oined by the Earl of Lincoln, John de la Pole, the son of a sister of
Edward the Fourth by the Duke of Suffolk, and who on the death of
Richard's son had been recognized by that sovereign as his heir. Edward's
queen and the Woodvilles seem to have joined in the plot, and Margaret
sent troops which enabled the pretender to land in Lancashire. But Henry
was quick to meet the danger, and the impostor's defeat at Stoke near
Newark proved fatal to the hopes of the Yorkists. Simnel was taken and
made a scullion in the king's kitchen, Lincoln fell on the field.

[Sidenote: Henry's Government]

The victory of Stoke set Henry free to turn to the inner government of his
realm. He took up with a new vigour and fulness the policy of Edward the
Fourth. Parliament was only summoned on rare and critical occasions. It
was but twice convened during the last thirteen years of Henry's reign.
The chief aim of the king was the accumulation of a treasure which should
relieve him from the need of ever appealing for its aid. Subsidies granted
for the support of wars which Henry evaded formed the base of a royal
treasure which was swelled by the revival of dormant claims of the crown,
by the exaction of fines for the breach of forgotten tenures, and by a
host of petty extortions. Benevolences were again revived. A dilemma of
Henry's minister, which received the name of "Morton's fork," extorted
gifts to the exchequer from men who lived handsomely on the ground that
their wealth was manifest, and from those who lived plainly on the plea
that economy had made them wealthy. Still greater sums were drawn from
those who were compromised in the revolts which chequered the king's rule.
It was with his own hand that Henry endorsed the rolls of fines imposed
after every insurrection. So successful were these efforts that at the end
of his reign the king bequeathed a hoard of two millions to his successor.
The same imitation of Edward's policy was seen in Henry's civil
government. Broken as was the strength of the baronage, there still
remained lords whom the new monarch watched with a jealous solicitude.
Their power lay in the hosts of disorderly retainers who swarmed round
their houses, ready to furnish a force in case of revolt, while in peace
they became centres of outrage and defiance to the law. Edward had ordered
the dissolution of these military households in his Statute of Liveries,
and the statute was enforced by Henry with the utmost severity