Chapter 19

The principal modern authorities for this reign are: W. Stubbs,Constitutional History of England, vol. ii. chaps. xiv. and xv. (1896); T.F. Tout,Edward I.(1893), andPolitical History of England, 1216-1377, pp. 136-235 (1905); R.B. Seeley,Life and Reign of Edward I.(1872); R. Pauli,Geschichte von England, iv. pp. 1-198 (Hamburg, 1864-1875); W. Hunt, article on “Edward I.” inDictionary of National Biography; J.E. Morris,Welsh Wars of Edward I.(Oxford, 1901); and C.V. Langlois’sPhilippe le Hardi(Paris, 1887).

(T. F. T.)

EDWARD II.(1284-1327), “of Carnarvon,” king of England, the fourth son of Edward I. by his first wife Eleanor of Castile, was born at Carnarvon Castle on the 25th of April 1284. The story that the king presented the new-born child to the Welsh as their future native prince is quite unfounded, for Edward was only made prince of Wales in the Lincoln parliament of 1301. When a few months old, he became by his elder brother’s death the heir to the throne, and Edward I. took great pains to train him in warfare and statecraft. He took part in several Scots campaigns, but all his father’s efforts could not prevent his acquiring the habits of extravagance and frivolity which he retained all through his life. The old king attributed his son’s defects to the bad influence of his friend, the Gascon knight Piers Gaveston, and drove the favourite into exile. When Edward I. died, on the 7th of July 1307, the first act of the prince, now Edward II., was to recall Gaveston. His next was to abandon the Scots campaign on which his father had set his heart.

The new king was physically almost as fine a man as Edward I. He was, however, destitute of any serious purpose, and was, as Dr Stubbs says, “the first king after the Conquest who was not a man of business.” He cared for nothing but amusing himself, and found his chief delight in athletics and in the practice of mechanical crafts. He was not so much vicious as foolish, and wanting in all serious interests. He had so little confidence in himself that he was always in the hands of some favourite who possessed a stronger will than his own. In the early years of his reign Gaveston held this role, acting as regent when Edward went to France—where, on the 25th of January 1308, he married Isabella, the daughter of Philip the Fair—and receiving the earldom of Cornwall with the hand of the king’s niece, Margaret of Gloucester. The barons soon grew indignant at Edward’s devotion to his “brother Piers,” and twice insisted on his banishment. On each occasion Edward soon recalled his friend, whereupon the barons, headed by the king’s cousin Thomas, earl of Lancaster, went to war against king and favourite, and in 1312 treacherously put Gaveston to death. Edward was not strong enough even to avenge his loss. He was forced to stand aside and suffer the realm to be governed by the baronial committee of twenty-one lords ordainers, who, in 1311, had drawn up a series of ordinances, whose effect was to substitute ordainers for the king as the effective government of the country. But in all the ordinances nothing was said about the commons and lower clergy. Parliament meant to the new rulers an assembly of barons just as it had done to the opponents of Henry III. in 1258. The effect of their triumph was to change England from a monarchy to a narrow oligarchy.

