The New Murrey and Blue blog

The story of Lambert Simnel is well-known, of course, but here is a podcast about him.

It begins with adverts and they reappear during the narration, but the programme itself is interesting. Lambert is stated, categorically, to be the son of an Oxford carpenter. He is also described as being trained to be Edward Plantagenet, son of George of Clarence. Trained so well, in fact, that he really could carry off the pretence.

We hear of the boy’s coronation in Dublin, and his army’s progress across the Irish Sea to England and eventual confrontation with Henry VII at Stoke Field.

Unfortunately, Henry is described as “a great war captain” whose army “annihilated” the opposition. Henry Tudor wasn’t a great war captain, he was just incredibly lucky, and far from annihilating the Yorkists at Stoke he won because of an error by his foes, who were actually beginning to win until that moment. Lambert’s subsequent fate in the royal kitchens is then described.

The narrator feels that if the Yorkists had won, Lambert wouldn’t have been long for this world, but would have been hastily swapped with the real Edward Plantagenet.

But, in spite of the above comments, in general I enjoyed the podcast, which is just over twenty minutes long.