SIMNEL, LAMBERT (fl. 1477-1534), English impostor, was probably the son of a tradesman at Oxford. He was about ten years old in 1487, and was described as a handsome youth of intelligence and good manners. In 1486, the year following the accession of Henry VII., rumours were spread by the Yorkists that the two sons of Edward IV., who had been murdered in the Tower of London, were still alive. A young Oxford priest, Richard Symonds by name, decided to put forward the boy Simnel as one of these princes. He provided him with a suitable education, but meanwhile a report having gained currency that the young earl of Warwick, son of Edward IV.'s brother George, duke of Clarence, had died in the Tower, Symonds decided that the im personation of Warwick would be more effective. The Yorkists had many adherents in Ireland, and thither Lambert Simnel was taken by Symonds early in 1487. He gained the support of the earl of Kildare, the archbishop of Dublin, the lord chancellor and a powerful following, and was crowned as King Edward VI. in the cathedral in Dublin on May 24, 1487. Messages asking for help were sent to Margaret, duchess of Burgundy, sister of Ed ward IV., to Sir Thomas Broughton and other Yorkist leaders.
On Feb. 2, 1487 Henry VII. held a council at Sheen to concert measures for dealing with the conspiracy. Elizabeth Woodville, widow of Edward IV., was imprisoned in the convent of Ber mondsey; and the real earl of Warwick was shown in public in the streets of London. John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, himself a nephew of Edward IV., had probably connived at the Simnel im personation. He now fled to Flanders, where he joined Lord Lovell, who had headed an unsuccessful Yorkist rising in 1486, and in May 1487 the two lords proceeded to Dublin, where they landed a few days before the coronation of Lambert Simnel.
They were accompanied by 2,000 German soldiers under Martin Schwartz, procured by Margaret of Burgundy to support the enterprise, Margaret having recognized Simnel as her nephew. This force, together with some ill-armed Irish levies commanded by Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, landed in Lancashire on June 4. King Henry immediately marched to Nottingham, where his army was strengthened by the addition of 6,000 men. Making for the fortress of Newark, Lincoln and Sir Thomas Broughton, accom panied by Simnel, attacked the royal army near Stoke-on-Trent on June 16, 1487. After a fierce and stubborn struggle the Royal ists were completely victorious, though they left 2,000 men on the field; Lincoln, Schwartz and Fitzgerald with 4,000 of their followers were killed, and Lovell and Broughton disappeared. The priest Symonds and Simnel were taken prisoners. Henry VII., recognizing that Lambert Simnel had been a tool in Yorkist hands, took him into his own service as a scullion. He was later pro moted to be royal falconer, and is said to have afterwards become a servant in the household of Sir Thomas Lovell. He was still living in the year See Bacon, History of Henry VII., with notes by J. R. Lumby (r881) ; Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors (3 vols., 1885-189o) ; James Gairdner, Henry VII. (London, 1889) and Letters and Papers illus trative of the reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII. ("Rolls" series, 2 vols., London, 1861-1863) ; The Political History of England, vol. v., by H. A. L. Fisher (London, 1906) ; and W. Busch, England under the Tudors (1895). For a contemporary account see Polydore Vergil, Anglicae historiae, to which all the later narratives are indebted.