Other claimants to the throne posed a threat for Henry; especially as their claims were stronger than his due to them being nephews or daughters of Edward IV and descended from the second son of Edward III (John of Gaunt was the third son.)
The first was Edward, Earl of Warwick, nephew of Edward IV and Richard III. However, his threat was not very great for two reasons. Firstly, he was only 10 years old when Henry came to the throne, and therefore incapable of himself leading a rebellion against Henry in favour of himself as King. Secondly, his father, George Duke of Clarence, had been attainded for leading a revolt against Edward IV, which barred Warwick from this title and the succession. Nonetheless, Henry still kept Warwick in prison until his execution in 1499, perhaps because he was all too aware that he himself was technically barred from the throne, yet had managed to usurp it.
The second was John, Earl of Lincoln, another nephew of Edward IV and Richard III, and heir to the latter. Although he fought with Richard at Bosworth, he was forgiven until he supported a Pretender to the throne, after which point he was executed (1487). Consequently, although he posed a threat up until his death, this was a relatively short period of time and after his death, his threat to Henry was obviously non-existent.
Assuming Edward IV’s sons were dead; his daughters all had a strong claim to the throne. Henry dealt with this problem by marrying the eldest and marrying another to one of his supporters. Therefore, their threat was extremely minimal, as by themselves they would never gain enough support in the country to pose a serious threat because they were women.
John Guy in Tudor England summarises by saying “the striking feature of the period is not the prevalence but the absence of males of royal blood;” after 1487, the legitimate claims on Henry’s new throne were all either women or children and were also all under his control. They therefore posed no serious threat at all to Henry.
To some extent they came as a result of his usurpation because the Yorkists were keen to put someone from their family on the throne again, and if Henry hadn’t taken the throne and it had passed to someone in the Yorkist family after Richard’s death, they wouldn’t have been trying to replace the monarch. However, to some extent this is not as a result of his usurpation, because any monarch for centuries before and after Henry was always challenged by somebody else who wanted the throne for themselves. In some cases, this was even the case within the different families, as was the case with Richard III usurping the throne from his own nephew and probably killing him and his brother in 1483. Consequently, any monarch from this time always faced threats from other claimants to the throne, regardless of whether the throne had been taken by force.
David Grossel tells us “The lack of serious claimants to the throne produced the strange phenomenon of Pretenders.” The Pretenders, people who claimed they were the legitimate ruler when they were a fake, were a threat to Henry largely because they were actively trying to remove Henry from the throne and gained so much foreign support.
The first of the Pretenders was Lambert Simnel, who was really just a pawn of more powerful men trying to get rid of Henry and establish their own power. Simnel was a large threat to Henry, especially as this uprising began in 1486, less than a year after Henry took the throne. Simnel claimed to be the Earl of Warwick, and gained the support of the Earl of Lincoln. His main support was in Ireland, where there were strong Yorkist sympathies and the Lords supported him mainly as a show of independence from England. After Henry produced the real Warwick to prove Simnel was a fake, Lincoln and Simnel fled to Burgundy, where Duchess Margaret (Richard III’s sister) protected them and organised an army of 2000 German mercenaries. This army landed in England along with an Irish one in June 1487 in a bid to take over the throne. Although Henry defeated them at the Battle of Stoke, the nobles hadn’t stopped the army, showing their indifference towards Henry. This was a threat to Henry because it showed up the hostility of two of England’s neighbours (Ireland and Burgundy) and the indifference of his own nobles towards Henry. However, it must also be remembered that the uprising gained almost no support on mainland England.
The other Pretender was Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Prince Richard, younger son of Edward IV (it is accepted that he was really murdered in the Tower with his brother Edward V). Like Simnel, Warbeck gained his initial support in Ireland in 1491, but appeared to also have the support of the French; perhaps he was initially a ploy to distract Henry from French oppression of Brittany. He also gained support from Margaret of Burgundy and the Scottish James IV, who recognized him as the true King of England. Warbeck was a threat to Henry as it again showed a large hostility from foreign powers towards him. However, it could be argued that in the case of Scotland and Ireland, the hostility wasn’t against Henry himself, but against English oppression. Margaret of Burgundy, however, hated the Tudors because Henry had usurped and killed her brother. Therefore, her support of anything against Henry can be said to be a direct consequence of Henry’s usurpation. Henry did view this threat as serious enough to impose a trade embargo on Burgundy (England’s main trading partner) and to employ an impressive spy network to flush out supporters of Warbeck. The threat was only ended when Warbeck was captured and hung in 1499.
