Edward IV of England

gigatos | January 21, 2022

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Summary

Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) King of England (4 March 1461 – 3 October 1470) and (11 April 1471 – 9 April 1483) of the House of York, was the second son of Richard Plantagenet and Cecile Neville. Edward IV was the first King of England from the House of York. In the early part of his reign, much violence broke out with the rival House of Lancaster that came to be known as the War of the Roses, and after the Battle of Tewksbury (1471) he resumed the throne and ruled peacefully until his sudden death. Before becoming king, Edward IV took the titles of 4th Duke of York, 7th Earl of March, 5th Earl of Cambridge, 9th Earl of Ulster, and was the 65th Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Edward was the second son of his parents but the eldest of the four who survived to adulthood, and before his father”s death and ascension to the throne he took the title of Earl of March.

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Rise to the throne

Richard of York was the heir to Henry VI of England until the day his son Edward of Westminster was born (1453) and was in bitter conflict with the king”s relatives from the Beaufort family. Richard took the initiative after his victory at the Battle of St Albans (1455), where his greatest enemy Edmond Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, was killed. Queen Margaret of Anjou mounted a stiff resistance to the Duke of York and his followers, his brother-in-law Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury and his son, Richard Neville (his father”s namesake), Earl of Warwick (1459). The chiefs of the House of York escaped from England after their defeat at Ludford Bridge, and Richard fled to Ireland while his son Edward went with the Nevilles to Calais, of which Warwick was governor. In 1460 Edward encamped in Kent with Salisbury, Warwick and Salisbury”s brother William Neville, Lord of Fawconberg and Earl of Kent, and with his army captured London. Edward of York left the Earl of Salisbury to besiege the Tower of London, and with his followers advanced to the Midlands, and defeated and captured Henry VI. at the battle of Northampton. Richard, Duke of York, returned to England and proclaimed himself heir to the throne, but Queen Margaret with a new army defeated and killed him, together with his second son Edmond, Earl of Rutland, and the Earl of Salisbury, at the battle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460.

Edward then became Duke of York and head of the House of York, and defeated the Lancastrians on 2-3 September 1461 at Herefordshire. The Earl of Warwick was defeated by Margaret on 17 February 1461 at the second battle of St Albans, and Henry VI was freed by his followers. Edward”s father had not intended Edward to become king himself, but Edward decided to take the plunge, and was crowned in March 1461 as Edward IV of England. He then moved with an army against the Lancastrians, but was saved on the battlefield by the Welsh knight Sir David ap Matthew, and then defeated the Lancastrians on 29 March 1461 at the bloody Battle of Taughton in Yorkshire. Edward crushed Lancaster”s military might and went to London for his coronation, and named Knight David of Matthew “Standard-bearer of England” and allowed him to place the word “Taughton” on the symbols of the House of Matthew. Lancaster resistance continued in the north but after their defeat by the Earl of Warwick”s brother, John Neville, at the Battle of Hexham (1464) they were finally subdued. Henry VI escaped to the Pennines, where he hid for a year, but was then captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Edward IV decided not to assassinate Henry because he feared the transition of the headship of the House of Lancaster to his successor Edward of Westminster, who was young and combative.

Marriage to Elizabeth Woodville

Although Edward IV was only 18 years old, he was an able military leader, and is described as tall and handsome, standing at 1.95 m tall, the tallest man of his time. Most English families remained loyal to Henry VI, but Edward remained king thanks to the support of the Nevilles, who had vast estates and helped him ascend the throne. The king, however, was alienated from the Earl of Warwick because of his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, at the same time Warwick was negotiating with Louis XI of France for Edward”s marriage to the French king”s daughter Anne, or sister-in-law, Bonaparte of Savoy. Edward IV secretly married Elizabeth Woodville, widow of John Gray of Groby, on 1 May 1464, which greatly offended Warwick.

Edward”s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was heavily criticised for having nothing to offer England and the House of York. The royal council announced with displeasure to the king that “Elizabeth was most unfit to be the wife of a great prince; she was neither the daughter of a duke, nor even an earl, but only of a mere nobleman.” The writer Christine Carpenter (b. 1946) sees no political movement in Edward IV”s marriage and clearly had no need for the alliance with the Woodville family. Historian Bertie Wilkinson describes the marriage as a “love romance and a fairly cold political move”. Elizabeth”s mother was Jacquetta of Luxembourg, widow of John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford and uncle of Henry VI, but her father was Richard Woodville, 1st Earl of Rivers, a very recently created barony of little standing. When Elizabeth”s marriage to Edward IV became known in October 1464, Elizabeth”s twelve unmarried siblings immediately became sought-after brides and grooms. Catherine Woodville married Henry Stafford, grandson and heir to the Duke of Buckingham; Anne Woodville married William Bursier, Viscount of Bursier, eldest son and heir to the Earl of Essex; and Eleanor Woodville married Anthony Grey, son and heir to the Earl of Kent.

