EDWARD IV. 



EDWARD IV. 



754 



apparent; and before the end of the year they all again withdrew 

 from court. The resort to the final arbitrament oould not now be 

 much longer deferred. Both parties again collected their armed 

 strength. Their fint meeting took place at Blore-heath. near Dnyton, 

 in Shropshire, on the 23rd of September 1469, when the royal forces 

 under Lord Audley were defeated by the Earl of Salisbury, Audley 

 himself being slain. On the 12th of October however the king's army 

 met that of York and Warwick near Ludlow : ample offer* of pardon 

 were made to all who would come over to the royal side ; and the 

 consequence was, that so many of the m-urgenU deserted, that, almost 

 without striking a blow, the rest threw down their arms, and their 

 leaden were obliged to sate themselves by Bight The Duke of 

 York and hi* adherent* were attainted and their estates confiscated, at 

 parliament which met at Coventry a few weeks after. By June 

 1400 however the dispersed insurgent* were again in anna, York 

 landed from Ireland and Warwick from France nearly at the same 

 time ; the latter, whose numbers had now increased to nearly 40,000 

 men, entered London on the 2nd of July ; au.l on tho 9th the royal 

 force*, advancing from Coventry, were met near Northampton, by 

 York'* son Edward, the young earl of March, and signally defeated, 

 the king being taken prisoner, and the queen and her son obliged to 

 fly for their live*. This is the first appearance of Edward on the 

 scene. Up to this time also the Duke of York had never disputed 

 Henry's title to the crown ; he professed to have taken arms only to 

 compel the king to dismiss hi* evil counsellors and to govern accord- 

 ing to the laws. Eveu now Henry'* name was still made use of by 

 the victorious party. He was made to call a parliament, which met 

 at Westminster on the 2nd of October, and immediately ammll. <1 

 everything that had be. n done by the late parliament of Coventry. 

 But at this point the duke at last threw off all disguise. On the 

 16th he delivered to the parliament by his, counsel'a written claim to 

 the crown. The question was formally discussed, and it was at 

 length determined that Henry should be allowed to remain king 

 during his life, but that the Duke of York should be immediately 

 declared hi* successor. Richard was accordingly, on the 1st of 

 November, solemnly proclaimed heir apparent and protector of the 

 realm ; being in the latter capacity invested with rights nnd powers 

 which already threw into his hands all of royalty except the name. 

 ' But hi* dignity and authority were soon brought to an end. The 

 quc. n found mean* to assemble on army in the north ; on hearing 

 which new* the duke, on the 2nd of December, marched from 

 London to give her battle. They met on Wokefield Green on the 

 31st, and the issue of their encounter was the complete defeat of 

 York. He himself and one of his younger sons were slain, and the 

 Earl of Salisbury was taken prisoner, and executed the next day at 

 Pomfret with twelve of hi* associates. Edward, now duke of York, 

 was at Gloucester when he heard of this disaster. A formidable royal 

 force, commanded by the Earls of Pembroke and Ormoud, hung on 

 his rear; this he attacked on the 2nd of February 1461, at Mortimer's 

 Cross, near Hereford, and completely routed. He then Bet out for 

 London, upon which the queen also was now directing her march. 

 The next engagement that took place was at Bernard's Heath, near 

 St. Albanr, where the queen was met on the 17th by the I Jirl of 

 Warwick : the earl, who had the king with him in the field, waa 

 defeated, and his majesty regained his liberty. The approach of the 

 Duke of York however deterred Margaret from continuing her 

 advances upon tho capital ; she retired to the north, while he 

 entered London on the 2Sth, amid the congratulations of the citizens. 

 On the 2nd of March he laid his claim to the crown, founded on 

 King Henry'* alleged breach of the late agreement, before an assembly 

 of lay and clerical lords ; on the same afternoon an assembly of the 

 people was held in St. John's Fields, at which hi* nomination as king 

 was received with unanimous acclamations of assent ; and two days 

 after he was solemnly proclaimed by the name of Edward IV. The 

 4th of March was considered as the day of his accession. 



The first three yean of the reign of Edward IV. were occupied by 

 a prolongation of the contest that rsged when he mounted tho throne. 

 The Lancastrian* sustained a severe defeat from the king in person at 

 Towton In Yorkshire, on the 20th of March 1461 ; but Queen Margaret 

 was unwearied in her applications for assistance to France and Soot- 

 land, and ahe was at last enabled to take tho field with a new army. 

 That too however was routed and dispersed at Hixhara by the force* 

 of Edward under the command of Lord Montagu, on the 17th of May 

 1464. This victory, and the capture of Henry, which took place a 

 few day* after, put an end to the war. An event however occurred 

 about the same time out of which new trouble* soon arose. This 

 was the marriage of the king with Elizabeth Woodville, the young 

 and beautiful widow of Sir Thomas Oray, and the daughter of Sir 

 Richard Woodville (afterwards created Earl Riven) by Jacquotta of 

 Luxembourg, whose fint hit-band had been the late Duke of Uedford. 

