Yorkshire Risings of May and July 1470

The first rising, like that of June the previous year, centred on Richmondshire and Holderness and was led by Sir John Conyers and John, Lord Scrope of Bolton. They were probably sympathetic to the Lincolnshire rebels but when the king heard of the disorder he commissioned Montagu to array men from Cumberland and Westmorland to deal with it, but news of the king’s victory at Empingham dispersed the rebels.

News of a rising in Yorkshire by the earl of Warwick’s brother-in-law, Henry Lord Fitzhugh of Ravensworth, reached King Edward in late July 1470 and there is some evidence that the troubles had spread to Carlisle in Cumberland. The king responded swiftly and set out for the north and reached Ripon on 14 August. Fitzhugh fled to Scotland and his men returned to their homes. On 10 September pardons were issued to those involved. There appears to have been no military engagement.  The significance of the uprising and the king’s reaction to it are two-fold. The first is that the king moved north during a critical period. The return of the earl of Warwick, probably in the south of England, was imminent and the king may have left his country exposed by moving north. Why? The pardons issued initially indicated that the uprising was localised to the area around Ravensworth, in other words it had been by the affinity of Fitzhugh.  However, a more detailed examination by Professor Pollard of the names of those pardoned has shown that the participants were more likely to have come from a much wider locality and were in fact the affinity of the earl of Warwick. If Edward was aware of this he could hardly be blamed for reacting so positively. In the event the earl landed in the west country on 13 September. The king marched south but halted his march to rendezvous with troops being raised by Warwick’s brother Montagu who now declared for his brother. King Edward had seemingly fallen into a trap laid by the wily Warwick and he fled to King’s Lynn where he took ship for the Low Countries and exile .

Further Reading:

‘Lord Fitzhugh’s Rising in 1470’ by AJ Pollard from British Institute of Historical Research, vol 52 no 126, 1979. Shows that the rising was potentially more dangerous than is usually thought, because those involved were Warwick’s northern affinity.