John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln

John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln ( * 1462/1464, † June 16, 1487 ) was the eldest son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk, and Elizabeth of York. His mother was the sixth child and third daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville.

At the age of three to five years, John was appointed by his uncle King Edward Earl of Lincoln. During the last year of the reign of his maternal uncle, King Richard III. , He was the immediate heir to the throne because he was Richard's nearest male descendant of the House of York.

After the defeat of Richards in the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485 de facto extinguished all his rights to the throne and he was reconciled with the new rulers, Henry VII, who he did not like the other former supporters of Richard III. declared a traitor, but spared him and left him all his titles. But apparently he could not get over his nunmehrige insignificance in the English aristocracy.

Two years later, in 1487, there were rumors of an escape Edwards Plantagenets from the Tower of London, who was beside de la Pole one of the last claimant to the throne of the house of York. These rumors, however, were wrong and the work of a priest named Roger Simon, who spent the ten year old Lambert Simnel for Edward. This fictitious story that de la Pole certainly saw through, since the real Edward Plantagenet was proven to be still in the Tower of London, now the remaining Yorkist used under the leadership of de la Pole: They supported officially Lamberts claims. While Simnel went to Ireland, where the Earl of Kildare was presented which supported him immediately sought the Earl of Lincoln on the farm of his aunt Margaret of Burgundy and there was planning an attack on England. His aunt supported him financially and was able to more than 1500 German and Swiss mercenaries recruited. More rebels gathered at de la Pole: Lord Lovell, Sir Richard Harleston and Thomas David. On May 5, reached the German mercenaries Ireland and then drove on June 5, with the reinforcement of Irish troops to England, where they were supported by some Englishmen.

On June 16, it came to the battle of Stoke under the command of de la Pole. By tactically unfavorable position and the lower number of Yorkist subject to the rebels and were trounced. John de la Pole died in battle.