EDWARD IV

formerly earl of March, eldest son of Richard Plantagenet, duke of York, in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3; king of England in Richard III. Edward is a proud and efficient soldier in the war against Henry VI, but he lacks astuteness in personal matters, as shown by his imprudent marriage to Elizabeth (Woodville), Lady Grey, and his unquestioning faith in his villainous brother Richard. born April 28, 1442, Rouen, Fr. died April 9, 1483, Westminster, Eng. Edward IV, portrait by an unknown artist; in the National Portrait Gallery, London also called (until 1459) Earl Of March king of England from 1461 until October 1470 and again from April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a leading participant in the Yorkist-Lancastrian conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. Edward was the eldest surviving son of Richard, duke of York, by Cicely, daughter of Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland. His father was descended from two sons of the 14th-century king Edward III and, in the 1450s, led a revolt against Henry VI; in 1460, Richard's supporters declared him Henry's successor. When his father was killed in December of that year, Edward gathered an army in Wales and defeated Henry's supporters (called Lancastrians because of Henry's descent from John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster). Edward was crowned as King Edward IV in London on June 28, 1461. Additional reading C.L. Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward IV, 2 vol. (1923), is extremely detailed, accurate, and based on original sources; but the detail often obscures the argument, and the general outlook is now somewhat out of date. Charles Ross, Edward IV (1974), is a more recent biography. E.F. Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, 13991485 (1961), provides a more up-to-date interpretation with an annotated bibliography. J.R. Lander, Conflict and Stability in Fifteenth Century England (1969), puts the reign of Edward IV in its setting and has a useful annotated bibliography. A.R. Myers, English Historical Documents, 13271485 (1969), provides a large number of documents, translated into English, for the reign of Edward IV, as does Sir Nicholas Harris Nicholas, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth (facsimile, 1972).