During the quarrels between Edward and the ordainers, Robert Bruce was steadily conquering Scotland. His progress was so great that he had occupied all the fortresses save Stirling, which he closely besieged. The danger of losing Stirling shamed Edward and the barons into an attempt to retrieve their lost ground. In June 1314 Edward led a great army into Scotland in the hope of relieving Stirling. On the 24th of June his ill-disciplined and badly led host was completely defeated by Robert Bruce at Bannockburn. Henceforth Bruce was sure of his position as king of Scots, and his pitiless devastation of the northern counties of England was his wild vengeance for the sufferings his land had previously experienced from the English. Edward’s disgraceful defeat made him more dependent on his barons than ever. His kinsman, Thomas of Lancaster, had now an opportunity of saving England from the consequences of the king’s incompetence. He had shown some capacity as a leader of opposition, but though he had great wealth, and was lord of five earldoms, he had small ability and no constructive power. In his desire to keep the king weak, he was suspected to have made a secret understanding with Robert Bruce. Before long the opposition split up under his incompetent guidance into fiercely contending factions. Under Aymer of Valence, earl of Pembroke, a middle party arose, which hated Lancaster so much that it supported the king to put an end to Lancaster’s rule. After 1318 the effect of its influence was to restore Edward to some portion of his authority. However, the king hated Pembroke almost as much as Lancaster. He now found a competent adviser in Hugh le Despenser, a baron of great experience. What was more important to him, he had in Despenser’s son, Hugh le Despenser the younger, a personal friend and favourite, who was able in some measure to replace Gaveston. The fierce hatred which the barons manifested to the Despensers showed that they could hate a deserter as bitterly as they had hated the Gascon adventurer. They were indignant at the favours which Edward lavished upon the favourite and his father, and were especially alarmed when the younger Despenser strove to procure for himself the earldom of Gloucester in right of his wife, Edward’s niece.

At last, in 1321, the barons met in parliament, and under Lancaster’s guidance procured the banishment of the Despensers. The disasters of his friends inspired Edward to unwonted activity. In 1322 he recalled them from exile, and waged war against the barons on their behalf. Triumph crowned his exertions. Lancaster, defeated at Boroughbridge, was executed at Pontefract. For the next five years the Despensers ruled England. Unlike the ordainers, they took pains to get the Commons on their side, and a parliament held at York in 1322 revoked the ordinances because they trenched upon the rights of the crown, and were drawn up by the barons only. From this time no statute was technically valid unless the Commons had agreed to it. This marks the most important step forward in Edward II.’s reign. But the rule of the Despensers soon fell away from this wise beginning. They thought only of heaping up wealth for themselves, and soon stirred up universal indignation. In particular, they excited the ill-will of the queen, Isabella of France. Craftily dissembling her indignation, Isabella kept silence until 1325, when she went to France in company with her eldest son, Edward of Windsor, who was sent to do homage for Aquitaine to her brother, the new French king. When her business was over, Isabella declined to return to her husband as long as the Despensers remained his favourites. She formed a criminal connexion with Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, one of the baronial exiles, and in September 1326 landed in Essex accompanied by Mortimer and her son, declaring that she was come to avenge the murder of Lancaster, and to expel the Despensers. Edward’s followers deserted him, and on the 2nd of October he fled from London to the west, where he took refuge in the younger Despenser’s estates in Glamorgan. His wife followed him, put to death both the Despensers, and, after a futile effort to escape by sea, Edward was captured on the 16th of November. He was imprisoned at Kenilworth Castle, and a parliament met at Westminster in January 1327, which chose his son to be king as Edward III. It was thought prudent to compel the captive king to resign the crown, and on the 20th of January Edward was forced to renounce his office before a committee of the estates. The government of Isabella and Mortimer was so weakly established that it darednot leave the deposed king alive. On the 3rd of April he was secretly removed from Kenilworth and entrusted to the custody of two dependants of Mortimer. After various wanderings he was imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Every indignity was inflicted upon him, and he was systematically ill-treated in the hope that he would die of disease. When his strong constitution seemed likely to prevail over the ill-treatment of his enemies he was cruelly put to death on the 21st of September. It was announced that he had died a natural death, and he was buried in St Peter’s Abbey at Gloucester, now the cathedral, where his son afterwards erected a magnificent tomb.

Edward’s wife, Isabella (c.1292-1358), bore him two sons, Edward III. and John of Eltham, earl of Cornwall (1316-1336), and two daughters, Isabella and Joanna (1321-1362), wife of David II., king of Scotland. After the execution of her paramour, Roger Mortimer, in 1330, Isabella retired from public life; she died at Hertford on the 23rd of August 1358.

