Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke

Michael Bennett, Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke, Stroud, Alan Sutton, 1987. Within two years of the battle of Bosworth Henry Tudor had to defend had crown against a formidable challenge mounted on behalf of a ten-year-old boy who had been crowned in Dublin as "Edward VI". Though presented as the last surviving Plantagenet prince, the youth is generally known to history as Lambert Simnel. This book unravels the tangled web of dynastic politics and rivalries in Yorkist England, seeking a context for the bizarre events of 1487. It considers the political instability and the miasma of intrigue associated with the reign of Richard 3 and the first years of Henry V11. It seeks to probe the mysteries surrounding Lambert Simnel, raising new questions about his identity, and attempts to trace the roots and ramifications of the movement centring on him. Above all, it charts the progress of the conspiracy and rebellion, from the raising of troops in the Netherlands and Ireland to the dramatic' coronation' at Dublin, from the invasion of northern England through to the final, bloody encounter outside the village of East Stoke, near Newark, Nottinghamshire, the last occasion when an English king personally took the field against a rival. The author concludes with a convincing argument that the resolution of the crisis of 1487 marked an important stage in the development of early Tudor polity.