# Wikijunior:Kings and Queens of England/The House of York


## Edward IV (1461-1470, 1471-1483)

!Edward IV **Edward IV** was born on 28 April
1442 at Rouen in France. He was the eldest son of Richard, Duke of York,
a leading claimant to the throne of England. Richard\'s challenge to the
ruling family started the Wars of the Roses. When his father was killed
in 1460 whilst pressing his claim to be king against Henry VI at the
Battle of Wakefield, Edward inherited his claim.

Edward won the support of Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, whose
nickname is \"The Kingmaker\". Edward then defeated the Lancastrians in
a number of battles. While Henry was campaigning in the north, Warwick
gained control of London and had Edward declared king in 1461. Edward
strengthened his claim with victory at the Battle of Towton in the same
year, where the Lancastrian army was virtually wiped out.

### Marriage and children

Edward was tall, strong, handsome, generous, and popular. Warwick,
believing that he could continue to rule through Edward, wanted him to
marry into a major European family. Edward, however, secretly married a
widow, Elizabeth Woodville. They had ten children together. Under an act
of Parliament of 1484, one year after Edward IV\'s death, all of
Edward\'s children by Elizabeth Woodville were declared illegitimate on
the grounds that Edward had been due to marry another woman, Eleanor
Talbot, before he entered into marriage with Elizabeth Woodville. This
claim was only made after all these parties had died. The act was
repealed shortly after Henry VII became king. Edward also had many
mistresses and had several illegitimate children.

### A series of conflicts

Elizabeth\'s family had little land, which was where real power came
from, but Warwick did not like the influence they now had. Warwick
allied himself with Edward\'s younger brother George, Duke of Clarence,
and led an army against Edward. The main part of the king\'s army
(without Edward) was defeated at the Battle of Edgecote Moor, and Edward
was later captured at Olney. Warwick tried to rule in Edward\'s name,
but the nobles, many of whom owed their position to the king, were not
happy. A rebellion forced Warwick to free Edward, who tried to make
peace with Warwick and Clarence. This did not work and they rebelled
again in 1470, after which Warwick and Clarence were forced to flee to
France. There, they allied with Henry VI\'s wife, Margaret, and Warwick
agreed to restore Henry VI to the throne in return for French support.
They invaded in 1470. This time, Edward was forced to flee after
Warwick\'s brother switched to the Lancastrian side, making Edward\'s
military position too weak, and Henry VI was king once more.

Edward fled to Burgundy. The rulers of Burgundy were his brother-in-law
Charles, Duke of Burgundy, and his sister Margaret of Burgundy. After
France declared war on Burgundy, Charles helped Edward to raise an army
to win back his kingdom. When he returned to England with a small force
he avoided capture by saying that he only wished to reclaim his dukedom.
This is similar to the claim Henry Bolingbroke made seventy years
before. The city of York, however, closed its gates to him, but as he
marched southwards he began to gather support, and Clarence reunited
with him. Edward defeated Warwick at the Battle of Barnet. With Warwick
dead, he ended the remaining Lancastrian resistance at the Battle of
Tewkesbury in 1471. The Lancastrian heir, Edward of Westminster, Prince
of Wales, was killed either on the battlefield or shortly afterwards. A
few days later, on the night that Edward re-entered London, Henry VI,
who held prisoner, was murdered to make sure there was no remaining
Lancastrian opposition.

Edward did not face any further rebellions after his restoration. The
only rival left was Henry Tudor, who was living in exile. Edward
declared war on France in 1475, which ended with the Treaty of
Picquigny, under which he was immediately paid 75,000 crowns, and then
received a yearly pension of 50,000 crowns. Edward backed an attempt by
Alexander Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany, brother of the Scottish king,
James III, to take the throne in 1482. Although Edinburgh and James III
were both captured, the Duke of Albany went back on his agreements with
Edward, and the English forces were pulled back. England did, however,
recover the border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.

### Death

Edward fell ill at Easter 1483, and made some changes to his will, the
most important being his naming of his brother, the Duke of Gloucester,
as Protector after his death. He died on 9 April 1483 and is buried in
St George\'s Chapel at Windsor Castle. He was succeeded by his
twelve-year-old son, Edward. Edward IV\'s daughter, Elizabeth of York,
later became King Henry VII\'s queen.

### Was Edward illegitimate?

There have been many rumours that Edward IV was himself illegitimate, in
which case he should never have been king. In his time, it was noted
that Edward IV did not look much like his father. Before he became king
in 1483, Richard III himself declared that Edward was illegitimate, and
parliament even considered the matter. William Shakespeare, in his play,
*Richard III*, which was written over a hundred years later, also
referred to the claim. To this day it is not known whether these rumours
were true.