See R. Pauli,Geschichte von England, iv. pp. 199-306; T.F. Tout,Political History of England, 1216-1307, pp. 236-304, and article inDictionary of National Biography; W. Stubbs,Constitutional History, vol. ii. pp. 319-386, andIntroductions to Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II.in Rolls series.

(T. F. T.)

EDWARD III.(1312-1377), “of Windsor,” king of England, eldest son of Edward II. and Isabella of France, was born at Windsor on the 13th of November 1312. In 1320 he was made earl of Chester, and in 1325 duke of Aquitaine, but he never received the title of prince of Wales. Immediately after his appointment to Aquitaine, he was sent to France to do homage to his uncle Charles IV., and remained abroad until he accompanied his mother and Mortimer in their expedition to England. To raise funds for this he was betrothed to Philippa, daughter of the count of Hainaut. On the 26th of October 1326, after the fall of Bristol, he was proclaimed warden of the kingdom during his father’s absence. On the 13th of January 1327 parliament recognized him as king, and he was crowned on the 29th of the same month.

For the next four years Isabella and Mortimer governed in his name, though nominally his guardian was Henry, earl of Lancaster. In the summer he took part in an abortive campaign against the Scots, and was married to Philippa at York on the 24th of January 1328. On the 15th of June 1330 his eldest child, Edward, the Black Prince, was born. Soon after, Edward made a successful effort to throw off his degrading dependence on his mother and her paramour. In October 1330 he entered Nottingham Castle by night, through a subterranean passage, and took Mortimer prisoner. On the 29th of November the execution of the favourite at Tyburn completed the young king’s emancipation. Edward discreetly drew a veil over his mother’s relations with Mortimer, and treated her with every respect. There is no truth in the stories that henceforth he kept her in honourable confinement, but her political influence was at an end.

Edward III.’s real reign now begins. Young, ardent and active, he strove with all his might to win back for England something of the position which it had acquired under Edward I. He bitterly resented the concession of independence to Scotland by the treaty of Northampton of 1328, and the death of Robert Bruce in 1329 gave him a chance of retrieving his position. The new king of Scots, David, who was his brother-in-law, was a mere boy, and the Scottish barons, exiled for their support of Robert Bruce, took advantage of the weakness of his rule to invade Scotland in 1332. At their head was Edward Baliol, whose victory at Dupplin Moor established him for a brief time as king of Scots. After four months Baliol was driven out by the Scots, whereupon Edward for the first time openly took up his cause. In 1333 the king won in person the battle of Halidon Hill over the Scots, but his victory did not restore Baliol to power. The Scots despised him as a puppet of the English king, and after a few years David was finally established in Scotland. During these years England gradually drifted into hostility with France. The chief cause of this was the impossible situation which resulted from Edward’s position as duke of Gascony. Contributing causes were Philip’s support of the Scots and Edward’s alliance with the Flemish cities, which were then on bad terms with their French overlord, and the revival of Edward’s claim, first made in 1328, to the French crown. War broke out in 1337, and in 1338 Edward visited Coblenz, where he made an alliance with the emperor Louis the Bavarian. In 1339 and 1340 Edward endeavoured to invade France from the north with the help of his German and Flemish allies, but the only result of his campaigns was to reduce him to bankruptcy.

In 1340, however, he took personal part in the great naval battle off Sluys, in which he absolutely destroyed the French navy. In the same year he assumed the title of king of France. At first he did this to gratify the Flemings, whose scruples in fighting their overlord, the French king, disappeared when they persuaded themselves that Edward was the rightful king of France. However, his pretensions to the French crown gradually became more important. The persistence with which he and his successors urged them made stable peace impossible for more than a century, and this made the struggle famous in history as the Hundred Years’ War. Till the days of George III. every English king also called himself king of France.

