Simnel, Lambert

(c. 1475–c. 1525)

   Lambert Simnel, a boy of obscure origins, impersonated Edward PLANTAGENET, earl of Warwick, as part of the first major effort to overthrow HENRY VII and restore the house of YORK.

   Little is known of Simnel, whose very name may have been an invention. The official account of Simnel’s background, as given later by Polydore Vergil in his ANGLICA HISTORIA, claimed that he was the son of Thomas Simnel of Oxford, who was variously described as a baker, joiner, or shoemaker. About 1486, a priest named Richard (or William) Simonds conceived a plan to pass off Simnel, who was apparently an attractive and intelligent youth, as one of the sons of EDWARD IV, who had disappeared in the TOWER OF LONDON in 1483. However, upon hearing a rumor that Warwick had escaped from captivity, Simonds took Simnel to IRELAND, which was strongly Yorkist, and declared him to be the earl and rightful king of England. Gerald FITZGERALD, earl of Kildare, the Irish lord deputy, allowed himself to be persuaded that Simnel was Warwick, while Yorkists in England and abroad also accepted the imposture. MARGARET OF YORK, duchess of BURGUNDY and sister of Edward IV, formally recognized Simnel as her nephew and dispatched to Ireland a body of German MERCENARIES. Francis LOVELL, Lord Lovell, a former confidant of RICHARD III, traveled to Ireland from Burgundy, and John de la POLE, earl of Lincoln, another nephew of Margaret’s and heir apparent to Richard III, slipped across the Irish Sea to Dublin. Because all were probably aware that Simnel was an impostor, the Yorkist leaders likely planned to use the movement that had formed around him to eventually put Lincoln on the throne.

   To meet the growing threat, Henry VII had the real Warwick paraded through the streets of LONDON. The king also banished his motherinlaw, ELIZABETHWOODVILLE, wife of Edward IV, to a nunnery, perhaps because he had learned of her involvement in the Simnel enterprise. On 24 May 1487, Simnel was crowned in Dublin as “Edward VI”; the Irish government accepted his authority, and coins and proclamations were issued in his name. On 4 June, Simnel crossed to England accompanied by Simonds, his chief Yorkist supporters, and his force of German and Irish mercenaries. Enlarged by the retinues of various Yorkist gentleman, Simnel’s army encountered the king’s forces on 16 June. After a stiff three-hour fight, the Battle of STOKE ended in the deaths of Lincoln and Lovell and the captures of Simonds and Simnel. While the former was imprisoned for life, the latter was pardoned. To emphasize Simnel’s unimportance and low birth, Henry supposedly sent the boy to serve in the royal kitchens. Little is known of the remainder of Simnel’s life; he appears to have been employed for a time as a royal falconer and to have later transferred out of royal service. He probably died about 1525, although some accounts have him living into the early 1530s.

   See also Warbeck, Perkin; Yorkist Heirs (after 1485)

   Further Reading: Bennett, Michael J., Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987).