England

Henry Tudor

As far as anyone knew, England's long internal strife looked like it would just go on and on, for Tudor was a usurper dependent on the goodwill of those who had made him king. Nor had the Yorkists been eliminated at Bosworth Field.

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Henry VII

The most serious danger came from those little princes in the Tower. Because they had disappered, it was at least possible that they had somehow escaped or been spirited away and were now grown to manhood. Henry had hardly become King Henry VII before a Yorkist pretender appeared, claiming to be not one of the princes but the Earl of Warwick, Richard III's nephew. Yorkist forces gathered in Lancashire and marched on London in 1487. Henry met them at the Battle of Stoke, near Newark, and destroyed them. The pretender was captured and executed.

Not long before, Henry had married Elizabeth of York, Edward IV's daughter, as an important gesture of reconciliation. It helped, but there were still die-hards who looked for another candidate to put forward.

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Elizabeth of York

They found him in Perkin Warbeck, the son of a Flemish merchant, who was of about the right age to have been Richard, the younger of the two princes of the Tower. Everyone involved knew he was false. They coached him in all that he would need to know, and did it well enough that both the king of France and Margaret of Burgundy (Edward IV's sister) accepted him as genuine. Both gave him men and money.

Warbeck tried landing at Kent, but his men were rounded up almost as soon as they set foot on shore. He went to Ireland, and then to Scotland to rally help. The Scots, ever willing, invaded England in September 1496, Warbeck calling on "his subjects" to join him.

Few did. The invasion turned into little more than a raid, and the Scots returned back across the border.

Warbeck invaded again in 1497, this time in Cornwall. He was unable to capture any key points, any his followers dwindled away. He went to Henry and pleaded for mercy. He was imprisoned and two years later was executed.

Meanwhile, Henry was steadily gaining power and having sons besides. Though plots and rumors of plots dogged him almost until the end, Henry was secure on his throne by 1500, and his son succeeded him without incident.