Despite his victory at Sluys, Edward was so exhausted by his land campaign that he was forced before the end of 1340 to make a truce and return to England. He unfairly blamed his chief minister, Archbishop Stratford, for his financial distress, and immediately on his return vindictively attacked him. Before the truce expired a disputed succession to the duchy of Brittany gave Edward an excuse for renewing hostilities with France. In 1342 he went to Brittany and fought an indecisive campaign against the French. He was back in England in 1343. In the following years he spent much time and money in rebuilding Windsor Castle, and instituting the order of the Garter, which he did in order to fulfil a vow that he had taken to restore the Round Table of Arthur. His finances, therefore, remained embarrassed despite the comparative pause in the war, although in 1339 he had repudiated his debt to his Italian creditors, a default that brought about widespread misery in Florence.

A new phase of the French war begins when in July 1346 Edward landed in Normandy, accompanied by his eldest son, Edward, prince of Wales, a youth of sixteen. In a memorable campaign Edward marched from La Hogue to Caen, and from Caen almost to the gates of Paris. It was a plundering expedition on a large scale, and like most of Edward’s campaigns showed some want of strategic purpose. But Edward’s decisive victory over the French at Crécy, in Ponthieu, on the 26th of August, where he scattered the army with which Philip VI. attempted to stay his retreat from Paris to the northern frontier, signally demonstrated the tactical superiority of Edward’s army over the French. Next year Edward effected the reduction of Calais. This was the most solid and lasting of his conquests, and its execution compelled him to greater efforts than the Crécy campaign. Other victories in Gascony and Brittany further emphasized his power. In 1346, David, king of Scots, was also defeated and taken prisoner at Neville’s Cross, near Durham. In the midst of his successes, however, want of money forced Edward to make a new truce in 1347. He was as far from the conquest of France as ever.

Edward returned to England in October 1347. He celebrated his triumph by a series of splendid tournaments, and completed his scheme for the establishment of the order of the Garter. In 1348 he rejected an offer of the imperial throne. In the same year the Black Death first appeared in England, and raged until 1349. Yet the horrors which it wrought hardly checked the magnificent revels of Edward’s court, and neither the plague nor the truce stayed the course of the French war, though what fighting there was was indecisive and on a small scale. Edward’s martial exploits during the next years were those of a gallant knight rather than those of a responsible general. Conspicuous among them were his famous combat with Eustace de Ribemont, near Calais, in 1349, and the hard-fought naval victory over the Spaniards off Winchelsea, in 1350. Effortsto make peace, initiated by Pope Innocent VI., came to nothing, though the English commons were now weary of the war. The result of this failure was the renewal of war on a large scale. In 1355 Edward led an unsuccessful raid out of Calais, and in January and February 1356 harried the Lothians, in the expedition famous as the Burned Candlemas. His exploits sank into insignificance as compared with those of his son, whose victory at Poitiers, on the 19th of September 1356, resulted in the captivity of King John, and forced the French to accept a new truce. Edward entertained his royal captive very magnificently, and in 1359 concluded with him the treaty of London, by which John surrendered so much that the French repudiated the treaty. Edward thereupon resolved to invade France afresh and compel its acceptance. On the 28th of October he landed at Calais, and advanced to Reims, where he hoped to be crowned king of France. The strenuous resistance of the citizens frustrated this scheme, and Edward marched into Burgundy, whence he made his way back towards Paris. Failing in an attack on the capital, he was glad to conclude, on the 8th of May 1360, preliminaries of peace at Brétigny, near Chartres. This treaty, less onerous to France than that of London, took its final form in the treaty of Calais, ratified by King John on the 9th of October. By it Edward renounced his claim to France in return for the whole of Aquitaine.

The treaty of Calais did not bring rest or prosperity either to England or France. Fresh visitations of the Black Death, in 1362 and 1369, intensified the social and economic disturbances which had begun with the first outbreak in 1348. Desperate, but not very successful, efforts were made to enforce the statute of Labourers, of 1351, by which it was sought to maintain prices and wages as they had been before the pestilence. Another feature of these years was the anti-papal, or rather anti-clerical, legislation embodied in the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire. These measures were first passed in 1351 and 1353, but often repeated. In 1366 Edward formally repudiated the feudal supremacy over England, still claimed by the papacy by reason of John’s submission. Another feature of the time was the strenuous effort made by Edward to establish his numerous family without too great expense. In the end the estates of the houses of Lancaster, Kent, Bohun, Burgh and Mortimer swelled the revenues of Edward’s children and grandchildren, in whose favour also the new title of duke was introduced.

