The area around Ackworth saw a number of historically important battles, such as the 1460 Battle of Wakefield and the 1461 Battle of Towton during the Wars of the Roses. In 1489, four years after the end of the War of the Roses, the new King Henry Tudor levied a tax that caused an uprising in parts of Yorkshire. Thomas Howard, the Earl of Surrey, was sent to quash the uprising after the Earl of Northumberland had been killed by the rebels. Howard managed to subdue it and hanged the leaders in York. In 1492 a further uprising occurred in Ackworth, of which little is known except that Howard again subdued the insurgents. An earlier link could be made with the Battle of Winwaed in 655 between Penda of Mercia and Oswiu of Northumbria, King of Berenicia. It was mentioned by Bede, but the exact location of the battle is unknown. Options include Oswestry in Shropshire, Winwick in Lancashire, Whinmoor, north-east of Leeds, and between Wentbridge and Ackworth, where the modern A639, once a Roman road, crosses the River Went. The battle was pivotal in that Penda had been a powerful pagan king and the victory of the Christian Oswiu could be seen as effectively ending Anglo-Saxon paganism.