Edward V of England

Edward V
King of England (more...)
Reign	9 April 1483 – 26 June 1483
Predecessor	Edward IV
Successor	Richard III
Protector	Richard, Duke of Gloucester
House	House of York
Father	Edward IV
Mother	Elizabeth Woodville
Born	2 November 1470 (1470-11-02) Westminster
Died	The Tower of London (assumed)
Burial	Westminster Abbey (assumed)

English Royalty
House of York
Edward IV
Elizabeth of York, Queen of England
Mary of York
Cecily of York, Viscountess Welles
Edward V
Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke
Anne of York, Countess of Surrey
Catherine of York, Countess of Devon
Bridget of York
Edward V

Edward V (4 November 1470 – probably 1483) was King of England from 9 April 1483 until his deposition two months later. His reign was dominated by the influence of his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who succeeded him as Richard III. Along with his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, Edward was one of the Princes in the Tower, who disappeared after being sent (ostensibly for their own safety) to the Tower of London. Richard III has been widely blamed for their deaths, but what actually happened remains controversial.

Along with Edward VIII, Empress Matilda and Lady Jane Grey, Edward V is one of only four post-1066 English monarchs never to have been crowned. If, as seems likely, he died before his fifteenth birthday, he is the shortest lived monarch in English history (his great-nephew Edward VI died in his sixteenth year).

Early life

Edward was born in November 1470 within Westminster Abbey, where his mother, Elizabeth Woodville, had sought sanctuary from Lancastrians who had temporarily removed his father, the Yorkist King Edward IV, from power as part of the Wars of the Roses. Edward was created Prince of Wales in June 1471, following Edward IV's restoration to the throne, and in 1473 was established at Ludlow Castle on the Welsh Marches as nominal president of a newly-created Council of Wales and the Marches.

Prince Edward was placed under the supervision of the queen's brother Anthony, Earl Rivers, a noted scholar, and in a letter to Rivers, Edward IV set down precise conditions for the upbringing of his son and the management of his household.^[1] The prince was to "arise every morning at a convenient hour, according to his age". His day would begin with matins and then mass, which he was to receive uninterrupted. After breakfast, the business of educating the prince began with "virtuous learning". Dinner was served from ten in the morning, and then the prince was to be read "noble stories ... of virtue, honour, cunning, wisdom, and of deeds of worship" but "of nothing that should move or stir him to vice". Perhaps aware of his own vices, the king was keen to safeguard his son's morals, and instructed Rivers to ensure that no one in the prince's household was a habitual "swearer, brawler, backbiter, common hazarder, adulterer, [or user of] words of ribaldry". After further study, in the afternoon the prince was to engage in sporting activities suitable for his class, before evensong. Supper was served from four, and curtains were to be drawn at eight. Following this, the prince's attendants were to "enforce themselves to make him merry and joyous towards his bed". They would then watch over him as he slept.

King Edward's diligence appeared to bear fruit, as Dominic Mancini reported of the young Edward V:

In word and deed he gave so many proofs of his liberal education, of polite nay rather scholarly, attainments far beyond his age; ... his special knowledge of literature ... enabled him to discourse elegantly, to understand fully, and to declaim most excellently from any work whether in verse or prose that came into his hands, unless it were from the more abstruse authors. He had such dignity in his whole person, and in his face such charm, that however much they might gaze, he never wearied the eyes of beholders.^[2]

As with several of his other children, Edward IV planned a prestigious European marriage for his eldest son, and in 1480 concluded an alliance with the Duke of Brittany, Francis II, whereby Prince Edward was betrothed to the duke's four-year-old heir, Anne. The two were to be married upon their majority, and the devolution of Brittany would have been given to the second child to be born, the first becoming Prince of Wales. Those plans disappeared together with Edward V.

Reign

It was at Ludlow that the 12-year-old prince received news of his father's sudden death, on 9 April 1483. Edward IV's will, which has not survived, nominated his trusted brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as Protector during the minority of his son. Both the new king and his party from the west, and Richard from the north, set out for London, converging in Northamptonshire. On the night of 29 April Richard met and dined with Earl Rivers and Edward's half-brother, Richard Grey, but the following morning Rivers and Grey, along with the king's chamberlain, Thomas Vaughan, were arrested and sent north.^[3] They were all subsequently executed. Mancini reports that Edward protested, but the remainder of his entourage were dismissed and Richard escorted him to London, where the new king took up residence in the Tower of London. On 16 June he was joined by his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York.