In 1369 the French king, Charles V., repudiated the treaty of Calais and renewed the war. Edward’s French dominions gladly reverted to their old allegiance, and Edward showed little of his former vigour in meeting this new trouble. He resumed the title and arms of king of France, but left most of the fighting and administration of his foreign kingdoms to his sons, Edward and John. While the latter were struggling with little success against the rising tide of French national feeling, Edward’s want of money made him a willing participator in the attack on the wealth and privileges of the Church. In 1371 a clerical ministry was driven from office, and replaced by laymen, who proved, however, less effective administrators than their predecessors. Meanwhile Aquitaine was gradually lost; the defeat of Pembroke off La Rochelle deprived England of the command of the sea, and Sir Owen ap Thomas, a grand-nephew of Llewelyn ab Gruffyd, planned, with French help, an abortive invasion of Wales. In 1371 the Black Prince came back to England with broken health, and in 1373 John of Lancaster marched to little purpose through France, from Calais to Bordeaux. In 1372 Edward made his final effort to lead an army, but contrary winds prevented his even landing his troops in France. In 1375 he was glad to make a truce, which lasted until his death. By it the only important possessions remaining in English hands were Calais, Bordeaux, Bayonne and Brest.

Edward was now sinking into his dotage. After the death of Queen Philippa he fell entirely under the influence of a greedy mistress named Alice Perrers, while the Black Prince and John of Gaunt became the leaders of sharply divided parties in the court and council of the king. With the help of Alice Perrers John of Gaunt obtained the chief influence with his father, but his administration was neither honourable nor successful. His chief enemies were the higher ecclesiastics, headed by William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, who had been excluded from power in 1371. John further irritated the clergy by making an alliance with John Wycliffe. The opposition to John was led by the Black Prince and Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, the husband of Edward’s grand-daughter, Philippa of Clarence. At last popular indignation against the courtiers came to a head in the famous Good Parliament of 1376. Alice Perrers was removed from court, and Duke John’s subordinate instruments were impeached. But in the midst of the parliament the death of the Black Prince robbed the commons of their strongest support. John of Gaunt regained power, and in 1377 a new parliament, carefully packed by the courtiers, reversed the acts of the Good Parliament. Not long after Edward III. died, on the 21st of June 1377.

Edward III. was not a great man like Edward I. He was, however, an admirable tactician, a consummate knight, and he possessed extraordinary vigour and energy of temperament. His court, described at length in Froissart’s famous chronicle, was the most brilliant in Europe, and he was himself well fitted to be the head of the magnificent chivalry that obtained fame in the French wars. Though his main ambition was military glory, he was not a bad ruler of England. He was liberal, kindly, good-tempered and easy of access, and his yielding to his subjects’ wishes in order to obtain supplies for carrying on the French war contributed to the consolidation of the constitution. His weak points were his wanton breaches of good faith, his extravagance, his frivolity and his self-indulgence. Like that of Edward I. his ambition transcended his resources, and before he died even his subjects were aware of his failure.

Edward had twelve children, seven sons and five daughters. Five of his sons played some part in the history of their time, these being Edward the Black Prince, Lionel of Antwerp, duke of Clarence, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, Edmund of Langley, afterwards duke of York, and Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards duke of Gloucester. John and Edmund are also important as the founders of the rival houses of Lancaster and York. Each of the last four was named from the place of his birth, and for the same reason the Black Prince is sometimes called Edward of Woodstock. The king’s two other sons both died in infancy. Of his daughters, three died unmarried; the others were Isabella, who married into the family of Coucy, and Mary, who married into that of Montfort.

