Ireland remained a hot-bed of Yorkist sympathies, and Ireland was zealously aided by Edward IV.'s sister, Margaret of Burgundy; she pursued, like a vendetta, the family quarrel with Henry VII., and earned the title of Henry's Juno by harassing him as vindictively as the Queen of Heaven vexed the pious AEneas.

Other rulers, with no Yorkist bias, were slow to recognise the _parvenu_ king and quick to profit by his difficulties.

Pretenders to their rivals' thrones were useful pawns on the royal chess-board; and though the princes of Europe had no reason to desire a Yorkist restoration, they thought that a little judicious backing of Yorkist claimants would be amply repaid by the restriction of Henry's energies to domestic affairs.

Seven months after the battle of Bosworth there was a rising in the West under the Staffords, and in the North under Lovell; and Henry himself was nearly captured while celebrating at York the feast of St.George.A year later a youth of obscure origin, Lambert Simnel,[23] claimed to be first the Duke of York and then the Earl of Warwick.

The former was son, and the latter was nephew, of Edward IV.