Overall, the threat of the Pretenders was a result of Henry’s usurpation because it signalled the end of the Wars of the Roses; the fight between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists. The Pretenders highlights the lack of real Yorkist claimants and also shows how desparate they were to get someone who appeared one of their own back on the throne and be back in power. If Henry hadn’t usurped the throne, it wouldn’t have resulted in the Yorkists grabbing at straws due to a lack of strong claimants trying to get it back.
Closely related the threat of the Pretenders was the threat of not keeping a good foreign policy. Henry VII was perhaps more aware and realistic than other monarchs in this sense, as he had used this to his advantage in usurping the throne himself; the French king had supported him. In the Warbeck uprising, Henry used diplomacy as a foreign policy to prevent war with France and Scotland. A good foreign policy was crucial to his survival. However, the threat of not keeping a good foreign policy was not a result of his usurpation because it was something that all monarchs had to be weary of, as foreign powers could turn against them if they antagonized them too much. One could argue that perhaps Henry had to be a little more careful as he was a new player in European politics and not all rulers were willing to accept him, such as Margaret of Burgundy. However, on the whole, having a good foreign policy wasn’t specific to Henry.
During Henry’s reign, there were three rebellions, as “the victory at Bosworth had only confirmed Henry’s claim to the throne” (Rogers). These were threats to Henry’s rule as they tried to take him off the throne.
Firstly, the Stafford/Lovell uprising of April 1486 although regarded by historians as minor was worrying to Henry as it was so soon after his accession. The rebellion began as a direct result of Henry’s usurpation because it was an objection to Henry’s rule. Although the rebellion did gain some support, the intentions of the rebellion were more of a threat than the actual revolt, as they had no figurehead and Henry managed to put down the rebellion.
The second, more serious, uprising was the Yorkshire rebellion of 1489, which was closely linked to Henry’s foreign policy. It revolved around the northern men being unwilling to pay for a war in France in the south to protect Brittany, which affected them so little. This had little to do with Henry’s usurpation, as protecting Brittany wasn’t anything to do with it.
The third, and arguably the most serious uprising of Henry’s reign, was the Cornish rebellion in 1497. In his book Tudor Rebellions, Fletcher highlights this; “It was a frightening variety of rebellion for a Tudor monarch. A cry of anger, which crossed the social barriers in West Country.” Cornish men, who were very poor, resisted taxation to garrison the north against Scotland as this wouldn’t affect them. They marched to Blackheath, just outside London, where an army of 25,000 defeated them. The Cornish rebellion was indirectly a result of Henry’s usurpation, as the taxation that directly caused the rebellion was needed to resist James IV of Scotland’s support of the Pretender Perkin Warbeck, which was caused by the usurpation as discussed above. Without Warbeck claiming the throne due to dissatisfied and desperate Yorkists, Henry wouldn’t have taxed England to fortify the north against a potential army from him. It is also interesting to note that the rebels managed to march unopposed from Cornwall to Blackheath, which again shows an indifference by Henry’s nobility to openly support him.
With the exception of the Yorkshire rebellion, the rebellions that Henry faced, including those of the two Pretenders, were all directly or indirectly caused by his usurpation, as they all wanted him off the throne. All except the Cornish rebellion were doing this in support of the Yorkist claim, which wouldn’t have occurred if he, a Lancastrian hadn’t usurped the throne. Henry, however, handled all of these threats well and flexibly; he was ruthless and showed mercy depending on the situation.
In conclusion, ignoring that all the threats were down to the usurpation because if he hadn’t taken the throne, he wouldn’t have the threats in the first place, it is possible to argue that to a partial extent the threats Henry VII faced were due to his usurpation. Some of the threats he faced had nothing to do with his usurpation e.g. his weak legitimate claim, and others can be linked to his usurpation, but would either always have been a threat to whoever the monarch ascended the throne was e.g. other claimants to the throne or weren’t completely linked to the usurpation. Other threats can de directly (or indirectly) linked to his usurpation e.g. the rise of Pretenders and the Stafford/Lovell uprising and the Cornish rebellion. Although the many threats proved how fragile his position really was, Henry managed to keep his throne and achieve his greatest aim; securing the Tudor dynasty.