Authorities.—The two chief modern lives of Edward III. are W. Longman’sLife and Times of Edward III., and J. Mackinnon’sHistory of Edward III.Neither work can be regarded as adequate, and in some ways J. Barnes’s quaintHistory of Edward III.(1688) is less unsatisfactory. The general history of the time can be read in W. Stubbs’sConstitutional History of England, vol. ii. chapters xvi. and xvii.; in T.F. Tout’sPolitical History of England, 1216-1377, pp. 301-441; in R. Pauli’sGeschichte von England, iv. pp. 307-504; and in Edward’s life by W. Hunt in theDictionary of National Biography. For the Hundred Years’ War, see E. Déprez’sLes Préliminaires de la guerre de cent ans, 1328-1342, and H. Denifle’sLa Desolation des églises, monastères et hôpitaux en France pendant la guerre de cent ans. For economic and social history see W.J. Ashley’sEnglish Economic History, and W. Cunningham’sGrowth of English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages. For the end of the reign see S. Armitage Smith’sJohn of Gaunt, J. Lechler’sWiclif und die Vorgeschichte der Reformation, translated asWycliffe and his English Precursors, R.L. Poole’sWycliffe and Movements for Reform, and G.M. Trevelyan’sEngland in the Age of Wycliffe.

(T. F. T.)

EDWARD IV.(1442-1483), king of England, son of Richard, duke of York, by Cicely Neville, was born at Rouen on the 28th of April 1442. As a boy he was styled earl of March, and spent most of his time at Ludlow. After the Yorkist failure at Ludlow field in October 1459, Edward fled with the earls of Salisbury and Warwick, his uncle and cousin, to Calais. Thence in the following July he accompanied them in their successful invasion of England, to be welcomed in London, and to share in the victory over the Lancastrians at Northampton. After the acceptance of Richard of York as heir to the crown, Edward returned to the Welsh marches, where early in the newyear he heard of his father’s defeat and death at Wakefield. Hastily gathering an army he defeated the earls of Pembroke and Wiltshire at Mortimer’s Cross on the 2nd of February 1461, and then marched on London. He was acclaimed by the citizens in an assembly at Clerkenwell, declared king by a Yorkist council, and took possession of the regality on the 4th of March. Soon after the new king and the earl of Warwick went north, and on the 28th of March won a decisive victory at Towton.

Edward owed his throne to his kinsmen the Nevilles, and he was content for the time to be guided by them. For himself he was young and fond of pleasure. Still he made frequent progresses, and took some part in the fighting that went on in the north during 1462 and 1463. But he was absent from the final victory at Hexham on the 14th of May 1464, and was at the very time engaged in contracting a secret marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers, and widow of Sir John Grey of Groby (d. 1461). The marriage was disclosed at Michaelmas, much to the vexation of Warwick, who in pursuit of his foreign policy had projected a match with a French princess. Edward heaped favours on his new relatives; his father-in-law was made treasurer, and great marriages were found for his wife’s sisters and brothers. In foreign affairs also Edward thwarted Warwick’s plans by favouring an alliance with Burgundy rather than France. There was, however, no open breach till 1469, when Warwick, taking advantage of the unpopularity of the Woodvilles, and supported by the king’s next brother George, duke of Clarence, appeared in arms. Edward was surprised and made prisoner at Middleham, and Rivers was beheaded. For six months Edward had to submit to Warwick’s tutelage; then on the occasion of a rising in Lincolnshire he gathered an army of his own. Sir Robert Welles, the leader of this rebellion, made a confession implicating Warwick, who fled with Clarence to France. The king thought himself secure, but when Warwick and Clarence made terms with the Lancastrian exiles, Edward in his turn had to seek refuge in Holland (September 1470). His brother-in-law, Charles of Burgundy, at first refused him any assistance, but at last furnished him with money, and on the 14th of March 1471 Edward and his brother Richard landed with a small force at Ravenspur near Hull. Marching south he was welcomed at London on the 11th of April, defeated Warwick at Barnet three days later, and the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury on the 4th of May. From thenceforth Edward’s possession of the crown was secure. His position was strengthened by the birth of a son (2nd of November 1470, during his exile), and by the wealth which he acquired through the confiscation of the estates of his opponents. Clarence had made his peace with Edward, but was at enmity with his other brother Richard of Gloucester, who now married Warwick’s second daughter and claimed a share in the Neville inheritance. Their rivalry and Clarence’s continued intrigues furnished Edward with his chief domestic difficulty; the trouble was ended by the judicial murder of Clarence in 1478.