 The connections of the lady, both by her birth and by her first 

 marriage, were all of the Lancastrian party ; but Edward's passion 

 was too violent to allow bun to be stopped by this consideration ; he 

 was privately married to her at Orafton, near Stoney Stratford, on the 

 1st of May 1464 : she was publicly acknowledged a* hi* wife in 

 September ; and she was crowned at Westminster on Ancension Day 

 in the following year. The fint effect of thi* marriage was to put an 

 end to a negocialion, in which some progress had been made, with the 



French King Louis XI. for Kdwird's marriage with his sister-in-law 

 the Princess Bonne of Savoy, an alliance which it was hoped might 

 have proved a bond of amity betwixt the two kingdoms. It at the 

 same time alienated from the king the mo-t powerful of his supporters, 

 the Earl of Warwick, by whom the French negociution had bean 

 conducted, and whose disapprobation of the king's conduct in a 

 political point of view was consequently sharpened by the sense of 

 personal ill-usage. Above all, the honours and bounties lavished by 

 Edward upon tho obscure family of his queen disgusted the old 

 nobility, and raised even a national feeling against him. It was some 

 time before matters came to extremities ; but at last, Warwick and 

 Queen Margaret having entered into close alliance, England was onoe 

 more, in 1469, deluged with the blood of a civil war. Nearly the 

 whole of that and the following year was a season of confusion, of 

 which it is scarcely possible to derive any consistent or intelligible 

 account from the imperfect document* of the time that remain, and 

 the ill-informed chroniclers who have attempted to describe Die course 

 of occurrences. At last, in the beginning of October 1470, Kdward 

 found himself obliged to embark and fly to Holland. King Henry 

 was now released from the Tower, in which he had been confined for 

 the preceding six yean, and the royal authority waa again exercised 

 in his name. This revolution earned for Warwick his well-known 

 title of the King-maker. Henry's restoration however was a very 

 short one. On the 14th of March 1471 Edward landed at the mouth 

 of the Humber, with a force which he had raised in the Low Countries, 

 mode hia way to London, was received with acclamations by the 

 citizens, again obtained possession of tho imbecile Henry, and shut 

 him up in his old prison. He then, on the 14th of April, went out 

 to meet Warwick, who was advancing from St. Albans : the two 

 armies encountered at Baruct ; and the result was that the forces of 

 the earl were completely defeated, and both he and hia brother Lord 

 Montagu were left dead on the field. The war was finished by the 

 second defeat of the Lancastrians on the 14th of May, at the great 

 battle of Tewkesbury, where both Queen Margaret and her sou Prince 

 Kdward fell into the hands of their enemies. Margaret was sent to 

 tho Tower, and was detained there till she was set at liberty iu 

 conformity with one of the articles of the treaty of Pecquigiu 

 eluded with France in 1475, the French king paying for her a random 

 of 50,000 crowns. Her unfortunate son was brought before Edward 

 on the day after the battle, and brutally put to death in bis presence 

 by the hands of the dukes of Clarence and Gloucester (the king's 

 brothers), assisted by two other noblemen. King Henry terminated 

 his days in the Tower about three weeks after ; nnd it has generally 

 been believed that he was also violently taken off, and that his murderer 

 was the Duke of Gloucester. Many executions of the members of the 

 Lancastrian party followed, and confiscations of their property in all 

 parts of the kingdom. 



The remainder of the reign of Edward IV. was marked by few 

 memorable events. One that may deserve to be noticed is the fate of 

 the king's next brother, George, duke of Clarence, who was att 

 of treason by a parliament which met in January 1478, and imme- 

 diately after privately put to death, being drowned, it was generally 

 believed, in a butt of malmsey. He had at one timo taken part with 

 Warwick against his brother, and had sealed his alliance with the 

 earl by marrying his daughter; nor, although he afterwards saw it 

 prudent to break this connection, hod he and Edward ever probably 

 been cordially reconciled. It seems to have been chiefly hi* nearness 

 to tho throne that at last fixed his brother in the determination of 

 Getting rid of him. Edward was at war both with Scotland and with 

 France during the greater part of his reign ; but the military opera- 

 tions that took place were unimportant, and are not worth relating : 

 they were never carried on with any vigour, and were frequently 

 suspended by long truces, which however, in their turn, were generally 

 broken by the one nation or the other before the proper term. In 

 June 1475, Kdward having previously sent a herald to King Louis to 

 summon him to surrender the whole kingdom of France, embarked 

 with a large force, and landed at Calais; but the expedition ended 

 within three months in the treaty of Pecquigny, or Amions, already 

 mentioned. By one of the articles it was agreed that the dauphin, 

 Clmrlea, should marry Elizabeth, the king of England'* eldest 

 daughter; and Louis also engaged to pay Kdward an annuity of 

 .10,000 crowns a year a* long as they both lived. It appears that 

 Edward's ministers as well as their royal master consented to rcc ivo 

 pensions from the French king; large amounts of money were dis- 

 tributed among them from time to time; and in their cose at leaat 

 thi* foreign pay wa* a mere bribe to engage them in the interests of 

 the power from which they received it. Kdward however is asserted 

 to have himself shared in their gains ; indeed his own acknowledged 

 annuity, though it might bear the appearance of a compensation for 

 advantages which be had given up, wa* itself in reality nothing else 

 than a bribe ; it was a supply obtained independently of parliament 

 and tho country. He wo* driven indeed to many other shifts and 

 illegal method*, as well as this, to raise money for his w.i 

 debaucheries and extravagant expenditure on the mistresses, favourites, 

 and others that ministered to his personal pleasures. Louis however 

 appears never to have had any intention of fulfilling his engagement 

 as to the marriage; for some yean he evaded Edward's importunities 

 a* well as he could; till at length, in 1482, he contracted tho dauphin 



