A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



always been held to have had the same effect as that of 1461, annexing the 

 duchv to the crown as a separate inheritance.'" 



It was on the Furness coast that the earl of Lincoln and Lambert Simnel 

 landed with their Irish and German forces on 4 June, 1487, and here they 

 were joined by a number of Yorkists, including Sir Thomas Broughton and 

 James and Thomas Harrington/'' Thence they made their way eastward into 

 Yorkshire, In the royal army which defeated them at Stoke near Newark a 

 large Lancashire contingent was present under the command of Lord Strange, 

 eldest son of the earl of Derby."^ Lord Lovel, who disappeared so myste- 

 riously after the battle in which he fought against the king, was a considerable 

 landowner in the county/'^ 



Lancashire benefited by the cessation under the first Tudor king of the 

 constant hostilities with Scotland which laid so heavy a burden upon the 

 northern counties. But in 1 5 1 3 Henry VIII's invasion of France provoked a 

 counter-invasion of Northumberland by the Scots, and Lancashire troops 

 fought at Flodden. The 500 Lancashire men who, with double the number 

 from Cheshire and some Yorkshire men, formed the extreme right wing of the 

 English army under Lord Edward Howard, did not indeed distinguish them- 

 selves. This wing ' never abode stroke but fled.'"' If we may believe the 

 contemporary chronicler Hall, however, it was hopelessly outnumbered.'*" 

 Here fell Robert Lawrence of Ashton-by-Lancaster and Sir John Booth of 

 Barton, ' the only man of eminence slain on the English side.' '" Brian Tun- 

 stall of Thurland and Richard Bold of Bold were also in this part of the field. 

 Hall mentions 1,000 Lancashire men under Sir Marmaduke Constable, but 

 does not indicate their place in the battle.'" Some men from the county 

 were no doubt included among the retainers of James Stanley, bishop of Ely, 

 who under his illegitimate son, Sir John Stanley, formed part of Surrey's 

 division. But it was the doings of the extreme left wing, which like the 

 right was drawn from Cheshire and Lancashire, and had as commander Sir 

 Edward Stanley, fifth son of the earl of Derby, that compensated for the 

 failure of their countrymen on the other wing. The official dispatch merely 

 says that the earls of Lennox and Argyll with their puissances joined battle 

 with Stanley and were put to flight ; but according to Hall, Stanley led his men 

 up the hill unperceived by the Scots and drove their right before him down 

 to the scene of the main fight.'** His services were rewarded by the order 

 of the Garter and a peerage. He took the title of Lord Monteagle.'^* 



"* Courthope, Hist.Peeraff, 278. 



^ Rot. Parl.y\, 397 ; LcUnd, Collect. 17,210-15 ; ^Mich, Engl, under the Tudors, 36, 326. 



"' After the battle Sir Humphrey Stanley was made a banneret and Henry Bold and others knights. 



"* He held the old Holland estates. See above, p. 203. 



^ S/J// Papers Hen. VIII, iv, i (the official despatch). 



'*' E. Hall, Chron. (ed. 1 801), 562. He reckons the opposing force at 10,000 or more 



"' L. and P. Hen. Fill, i, 4462. 



»" Sir Henry Kighley, Sir Thomas Gerard of Brynn, and Sir William Molyneux of Sefton are described 

 as fighting in this division ; Chet.Soc. Publ. (Old Ser.), xxxvii, 17-18. 



-" Hall, op. cit. 563. It is possible that Hall was misled by exaggerations in the Stanley interest, but he does 

 not support the wilder assertions of the popular ballads {Flodden Field (ed. Weber), 37, 50) that Surrey jealously 

 rejected the demand of the army that Stanley should lead the van and that Sir Edward slew James IV with his 

 own hand. It should be noted that the Cheshire ballad printed by the Chetham Society (loc. cit.), which was 

 written shortly after the battle, says nothing of Stanley's charge. The writer, however, was more interested in 

 Sir John Stanley. He greatly exaggerates the numbers. 



"* A title said to be allusive to the hill he captured at Flodden and the eagle-foot crest of his house • 

 Dugdale, Baronage, ii, 2 5 5 . ' 



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