The Cornish rebellion of 1497 (Cornish: Rebellyans Kernow), also known as the "First Cornish rebellion of 1497", 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. The rebellion was a response to hardship caused by the raising of war taxes by King Henry VII to finance a campaign against Scotland. Cornwall suffered particularly because the king had recently stopped the legal operation of its tin-mining industry. 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. Background A series of actions by King Henry VII in late 1496 and early 1497 increased the immediate hardships of many of his subjects, especially in Cornwall. In 1496, after disagreements regarding new regulations for the tin-mining industry, the king, working partly through the Duchy of Cornwall, suspended the operation and privileges of the Cornish stannaries, a major part of the economy of the county. The privileges, which included exemption from certain royal and local taxes, had been granted under a deal with Edward I in 1305. Being threatened in 1496–7 with invasion by the Scottish king and the pretender Perkin Warbeck, Henry VII levied an extraordinary series of financial demands on his subjects: a forced loan in late 1496, and in early 1497 a double portion of fifteenths and tenths taxation and a special subsidy levy. The burden fell more heavily on Cornwall than most areas, particularly in the collection of the forced loan. Rebellion Beginnings in Cornwall The first stirrings of protest arose in the parish of St Keverne on the Lizard peninsula, where there already was resentment against the actions of Sir John Oby, provost of Glasney College in Penryn, the tax collector for that area. In reaction to King Henry's tax levy, Michael Joseph (An Gof), a blacksmith from