## Edward V (1483)

!King Edward V and the Duke of York in the Tower of
London{width="150"}
**Edward V** was born in sanctuary within Westminster Abbey on 4
November 1470, while his mother was taking refuge from the Lancastrians
who were then in charge of the kingdom while his father, the Yorkist
King Edward IV of England, was out of power. After his father returned
to the throne, he was made Prince of Wales in June 1471 and appeared
with his parents on state occasions. Edward IV had set up a Council of
Wales and the Marches, and sent his son to Ludlow Castle to be its
president. The prince was at Ludlow when news came of his father\'s
sudden death. Therefore Edward became king on 9 April 1483, aged only
12.

His father\'s brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was given the role of
Protector to his young nephews, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. He
caught up with Edward on his journey from Ludlow and took the princes to
London. Less than three months later, Richard took the throne himself
after parliament declared Edward to be illegitimate.

After the two boys went to the Tower of London, they were never seen in
public again. What happened to them is one of the great mysteries of
history, and many books have been written on the subject. It is believed
that they were killed, and the usual suspects are: their uncle, King
Richard; Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham; and Henry Tudor, who
later defeated Richard and took the throne as Henry VII.

In 1674 some workmen remodeling the Tower of London dug up a box that
had two small human skeletons in it. They threw them on a rubbish heap,
but some days or weeks later someone decided they might be the bones of
the two princes, so they gathered them up and put some of them in an urn
that was buried at Westminster Abbey. In 1933 the bones were taken out
and examined and then replaced in the urn. The experts who examined them
could not agree on what age the children would have been when they died
or even whether they were boys or girls.

## Richard III (1483-1485)

!Richard III{width="150"} **Richard III**
was born at Fotheringay Castle on 2 October 1452. He was the fourth
surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, the 3rd Duke of York, who was a
strong claimant to the throne of King Henry VI. He has been portrayed as
having a withered arm, limp and a crooked back, but this is most
probably an invention from many years later. Richard was King of England
from 1483, when he effectively deposed his nephew, Edward V. A rebellion
rose against Richard later that year, and he died at the Battle of
Bosworth Field in 1485. He is the last English king to die in battle,
and he was succeeded by the winner of the battle, Henry Tudor.

### Marriage and children

Richard spent much of his childhood at Middleham Castle in Wensleydale,
under the care of his uncle, Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick
(the \"Kingmaker\"), as Richard\'s father died when he was young.
Following the Yorkist victory over the Lancastrians at the Battle of
Tewkesbury, Richard married the widowed Anne Neville, younger daughter
of the now dead 16th Earl of Warwick on 12 July 1472. Anne\'s first
husband had been Edward of Westminster, son of Henry VI. Richard and
Anne had one son, Edward Plantagenet, who was born in 1473. He died soon
after being made Prince of Wales in 1483. Richard also had a number of
illegitimate children.

### Reign of Edward IV

During the reign of his brother, King Edward IV, Richard was a loyal and
skilful military commander. He was rewarded with large estates in
Northern England, and given the title Duke of Gloucester and the
position of Governor of the North, becoming the richest and most
powerful noble in England. Richard continued to control the north of
England until Edward\'s death. In 1482 Richard recaptured
Berwick-upon-Tweed from the Scots, and was noted as being fair and just,
making gifts to universities and the Church.

### Death and legacy

On 22 June 1483, outside St Paul\'s Cathedral, a statement was read out
on behalf of Richard declaring for the first time that he was taking the
throne for himself. On 6 July 1483, Richard was crowned at Westminster
Abbey. Except for three earls not old enough to be there and a few
lesser nobles, the entire peerage attended his coronation. Richard was
known as a devout man and an efficient administrator. However, he was a
Yorkist and heirless, and had ruthlessly removed many of his enemies but
some, led by Henry Tudor, remained. Richard\'s enemies united against
him and he fought them at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August
1485, where he was killed. Henry Tudor succeeded Richard to become King
Henry VII. Richard was buried at Greyfriars Church, Leicester, but his
body was lost during the later Dissolution of the Monasteries. There is
currently a memorial plaque on the site of the Cathedral where he may
have once been buried. Since his death, Richard III has become one of
England\'s most controversial kings. He was portrayed as a bad king by
historians of the House of Tudor. He has now largely lost his notoriety,
except in relation to the mystery surrounding the two Princes in the
Tower.

## References

