From the magazine

The boy who would be king: The Pretender, by Jo Harkin, reviewed

A magnificent imagining of the life of Lambert Simnel traces his progress from farm boy to coronation in Dublin to turnspit in the Tudor palace kitchens to plans of dark revenge

Andrew Taylor
Lambert Simnel riding on the shoulders of his supporters in Ireland.  Culture Club/Getty Images
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 19 April 2025
issue 19 April 2025

Cock’s bones! This is a most wonderly historical novel, the very reverse of a wind-egg. It tells the story of Lambert Simnel, the youthful figurehead of a Plantagenet uprising against Henry VII in 1487. The historical Simnel is an elusive figure, and most of what little we know comes through Tudor propagandists.

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