The Stafford and Lovell rebellion was the first armed uprising against King Henry VII after he won the crown at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

As soon as he advanced towards Worcester in order to eliminate Yorkist support, on 11 May 1486, the Stafford brothers again fled to sanctuary, this time at Culham in the church belonging to Abingdon Abbey.

[3][4] King Henry had the Staffords forcibly removed from the abbey on the night of 14 May by 60 armed men led by his knight Sir John Savage, who had commanded the left flank of his army at the Battle of Bosworth.

[5] When the abbot found out about what had happened, he sent a written complaint to the authorities about what he saw as an outrageous infringement of his abbey's ancient privileges as a place of sanctuary.

The arrest prompted a series of protests against Pope Innocent VIII over the breaking of sanctuary; these resulted in a papal bull in August which agreed to some modifications affecting the privilege.