East Stoke    -    16th June 1487

By 15 August, the Yorkists, who now numbered about ten thousand men, had reached Newark, and Henry was closing in on them with a large army. The Yorkist army, thanks mainly to Lincoln's leadership, was very well disciplined and had very high morale. The Yorkists had hoped to cross the River Trent here, but found out that the castle and bridge at Newark were being held by a group of the king's men who had ridden ahead of the main army. They decided instead to ford the river at Fiskerton, west of Newark, and by 15 June had traveled there and crossed the river. They made camp in a meadow, west of a small village called East Stoke.

In the morning, the Yorkists moved into a defensive position, on a hill known as Burham Furlong. With their army in place, they waited for the king's forces to arrive, unwilling to lose their advantageous position. Unbeknownst to the Yorkists, the king's commanders did not know where the rebels were, or whether they had even crossed the Trent. Oxford was the first to discover their whereabouts, and he was forced to make a quick decision whether to attack the Yorkists, sending word and hoping the rest of the king's forces would arrive in time, or wait for the rest of the forces to arrive, and risk being attacked in the open. He decided to attack and advanced his forces into battle line. The Yorkists attacked downhill, and Oxford found his forces were being pushed back. It was only the timely arrival of the king's main army that saved Oxford's men from a rout. As more and more fresh troops kept arriving, the Yorkists began to be pushed back up the hill, until they broke and fled.