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Subversion

The sudden rise of the Woodville family created great hostility among the English aristocracy, especially from nobles attached to Edward IV, such as the Earl of Warwick, and the Woodvilles soon succeeded through the king in pushing him aside. Warwick gradually became hostile to the king and was accused of treason, so in October 1467 he fled to his estates in Yorkshire. He began to prepare a coup against Edward IV with the help of disgruntled nobles such as the king”s younger brother George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence. The royal army, without Edward, was defeated on 26 July 1469 at the Battle of Edgecote Moore, and Edward was subsequently taken prisoner in the town of Olney in south-east England. The Earl of Warwick tried to rule in the king”s name but the aristocracy was hostile to him and he could not control it, and a local rebellion in the north forced him to release Edward on 10 September 1469.

Edward IV at this point tried to reconcile with the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick, when a private feud broke out in Lincolnshire between Sir Thomas Berg, Lord of Gainsborough, and Sir Richard Wells, Lord of Wells. A few months later, in March 1470, Warwick and Clarence decided to rebel again against Edward IV. Lincolnshire”s rebellion was eventually crushed, Warwick escaped to France on 1 May 1470 and attempted to make an alliance with Margaret of Anjou of the House of Lancaster. Louis XI of France ascended the French throne on the death of his father, Charles VII, on 25 July 1461, and immediately turned against Edward IV by allying himself with the House of Lancaster. Warwick made an agreement with Louis XI and Margaret to restore Henry VI to the throne of England by military invasion, and their fleet sailed for England on 9 September 1470. Edward IV was forced to flee to Flanders when he learned that Warwick”s brother John Neville, 1st Marquis of Montague, had changed sides and also allied himself with the Lancastrians, making his position undefendable.

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Reset

Henry VI was soon restored to the throne, in an event known as the “Restoration”, and Edward IV escaped to Flanders, then part of the Duchy of Burgundy, with his younger brother Richard of Gloucester. Charles of Burgundy was Edward IV”s son-in-law by virtue of his marriage on 3 July 1468 to Edward”s sister, Margaret of York. The French decided to declare war on Burgundy although Charles was at first reluctant to help his brother-in-law, but then took this as an excuse to raise an army to restore Edward to the throne of England. Edward IV returned to England with a relatively small force, and the city of York opened its gates to him after promising that he had come only to claim his duchy (he did not mention the kingship), as Henry IV of England had done 70 years earlier. The first to join him were Sir James Harrington and Sir William Parr, who brought Edward 600 armed men to Doncaster.

Edward marched south and gathered forces, including his repentant brother, the Duke of Clarence, entered London, and captured Henry VI as a prisoner, and defeated and killed Warwick at the battle of Barnet. The final triumph for Edward came at the Battle of Tewkesbury (1471), where Henry VI”s son Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, was killed. Edmond Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset and the other Lancaster chieftains were beheaded on 6 May 1471 after a trial. Henry VI died a few days later, on the day Edward IV entered London, and the official announcement was that he died of “melancholy”, but it was widely reported that his death was an assassination by order of Edward. Edward IV”s two younger brothers, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, married respectively Isabella Neville, Duchess of Clarence, and Anne Neville, daughters of the Earl of Warwick and Anne Beauchamp, and soon came into conflict over the vast inheritance of their husbands” still-living mother. In 1478, the Duke of Clarence was accused of plotting against Edward IV, imprisoned in the Tower of London and executed on 18 February that year, and according to one tradition ”drowned in a barrel of wine”.

