. The Earl of Lincoln, much of the Irish and the leader of the Swiss contingent were killed. Richard III loyalist Francis Lovell fled the battlefield and many others, including the pretender himself, were taken prisoner and brought before King Henry VII. The victor arranged for him to spend the rest of his days working first as a kitchen boy and then as a falconer under close guard (a falconer by the name of Lambert Simnel appears in Sir Thomas Lovell's burial count in 1525).
Regarding the Earl of Warwick who was imprisoned in the Tower of London, he remained there until his execution in 1499. Why was he kept alive for twelve years and executed precisely in 1499? Everything indicates that the Catholic Monarchs had a lot to do with this decision. They were in dealings with Henry VII to arrange a marriage between his daughter Catherine of Aragon and Prince Arthur Tudor of Wales. But the Spanish monarchs were concerned that the instability that the struggle for the English throne in recent years would end up affecting their daughter and asked for guarantees that no one would dispute the right to the throne of Arthur and Catherine when his father died. And one of the threats to that right to the throne (not the only one) was the man who responded to the name of Eduardo and the title of Earl of Warwick and who was imprisoned in London. Warwick was tried and executed in 1499. The marriage between Arthur and Catherine took place in 1501.
It seems that the death of the Earl of Warwick could mark the end of this bizarre story, although it leaves it up in the air to know which of the two characters involved was actually the Earl of Warwick. But there are those who maintain that the man who was crowned in Dublin and defeated in Stoke Field was neither Lambert Simnel nor the Earl of Warwick and to solve the question that heads the entry points to an even greater and more important mystery:that of the princes of the Tower of London… but that is another story that will have to wait for the second entry in this series.
Daniel Fernández de Lis:What Shakespeare didn't tell you about the Wars of the Roses.
Matthew Lewis:The Survival of the Princes in the Tower. Murder, Mystery and Myth.