Today is the five hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Pavia, fought early in the morning of this day in 1525. The result was an overwhelming victory for the Imperial forces of the Emperor Charles V over those of King Francis I. Not only were the French defeated with significant casualties but King Francis himself was captured and eventually taken to Spain to negotiate theTreaty of Madrid. The particular point of contention between the two monarchs was the Duchy of Milan, would still formed part of the Holy Roman Empire but to which King Frances had a claim through the Orleans branch of the French royal house. Within a few years, the duchy was to pass permanently to the Habsburgs, who retained it until 1859.
The history of the Duchy is set out on Wikipedia at Duchy of Milan The battle is described at Battle of Pavia
For the government of King Henry VIII the principal importance of the battle was the death of one of the French commanders, Richard de la Pole, who claimed to be Earl, if not Duke, of Suffolk often referred to as the ‘White Rose’ who saw himself, and was quite often seen by others, as the Yorkist claimant to the English throne as King Richard IV.
A portrait believed to be of Richard de la Pole.
Note the White Hart badge of King Richard II, with its Yorkist legitimist implications, on the badge on his cap
Image: Devilstone chronicles
He was the youngest son of Elizabeth de la Pole, sister of King Edward IV and King Richard III, and her husband John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. Richard himself was probably born about 1480, possibly at the family castle at Wingfield in Suffolk. His eldest brother, also called John, appears to have been King Richard III’s designated heir at the time of Bosworth and was killed at the battle of Stoke in 1487. By 1500, Richard, together with his elder brother Edmund, were probably the strongest surviving Yorkist claimants, beyond the children of King Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth. Quite apart from a claim to the throne they appeared to also been motivated by resentment of the fact that, on their father‘s death, they had had to renounce the Dukedom of Suffolk in favour of a mere Earldom. In 1501 they fled to the continent and their aunt Margaret, the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy.
In 1506 King Henry managed to secure the custody of Edmund, promising to spare his life, whilst imprisoning him in the Tower of London. In 1513 King Henry VIII had him beheaded under an act of attainder of 1504. Wikipedia
has a biography of him at Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk
Richard remained on the continent with contacts, and pensions, in the courts of King Louis XII and King Francis I of France, of the Emperor Maximilian and of King Ladislas II of Hungary. He was occasionally backed by the French and used as a threat to the English monarch, very much as the government of King Louis XV were to do with Prince Charles Edward in the earlier eighteenth century.
His death at Pavia was doubtless a relief to the government in London, though how serious a threat he was so many years after the Yorkist risings of the early years after Bosworth is difficult to assess. Again in that respect he resembles the exiled Stuarts.
Wikipedia has a biography of Richard at Richard de la Pole
Lemmy History has two videos about the de la Pole brothers at King Henry VIII's first high profile execution: The forgotten White Rose, which has a couple of observations of my own in the comments, and at Henry VIII Never Forgets An Enemy: The Last Free White Rose Richard de la Pole
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