The only serious enterprise of these latter years was the short French war of 1475, from which Edward was bought out by the treaty of Pecquigny. As foreign policy it was inglorious, and involved a departure from Edward’s earlier plan of a Burgundian alliance. However, it shows a certain recognition of England’s need to concentrate her energies on her own development. The annual subsidy which Louis XI. agreed to pay further served Edward’s purposes by providing him with money for home government, and enabled him to avoid possible trouble through the necessity for too frequent parliaments and heavy taxation. So Edward’s personal rule became in its character autocratic; but it was in the art of courting popularity and concealing despotism that he most shows himself as a type of tyranny. He lacked neither ambition nor capacity, but was indolent and only exerted himself spasmodically. He could be ruthless, but was not habitually cruel. His strongest weapons were the fine presence, the affable manners (even with citizens), and the love of pleasure and entertainments which secured his personal popularity. In his last years he was given to self-indulgence and scandalous excesses, which did not, however, alienate the London citizens, with whose wives he was too familiar. Most of the power at court was in the hands of the Woodvilles, in spite of their unpopularity; the more arduous work of administration in the north was left to Richard of Gloucester. If as a prince of the Renaissance Edward was the first to rule tyrannically in England, he also deserves credit as a patron of the new culture and friend of Caxton; he further resembles his Italian contemporaries in the commercial purposes to which he applied his wealth in partnership with London merchants.

Edward died at Westminster on the 9th of April 1483, and was buried at Windsor. By Elizabeth Woodville, who died on the 8th of June 1492, he had two sons, Edward V. and Richard of York, who were murdered in the Tower; and five daughters, of whom the eldest, Elizabeth, married Henry VII. Of his numerous mistresses the most notorious was Jane Shore. Before his marriage he had been contracted to Lady Eleanor Butler, and this was alleged by Richard III. to have made his children by Elizabeth Woodville illegitimate.

Bibliography.—Of original authorities for Edward’s reign the chief are theContinuation of the Cropland Chroniclein Fulman’sScriptores; the various London Chronicles, especially for the early yearsGregory’s Chronicle; Warkworth’sChronicle, and theArrivall of King Edward IV.(a partisan account of events in 1470-1471), published by the Camden Society; thePaston Letterswith Dr Gairdner’s valuable Introduction; and for foreign affairs theMémoiresof Philippe de Comines; the collection calledChronicles of the White Roseis useful. For modern authors, consult Sir James Ramsay’sLancaster and York(1892), and thePolitical History of England, vol. iv. (1906), by Prof. C. Oman.

(C. L. K.)