Edward's coronation was repeatedly postponed and then, on 22 June, Ralph Shaa presented evidence in a sermon that Edward IV had already been contracted to marry Lady Eleanor Butler when he married Elizabeth Woodville, thereby rendering his marriage to Elizabeth invalid and their children together illegitimate. The children of Richard's older brother George, Duke of Clarence, were barred from the throne by their father's attainder, and therefore, on 25 June, an assembly of Lords and Commons declared Richard to be the legitimate king (this was later confirmed by the act of parliament Titulus Regius). The following day he acceded to the throne as King Richard III.

Disappearance

King Edward V and the Duke of York in the Tower of London by Paul Delaroche. The theme of innocent children awaiting an uncertain fate was a popular one amongst 19th-century painters.

After Richard III's accession, the princes were gradually seen less and less within the Tower, and by the end of the summer of 1483 they had disappeared from public view altogether. Their fate remains unknown, but it is generally believed that they were killed. The three principal suspects are King Richard; his one-time ally Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham; and Henry Tudor, who defeated Richard at Bosworth Field and took the throne as Henry VII. Bones were discovered in 1674 by workmen rebuilding a stairway in the Tower, and these were subsequently placed in Westminster Abbey, in an urn bearing the names of Edward and Richard. However it has never been proven that the bones belonged to the princes, so there remains a possibility that Edward survived the Tower.

In 1486 Edward's sister, Elizabeth, married Henry VII, thereby uniting the Houses of York and Lancaster.

Portrayals in fiction

Edward is a character in the play Richard III by William Shakespeare. He has been played on film and television by:

• Kathleen Yorke in the silent short Richard III (1911), dramatising a part of Shakespeare's play
• Howard Stuart in the silent Shakespeare adaptation Richard III (1912)
• Ronald Sinclair in Tower of London (1939), a horror film loosely dramatising the rise to power of Richard III
• Paul Huson in Richard III, with Laurence Olivier
• Hugh Janes in the BBC series An Age of Kings (1960), which contained all the history plays from Richard II to Richard III
• Eugene Martin in the remake of Tower of London (1962)
• Nicolaus Haenel in the West German TV version of Shakespeare's play König Richard III (1964)
• Jonathan Soper in the "Who Killed the Princes in the Tower?" episode of the BBC drama documentary series Second Verdict (1976)
• Dorian Ford in the BBC Shakespeare version of The Tragedy of Richard the Third (1983)
• Spike Hood (voice) in the BBC series Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1994)
• Marco Williamson in Richard III (1995), with Ian McKellen as Richard
• Timotei Cresta in the British television drama Princes in the Tower (2005)
• Jon Plummer in Richard III (2005), a modernised version set on a Brighton housing estate
• Germaine De Leon in Richard III (2007), a modern day version
• Chip Winston in the novel Sent (2009), by Margaret Peterson Haddix

References

• Ashley, Mike (2002). British Kings & Queens. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1104-3.  pp. 217-9.
• Hicks, Michael (2003). Edward V: The Prince in the Tower. The History Press. ISBN 0-7524-1996-X. 
• Kendall, Paul Murray (1955). Richard III. W. W. Norton & Co.. ISBN 0-3930-0785-5. 
• Weir, Alison (1995). The Princes in the Tower. Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-3453-9178-0. 

External links

• The Princes in the Tower
• Edward V 1483
• The Dictionary of National Biography

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v • d • e Wars of the Roses Red Rose of Lancaster · White Rose of York Key figures Monarchs of England Henry VI · Edward IV · Edward V · Richard III · Henry VII Lancastrian Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England · Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland · Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland · Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick · Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset · Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset · Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset · George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence Yorkist Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York · Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick · Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury · John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu · William Neville, 1st Earl of Kent · Thomas Neville Battles Lancastrian victories Battle of Ludford Bridge · Battle of Wakefield · Second Battle of St Albans · Battle of Ferrybridge (Indecisive) · Battle of Edgecote Moor · Battle of Bosworth Field · Battle of Stoke Field Yorkist victories First Battle of St Albans · Battle of Blore Heath · Battle of Sandwich · Battle of Northampton · Battle of Mortimer's Cross · Battle of Ferrybridge (Indecisive) · Battle of Towton · Battle of Hedgeley Moor · Battle of Hexham · Battle of Lose-coat Field · Battle of Barnet · Battle of Tewkesbury See also Act of Accord · Percy-Neville feud · Issue of Edward III of England