POLITICAL HISTORY 



that Henry had reached Shrewsbury unchecked, he determined to advance, 

 and having marshalled his forces outside Nottingham, ' with a frownynge 

 countenaunce and truculente aspect, mounted on a great white courser," rode 

 with them to Leicester and to the field of Bosworth. 1 



Nottinghamshire, thus actively concerned in the events which made 

 Henry VII king, was once more brought into the faction fight with the 

 attempt of Lambert Simnel as the tool of Irish and Yorkist party to 

 depose the king in 1489. Aroused like the rest of England to fight against 

 an army composed of Irish and German forces, Nottinghamshire was wholly 

 with Henry, and welcomed him on his march from Leicester to meet the 

 rebel forces as they advanced from Masham, in Yorkshire. At Nottingham, 

 ' by a lytle wood called Bowres, he pytched his feelde,' and to him came 

 George Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, and many other ' valeaunt capitaynes ' 

 and ' noble and expert men of warre,' for he had ordered that ' all the persons 

 of the counties adjoyning that were hable and of strength to cary weapon 

 should be ready in an houres warnynge in case that any nede should requyre.' 2 

 On the night of 15 June 'the king's hooste lay under the end of that hill 

 towarde Nottingham Lentonwarde, and his forward before him to Nottingham 

 bridge, and the Erie of Derby's hooste on the king's left hand to the meadows 

 beside Lenton.' A council of war was held in Nottingham Castle, and in 

 the morning the king set out with the army for Newark, accompanied by 

 ' six goode and trewe men of the village of Ratcliffe, which showed his grace 

 the best waye for to conduct his hooste.' 3 Tarrying a little while at Newark, 

 Henry marched three miles farther on, so placing himself between the enemy 

 and Newark, ' being loth that their army should get the commodity of that 

 town.' * The earl of Lincoln with the rebel force ' passed softly on his 

 journey,' and advancing probably through Mansfield and Southwell, forded 

 the Trent, and planted his camp ' at a lytle village called Stoke, nygh to the 

 king and his armye.' On the next day Henry divided his army into three 

 battalions, and approached Stoke, ' where was an equall and playne place for 

 both parties to darreigne the battaille.' 6 The armies joined and fought 

 ' earnestly and sharply,' and ' for a space so sore and so egrely of both partes 

 that no man could well judge to whom the victory was lyke to enclyne.' 

 But at last the king's vanguard entered the fray with such force and violence 

 that the enemy fled, leaving their leaders and about 4,000 men slain on the 

 field.' 8 



When the beginnings of reform under Henry VIII took shape in the 

 dissolution of the lesser monasteries, and aroused the conservatism of the 

 north, Nottinghamshire came once more into history as marking the southern 

 range of the 'Pilgrimage of Grace.' Early in October, 1536, rebellion 

 was known to be brewing in the county and the districts round, and the 

 rebels were gathering force at Newark. Thus in answer to a royal command 

 ' to repress all evil-disposed persons lately assembled in those parts, and 

 apprehend the ringleaders and examine them of the grounds of the insur- 

 rection,' the earl of Shrewsbury wrote from his 'poor cot at Herdewyche 



1 Hall's Chron. (ed. Ellis), 412. ' Ibid. 433. 



1 Account of herald quoted in full by Bailey, Annals of Notts. i, 347-8. 



4 Bacon, Hist, of Hen. Vll (ed. Murray), 286. ''Hairs Chron. (ed. Ellis), 434. 



' Ibid. 



333 



