The real ending to the War of the Roses

It is well known that the Wars of the Roses ended in 1485 on Bosworth Field.  However, this is not a historical truth.  Two years after Bosworth, Henry VII's grasp on power was far from secure.  This insecurity came to a head when Yorkist forces set sail from Dublin in 1487 led by a boy impersonating Edward, Earl of Warwick.  While the usurper was false, the threat that he posed was real enough; many of his troops were German and Swiss mercenaries, led by the Yorkist commander John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln.

Last stand of German mercenaries 

The invaders were finally met by the King's forces on the 16th June.  The battlefield was East Stoke in Nottinghamshire.  The armies were bigger than those at Bosworth and the stakes were higher too.  Had Henry lost, the Tudor era would have been strangled at birth.  Although Lincoln's mercaenaries carried the latest continental firearms, the King's archers won the day.  The invaders were likened to hedgehogs as a consequence of the cruel hail of arrows.  By the end of the battle, the Yorkist pretenders turned and fled, man were butchered in a gully known as the Bloody Gutter.  The death toll was in excess of 4,000, and was the definitive ending to the civil wars.

Battlefield today