The fiction and non-fiction about Edward IV….

Above is an illustration of the coronation of Edward IV, showing the new king’s golden splendour, and bottom right, his dark brother, the “vile, scheming, murderous” Richard of Gloucester. This illustration is, to me, a perfect illustration of fiction and non-fiction. Yes, Edward was a splendid king, but no, Richard of Gloucester was never the monstrous creature created by the likes of Sir Thomas More and William Shakespeare. The painting above is both truthful and untruthful. Which is also what can be said of this article.

The opening paragraph reads: “….Edward IV was the closest thing to a medieval superhero. Tall, blonde, and handsome, he was a fierce warrior who took England’s throne for himself…twice. He died as the King of England—but this is no success story. His greed, arrogance, and lack of foresight saw everything he ever accomplished collapse almost the moment he gave his last breath….”

Well, so far so good. I think those words wrap Edward up nicely, except that it was his stupidity that led to the death of his younger brother Richard III and the arrival of the dreadful House of Tudor. Lack of foresight? Perhaps. If we’re talking his so-called marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, then definitely. She was a Lancastrian widow, a commoner, and very beautiful. What she wasn’t was what we’d now call (rather vulgarly) an easy lay. At only 18 Edward was very active when it came to bedding women, and he was used to having his own way, but not with Elizabeth. With his testosterone fit to explode, his only option was to marry her. Well, pretend to. It worked. She thought she was his queen, and he had constant access to her bed. Yippee. He told her to keep it all secret until he found the perfect moment to announce their union. She obliged. No doubt he thought he could cast her aside when he tired of her. If that was indeed his intention, once again his own foolishness got in the way.

As King of England, he was expected to make a dazzling foreign match that would bring allegiances and m-o-n-e-y, but Edward didn’t say anything about his secret wife when he allowed the mighty Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, to negotiate such a grand international match with the French. To us Warwick is known as the Kingmaker, and he was a very important and influential man. Very. He’d also managed to scramble up Edward’s royal but childish nose, and in an unwise moment the young king announced that he couldn’t marry a French princess because he was married already. Not perfect timing, I think you’ll agree.

This made a fool of Warwick and annoyed the French. And appalled the English. After all, Edward was of the House of York, and Elizabeth’s background was Lancastrian. And she was a widow with children by her first husband. So all in all in fooling around to have her was irresponsible and childish on Edward’s part. And now, simply to make Warwick look silly, Edward foisted Elizabeth on the realm as his queen. She wasn’t, she was only his mistress, although whether at this point she was aware of this isn’t known.

If Edward had immediately rushed her to the church and married her properly, he’d have got away with it, and the children he had with her would have been unarguably legitimate. But he didn’t. He behaved as if the secret fake marriage was true and Elizabeth really was his queen. Oh, his fingers must have been tightly crossed throughout the rest of his reign(s). Yes, he had to flee on one occasion, while his Lancastrian predecessor, Henry VI, was reinstated. But then Edward came back, turfed Henry off the throne and reigned again. He was to die in his bed, but his allotted span was rather shorter than everyone expected.

He was still pretending he was married to Elizabeth until the day he died, and he appointed his faithful younger brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to be Protector during the minority of his, Edward’s elder son, another Edward, usually referred to as Edward V. Richard of Gloucester is always portrayed as an evil scheming child-murdering usurper (the above factinate.com article is no exception). In truth Richard had always been a loyal, efficient, courageous and trustworthy brother to the king, and when he came south on hearing of Edward’s death, he had the full intention of becoming Lord Protector to his nephew. But in the illustration at the top of this blog there he is, bottom right, brooding, festering, wondering when and how he could steal the throne. Like, yeah….

But, fate being what it is, the truth about the fake marriage finally came out before the younger Edward could be crowned, and Richard of Gloucester realised that if he proceeded with the boy’s coronation he would be putting an illegitimate boy on the throne of England. This could not happen. Especially when Richard himself was now, without doubt, Edward IV’s true heir.

So, Richard became Richard III, and he reigned for only two years before the Lancastrians scraped the barrel and found one Henry Tudor to be their candidate for king. He probably wasn’t even a Tudor but a Beaufort, and was from illegitimate stock either way, but that’s another story.

Tudor invaded with a foreign army and confronted Richard at Bosworth Field. Well, Henry’s army confronted Richard while Henry himself was careful to keep back behind an array of armed guards. This was to be his method throughout his subsequent reign. He was probably sensible, but he was also a physical coward, which could never be said of the king who was betrayed and murdered on the field. Richard III was a great loss to England and with him removed the realm was to exist under a pall of spies, cruelty, intolerance and just about anything else you can think of where the “glorious” House of Tudor is concerned. Oh yes, Henry soon dropped the Lancastrian bit and was openly his own house!

Right, that’s the story in a nutshell. There’s much more, of course, and you’ll find references to it in the above article. You’ll also find a lot of fiction too, of course, with illustrations from the likes of The White Queen and The Hollow Crown. Unless, of course, some genius back then had invented the camera.

Whether you agree with the factinate.com article is up to you. The same applies to my scribbles, of course. But then, I know I’m right. After a dazzling beginning Edward IV became a prat, whereas. Richard III showed every sign of being a great king. The awful Tudors were cruel usurpers. All fact. Period.😊