The River Trent is said to have “run red with blood”. The Yorkist army began to flee towards the River Trent but were chased down and captured or killed. Towards the end of the battle almost all the leading Yorkists, Martin Schwartz and Fitzgerald were killed. King Henry’s forces totalled around 15,000 with the vanguard of around 6,000 led by John de Vere, the Earl of Oxford with two support groups, one led by the King and the other by George Stanley, Lord Strange.Īlthough only Oxford’s vanguard were engaged by the rebels the battle itself was a bloody one with heavy casualties, particularly amongst the poorly armoured Irish who were shot through by English archers. The rebel Yorkists, led by the Earl of Lincoln and a German mercenary named Colonel Martin Schwartz, controlled an army made up of around 8,000 men, mainly poorly armed Irish troops led by Thomas Fitzgerald and Swiss/German mercenaries. Simnel was used as a pawn by leading Yorkists to try and re-establish their hold on the crown. The Battle of Stoke Field was an attempt to unseat King Henry VII in favour of a 10 year old boy called Lambert Simnel who was an imposter pretending to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of Edward IV’s brother, the Duke of Clarence. The Battle of Bosworth Field, two years previously, had established King Henry VII on the throne, ending the last period of Yorkist rule and initiating that of the Tudors.
The battle was the last major conflict between the Houses of York and Lancaster and was a battle to gain control of the crown. It is Nottinghamshire’s only registered battlefield. The Battle of Stoke Field took place on 16 June 1487 and is the last Battle of the infamous Wars of the Roses.
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