Teaching notes The following activity is designed to help assess the level of threat posed by Warbeck to Henry VII. Activity on: giant card sort Print the statements A K (p.2) and give students one statement each/as a pair, plus a sticky note. On the sticky note students should decide whether their statement shows Warbeck to be threatening or not, and why. Create a continuum in the room where not a threat at all is at one end and a huge threat is at the other. Use a large space so the statements can be effectively spaced out. Students place their statement and post-it note along the continuum, showing they can establish relative importance of evidence. Encourage students to read the other statements and allow them one challenge where they can move one of the statements if they disagree with where they are placed. Copies of the line could be photographed for students to keep a record. Activity two: assessment of threat To break down the level and nature of the threat, students should use the statements to assess how far Warbeck threatened Henry in different areas. The grid on p.3 allows students to summarise the level of threat and record key evidence. Activity three: summary Students should now be able to complete the rebellion card (p.4) to summarise the rebellion. Activity four: exam question Give students the copies of the historians interpretations (p.5). sources help support the following essay question: How far do these To what extent was Henry VII s reign threatened by pretenders to the throne? www.teachithistory.co.uk 2015 25143 Page 1 of 5
Statements for giant card sort How far was Henry VII threatened by Perkin Warbeck? A. The rebellion lasted eight years, beginning in 1490 and ending when Warbeck was captured in 1498. B. Henry s actions in dealing with the Simnel rebellion, by punishing those in Ireland who had shown Simnel support, meant that when Warbeck looked for funding and military assistance, potential rebels would not join. C. Warbeck claimed he would lower taxes and end wars with Scotland. D. His landing in Cornwall was badly timed the brutal suppression of the Cornish revolt months before meant there was no appetite to join him. E. Henry ensured that foreign agreements such as the 1492 Treaty of Etaples with France and the Magnus Intercursus treaty with Maximilian had a clause to deny help to each other s enemies. Henry strengthened the Medina del Campo, originally signed in 1489, to ensure that Warbeck s support was limited. F. Warbeck had a claim and a believable story he claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the princes in the Tower: not murdered, as his brother, Edward V had been, but spared by the tender-hearted killer and spirited abroad. G. Warbeck had arranged to marry the cousin of James IV, King of Scotland. James had arranged for Warbeck to receive a pension of 1,200 a year. This gave Warbeck legitimacy; James would be unlikely to marry his cousin to someone not thought to have a claim. H. The impact of Warbeck s rebellion can be seen to have caused divisions in Henry s inner circle. Lord Stanley secretly supported Warbeck and made it known that he would not resist Warbeck if he were Richard of York and was also rumoured to be in contact with Margaret of Burgundy. Henry had Stanley executed as a traitor. I. Warbeck cost Henry VII over 13,000 (the equivalent to 6.4 million in current values). J. None of the foreign countries gave Warbeck adequate support, with Henry s actions limiting support at each stage. K. In an attempt to limit former Yorkists supporting Warbeck, parliament passed the De Facto Act of 1495 saying service to the Yorkist kings had not been treason. www.teachithistory.co.uk 2015 25143 Page 2 of 5
Area Context what was Henry s reign like in this area? Evidence that Warbeck threatened this area Overall assessment of Warbeck s threat in this area As a dynastic threat... As a political threat... As a financial threat... As a threat to a settled foreign policy... www.teachithistory.co.uk 2015 25143 Page 3 of 5
Rebellion card Monarch... Rebellion... Date... Causes of the rebellion: Short term Long term Objectives:... Leaders:... Size:... Main events:... Government response:... Results: Any success (long/short term)? Reasons why? Give evidence. Any failure (long/short term)? Reasons why? Give evidence. Extent to which it presented a threat to the government:... www.teachithistory.co.uk 2015 25143 Page 4 of 5
Use the interpretations below, and your own knowledge, to plan an answer to this essaystyle question: To what extent was Henry VII s reign threatened by pretenders to the throne? When he captured Lambert Simnel, the young tradesman's son who led the first revolt against him and was crowned King of England in Dublin, he did not put him to death, but employed him as a servant in his household. When he defeated and captured a second and far more dangerous pretender, Perkin Warbeck, he spared his life, and it was only after Warbeck had twice tried to escape that he was executed. Jasper Ridley, Henry VIII (1984) Of the revolts faced by Henry VII, the most serious were those with dynastic intentions. The imposture of Lambert Simnel as the imprisoned nephew of Edward IV, Edward, earl of Warwick, however exotic, was much more menacing, because it occurred within two years of Bosworth. Perkin Warbeck's imposture as Edward IV's younger son, Richard of York, during the 1490s was more easily contained, despite Scottish and European intervention. Simnel was routed at the battle of Stoke: his promoters were slain or imprisoned, and the young imposter was taken into the royal household as a servant. Warbeck fell into Henry's hands in October 1497; before long he had abused the king's leniency and so was hanged (23 November 1499). John Guy, Tudor England (1986) www.teachithistory.co.uk 2015 25143 Page 5 of 5