Cornish rebellion of 1497 | |||||||
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Statue of Michael Joseph the Smith and Thomas Flamank in St Keverne Cornwall. | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Rebels from Cornwall and South-West England | Kingdom of England | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
James, Baron Audley Thomas Flamank Michael An Gof |
Henry VII Giles, Lord Daubeny | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
At least 15,000 | At least 25,000 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Estimated 1,000 dead [citation needed] | Unknown |
The Cornish rebellion of 1497 (Cornish: Rebellyans Kernow), also known as the First Cornish rebellion, was a popular uprising in the Kingdom of England, which began in Cornwall and culminated with the Battle of Deptford Bridge near London on 17 June 1497.
The insurgent army mainly comprised Cornishmen, although it also gathered support from Devon, Somerset, and other English counties.[1] The rebellion was a response to hardship caused by the raising of war taxes by King Henry VII to finance a campaign against Scotland.[2][3] Cornwall suffered particularly because the king had recently stopped the legal operation of Cornish tin mining.
The rebellion's immediate outcome was military defeat, the execution of its main leaders, and death or other punishment for many of its participants. It may have led Perkin Warbeck, a pretender to the English throne, to choose Cornwall as his base later in the year for another attempt to overthrow Henry VII: an episode known as the Second Cornish uprising of 1497. Eleven years later, however, the king addressed the principal Cornish grievance by allowing tin production to resume legally, with a measure of autonomy.