Edward IV., son of Richard, Duke of York, and Cicely Nevill, daughter of the first Earl of Westmoreland, was born at Ronen in 1442, and brought up at Ludlow Castle, being known during his father's lifetime as Earl of March. The Yorkist claim to the crown will be discussed under ROSES (WARS OF THE); here it is enough to say that Edward found himself, on his father's defeat and death at Wakefield (December 30, 1460), head of a strong and resolute party. With characteristic vigour he at once set out from Gloucester, won the battle of Mortimer's Cross (February 2, 1461), lost in the person of Warwick the second battle of St Albans fifteen days later; but only nine days thereafter, taking advantage of the reaction of the south against the excesses of Queen Margaret's victorious northern soldiers, entered London in triumph, and was hailed as king. A month afterwards he secured for himself the crown by the great battle of Towton, near York. The indefatigable queen, with the aid of French money, kept up the struggle in the north, but her defeats at Hedgeley Moor and Hexham (1464), and the capture of the unhappy King Henry (1465), in the meantime closed the door upon her hopes. The young Edward was handsome and frank in manners, and quickly became a most popular king. The commons granted him the wool-tax and tonnage and poundage for life. But Edward imperilled his popularity by his uncontrolled licentiousness, and by his ill-advised and at first secret marriage (1164) with Elizabeth Woodville, the handsome daughter of the Lancastrian Lord Rivers, and widow of Sir John Grey of Groby, displeased the great Earl of Warwick and many of his nobility, who had hoped to buttress the king's throne by a French or Burgundian alliance, and whose disaffection was further increased by the honours which were lavishly heaped upon the young queen's upstart relations. Warwick succeeded in detaching the king's brother, the Duke of Clarence, from his side, and made him his own by marrying him to his daughter Isabel. Meantime the tide of popular feeling showed the direction in which it was running by insurrections in the northern counties and in Lincoln. At length Warwick finding Clarence too weak a foundation on which to build a Yorkist revolt, crossed to France, and there made friends with his ancient enemy, Queen Margaret, and cemented the alliance by marrying his daughter Ann to her son, Prince Edward. In September 1470 Warwick landed in England, and Edward finding himself deserted on every side fled to Flanders; six months later he landed at Ravenspur, and pressed on to give battle to Warwick. His brother Clarence went over to his side, and in the final battle at Barnet, on Easter-day, April 14, 1471, the kingmaker fell on the field of his defeat. Edward next turned to meet Queen Margaret, and put an end to the war by the victory at Tewkesbury (May 4). He showed the savagery of his nature by the murder of the young Prince Edward, and the ruthless severity of his vengeance upon the other captives, some of whom had left sanctuary on promise of their lives being spared. The night of his arrival in London the old king, Henry VI., died in the Tower—of a broken heart as was given out. Edward henceforward sat securely on his throne, and used his power freely to extort money from his subjects by forced loans. In 1478 he stained his name by the private execution in the Tower of his brother Clarence—drowned according to an old tradition in a butt of Malmsey wine. Edward's partisanship of Burgundy against France had brought no glory to his army, the leaders of which were induced by French gold to abandon the war. Equally unsuccessful were his ambitious schemes for the marriages of his five daughters. Edward died suddenly, April 9, 1483, worn out before his time by his debaucheries.
See James Gairdner's Houses of Lancaster and York in 'Epochs of Modern History' (1874), and the Introductions in his edition of the Paston Letters (3 vols. 1872-75).