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The end

Edward IV faced no more revolutions until the end of his life, the House of Lancaster was now neutralized, and his only threat was Henry Tudor living in exile. In 1475 Edward declared war on France, camped in June at Calais, but his ally Charles of Burgundy did not provide him with the necessary support, so he began negotiations with France. The Treaty of Picini that followed gave him an indemnity of 75,000 crowns and an annual pension of 50,000 crowns, which allowed him to reorganize his finances. He supported the efforts of Alexander Stuart, Duke of Albany, brother of James III of Scotland, to win the throne of Scotland (1482). To this end, he launched a major campaign in Scotland led by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in which the Duke of Albany participated. James III prepared to repulse the attack but was arrested by a group of disaffected nobles, probably among the supporters of the Duke of Albany, in July 1482 and imprisoned, and a regency was installed in Scotland with the Duke of Albany as regent. The English, however, suffering from want of money, did not take Edinburgh Castle, and returned home, gaining only Berwick on the river Tweed.

Edward IV”s health began to deteriorate steadily, and by Easter 1483 he was irreversibly ill, but he managed to draw up his will, appointing his brother Richard as guardian of his minor son, Edward V, and Lord Protector of the Kingdom. He died on 9 April 1483 and was buried in St George”s Chapel in Windsor Castle. The cause of his untimely death is unknown. Pneumonia, typhus and poisoning have been ruled out; his health had deteriorated in the last years of his life from immobility, drunkenness and unhealthy living.

Mishaps

Edward IV was an extremely competent and daring military commander with great successes; he annihilated the entire rival House of Lancaster. He became extremely popular with the English despite his occasional failures, most of which were due to his powerful rival Louis XI of France. He lacked critical faculties and was often unable to grasp many crucial issues, but his followers were steadfastly loyal to him until his death.The most important of Edward IV”s achievements was the restoration of “law and order”: the last years of Henry VI”s reign were chaos and lawlessness, piracy and robbery were rampant, and the kingdom was in disarray. Edward IV turned the situation around, brought a great boom in trade, particularly in the city of London, made the Duchy of Lancaster the property of the English crown and greatly improved the financial fortunes of the crown. The manuscripts of his time present threatening letters to landowners if they were not faithful to their financial obligations.

Courtyard

The court of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville is described as “the most impressive in all Christendom”. Edward IV spent vast sums of money to emphasise and project his power, took a keen interest particularly in historical study, and used documents beautifully decorated by Bruges craftsmen. The content of his studies turned to great rulers of the past such as Julius Caesar, historical chronicles and religious studies. His central library is not known; the palace of Eltham is recorded, in which he had a keeper ”to preserve his books”. More than 40 of his books remained intact in the 15th century, showing their good preservation; today they are in the Royal Collection of Documents at the British Library. Edward IV”s dynasty, despite his military and administrative genius, could not be preserved for more than two years after his death.

Edward IV was the only member of his family to die of natural causes; his father Richard of York and his brother Edmond were killed, his grandfather Richard of Cambridge was executed, one of his brothers George of Clarence was executed for treason by his own order, and his younger brother Richard III was killed in battle by Henry Tudor. The death of Richard III was the end of the House of York and the entire Angevin dynasty.

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Family

He and his wife Elizabeth Woodville had ten children, of whom seven were still living at the time of his death. They were declared illegitimate by Parliament (1484), which paved the way for Richard III to become king. The legitimacy of Edward IV and Elizabeth”s children was later restored by Henry VII. The children were:

Edward IV of England had many mistresses, including Jane Shore (1445-1527), Lady Eleanor Talbot (1436-1468) and Elizabeth Waite, with whom he had several illegitimate children.

With Elizabeth Waite, daughter of Thomas Waite of Southampton, he had two children:

With an unknown mistress he had the following children:

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Succession

Edward IV”s eldest son, Edward (V), was crowned Prince of Wales at the age of seven months. When he was three years old he was sent by his father to Ludlow Castle as head of the Council of Wales and March, a body set up to assist the future Edward V in his duties. The prince was accompanied by his mother and his uncle Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl of Rivers, who was given the duties of the presidency of the Council. The king visited his son several times at the castle, as he had never been anointed Prince of Wales, and it is clear that he was preparing him for his future royal duties. His son was soon disqualified from the throne and replaced by his uncle Richard of Gloucester, but his daughter Elizabeth of York would later become queen when Henry Tudor ascended the throne. The reasons that legitimised Richard III”s accession to the throne were that Edward IV had married another woman before Elizabeth Woodville. Edward IV and Lady Eleanor Talbot, a young widow, daughter of the 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, seem to have been together at this time, and a clergyman later claimed (they had both died by then) that he had performed their marriage ceremony. Legality was restored by Henry VII, due to the need to enable his wife Elizabeth of York to become Queen. The fate of Edward IV”s sons, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, is unknown; rumours have created the mystery of the Princes of the Tower.

