Henry VII's Internal Rebellions

The Yorkshire Rebellion (1489) associated with the Treaty of Redon. At the time, Brittany the only remaining indepdent kingdom of France was under attack because the Regent of France wished that Charles VIII would marry the Anne the Duchess of Britanny despite being engaged to Maximillan (HORE). Effectively, Henry had to do something as he had used Brittany as a place of refugee in 1471 when defeated in the battle of Tewkesbury.

The rising occured when Henry's attempt to raise money was accepted and a subsidy of £100,000 was given. Very little was raised however. Yorkshire had already suffered from a bad harvest in 1488 and other Northern counties had been excluded from paying the taxes as they were expected to fight back Scotland from the borders. It was also irritating that Northern counties were expected to pay extra taxes for a war that threatened the South of England. The Duke of Northumberland was murdered when attempting to collect taxes. The rebellion led by Sir John Egremount  (Yorkist Supporter and illegal member of Percy family--largest landowners in England) was easily crushed by the royal army.

Henry therefore apppointed Earl of Surrey to be his represenative up North recognising that there was little royal control up there. Espeically wth the case of Lamert Simnel who had come from up North and was able to exploit help from Ireland.

The Cornish Rebellion occured in 1487 and stigmatised from the same problems in the Yorkshire rebellion. Henry was attempting to raise money because of the threat in Soctland over Perkin Warbeck who during this time was protected by the King of Scotland, James IV. However, like Yorkshire, the Cornish had little interest on what was happening up North. The rebels assembled at Bodmin May 1497 and their numbers swelled as they progressed down through the country.It attracted over 15,000 supporters and one noble, Lord Audley.

Henry feared that the French might join in on the attack as the rebels passed by the weakest flank of London (South) therefore he sent out a royal army of 25,000 men who crushed the rebels easily at Blackheath in June 1497.

Both these rebellions were a major threat to Henry's reign as clearly neither were accepting of the Tudor Dynasty. If numbers had swelled even more, they could easily overthrown Henry from the throne.