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Legitimacy

Many questions about the paternity of Edward IV were raised in the short reign of Edward V by the followers of Richard of Gloucester. Notoriety was then seen as a great sin in public life and was often used as an accusation against various kings by their enemies. Edward IV was not the only king or heir to be accused of illegitimacy in the 15th century, as there are other examples, such as Charles VII of France, Edward of Westminster and Joan of Arc of Castile. Historians have seen this as an attempt to discredit Edward IV and his family by their enemies, as there is some evidence that Richard of York was not Edward IV”s biological father, but very limited. The accusations were based on the fact that Edward IV did not resemble his father in appearance, since unlike Richard he was well over six feet tall (six feet = 6 feet = 1.83 m), an impressive height for the time. Edward”s younger brother George was just as handsome and tall (he also bore a remarkable resemblance to Edward), while their sister Margaret was five feet eleven inches (5 feet 11 inches) tall, impressive for medieval women. The Italian Dominic Mancini, who visited England in 1482-1483, reports that Edward”s mother, upon learning of his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, was so enraged that she vowed to declare him illegitimate, but the report has no support from sources of his time.

Richard III before his accession to the throne on 22 June 1483 declared that Edward V was illegitimate and brought the matter to Parliament. In a statute of the English Parliament (1484), Richard III is presented as ”the undoubted son and heir” of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, in contrast to Edward IV, of whom the reference implied that he was born and baptised in strange circumstances. There is no confirmation in William Shakespeare”s play “Richard III” that Richard protested about the legitimacy of Edward IV, and if he raised the issue it was for his children, not for himself. The Italian historian Polydorus Virgil (1470-1555) notes that the Duchess Cecile Neville of York “when falsely accused of adultery protested strongly to many nobles about the bitterness her son Richard gave her”, but even if this was the case it was not raised again.

Edward was born on 28 April 1448, and there is no reason to assume that Edward was born prematurely, as if he was, there would certainly be a report. And by counting nine months to his birth, his conception is referred to July 1441. A 2004 British Channel 4 television series, examining the archives of Rouen Cathedral, reported that from 14 July to 21 August 1441 Richard was on a campaign in Pontouaz, north-west of Paris, and that the priests prayed in the cathedral for his safety. The programme pays great attention to the fact that the baptism of Richard and Cécile”s second son, Edmond, Count of Rutland, was performed with magnificent ceremonies in the cathedral, while Edward”s baptism took place in a neighbouring chapel. Richard, Duke of York, had every right to question the paternity of his son if he was not his real father, as to nominate an illegitimate child as heir to the English throne would be tantamount to treason. On the other hand, Richard”s father had been executed as a traitor by the House of Lancaster and he owed his security to Cecile”s family, so it would be a great risk to question his wife”s loyalty and the paternity of his eldest son.

Edward IV, even if he was illegitimate, could in any case claim the English crown from Henry VI, by right of conquest (by force of arms). Also, Edward had hereditary rights through his mother Cecile, who was the great-granddaughter of Edward III of England and granddaughter of John of Gaunt, as her mother was John”s illegitimate daughter by Catherine Swinford, Joan of Beaufort, Countess of Westmoreland. But the fact that Edward IV”s grandmother, Joan Beaufort, was an illegitimate child was used as an excuse by Henry Tudor to accuse the House of York of illegitimacy and disqualify him from the English throne (1485). However, John of Ghent had married his mistress, Catherine Swinford, after the death of his second wife Constance of Castile, so Joan of Beaufort and the House of Beaufort in general were ”legitimised” and recognised as such by Richard II, but with the proviso that they had no right of succession to the throne of England.

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Appearance and character

Edward IV is described as a striking and handsome man, and Philippe de Comin, who had seen him occasionally, says “I do not remember having seen a more handsome man since the time when his master Warwick forced him to escape from England”. Comyn goes on to write “a man so striking and handsome that he could be prone to the pleasures of the flesh”. Edward is described as being tall for his time and it is also mentioned that he wore impressive clothes, in contrast to the soft and shabby fabrics worn by Henry VI. When the English Parliament convened on 12 November 1461 at Westminster, the Speaker of Parliament Sir James Strangways, who had fought alongside Edward”s father, Richard of York, at the Battle of Wakefield, said ”the beauty of this person is wonderful, we thank Almighty God for sending him to us” and ”beauty is matched by grace and wisdom”. He also praised Edward IV as “noble, courageous, with excellent qualities and devotion to his duties”.

Ancestors

Sources