EDWARD V.(1470-1483), king of England, was the elder son of Edward IV. by his wife Elizabeth Woodville, and was born, during his father’s temporary exile, in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey on the 2nd of November 1470. In June 1471 he was created prince of Wales. When Edward IV. died in April 1483 a struggle for power took place between the young king’s paternal uncle, Richard, duke of Gloucester, who had been appointed as his guardian by Edward IV., and his maternal uncle, Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers. Gloucester obtained possession of the king’s person, and, having arrested Rivers and some of his supporters, assumed the crown himself after a very slight and feigned reluctance, on the ground that the marriage of Edward and Elizabeth Woodville was invalid, and consequently its issue was illegitimate. At this time Edward and his brother Richard, duke of York, were living in the Tower of London. Shortly afterwards a movement was organized to free them from captivity, and then it became known that they were already dead; but, though it was the general conviction that they had been murdered, it was twenty years before the manner of this deed was discovered. According to the narrative of Sir Thomas More, Sir Robert Brackenbury, the constable of the Tower, refused to obey Richard’s command to put the young princes to death; but he complied with a warrant ordering him to give up his keys for one night to Sir James Tyrell, who had arranged for the assassination. Two men, Miles Forest and John Dighton, then smothered the youths under pillows while they were asleep. The murder was committed most probably in August or September 1483. Horace Walpole has attempted to cast doubts upon the murder of the princes, and Sir C.R. Markham has argued that the deed was committed by order of Henry VII. Both these views, however, have been traversed by James Gairdner, and there seems little doubt that Sir Thomas More’s story is substantially correct.

SeeRichard III.; and in addition, Sir Thomas More,History of Richard III., edited by J.R. Lumby (Cambridge, 1883); Horace Walpole,Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III.(London, 1768); J. Gairdner,Richard III.(Cambridge, 1898); J. Gairdner and C.R. Markham in theEnglish Historical Review, vol. vi. (London, 1891); Sir C.R. Markham,Richard III.(1907).

EDWARD VI.(1537-1553), king of England and Ireland, born at Greenwich on the 12th of October 1537, was the only child of Henry VIII. by his third wife, Jane Seymour, who died of puerperal fever twelve days later. The story that the mother’s life was deliberately sacrificed by the performance of Caesareansection is unfounded, although Jane’s death was little noticed amid the rejoicings which greeted the advent of a male heir to the throne. But in spite of Holbein’s vivacious portrait of Edward at the age of two (now at Hanover), he was a frail child, and a short life was anticipated for him from his early years. This did not prevent a strenuous education; until the age of six he was naturally left in the charge of women, but when he was only seven his tutor Dr Coxe, afterwards bishop of Ely, writes that he could decline any Latin noun and conjugate any regular verb (L. and P., 1544, ii. 726); “every day in the mass-time he readeth a portion of Solomon’s Proverbs, wherein he delighteth much.” Sir John Cheke, Sir Anthony Cooke and Roger Ascham all helped to teach him Latin, Greek and French; and by the age of thirteen he had read Aristotle’sEthicsin the original and was himself translating Cicero’sDe philosophiainto Greek.

Edward was duke of Cornwall from his birth, but he was never prince of Wales, and he was only nine when he succeeded his father as king of England and Ireland and supreme head of the church (28th of January 1546/7). His nonage threw power into the hands of Somerset and then of Northumberland, and enabled Gardiner and Bonner to maintain that the royal supremacy over the church was, or should be, in abeyance. Projects for his marriage were hardly even the occasion, but only the excuse, for Somerset’s war on Scotland and Northumberland’s subsequent alliance with France. All factions sought to control his person, not because of his personality but because of his position; he was like the Great Seal, only more so, an indispensable adjunct to the wielder of authority. The Protector’s brother tried to bribe him with pocket-money; Northumberland was more subtle and established a complete dominion over his mind, and then put him forward at the age of fourteen as entitled to all the power of Henry VIII. But he was only Northumberland’s mask; of his individual influence on the course of history during his reign there is hardly a trace. A posthumous effort was made to give him the credit of a humane desire to save Joan Bocher from the flames; but he recorded with apparently cold-blooded indifference the execution of both his uncles, and he certainly made no attempt to mitigate the harassing attentions which the council paid his sister Mary. This passed for piety with the zealots, and the persecutions of Mary’s reign reflected a halo on that of the Protestant Josiah. So strong was the regret that rumours of his survival persisted, and hare-brained youths were found to personate him throughout Mary’s and even far into Elizabeth’s reign.

It was well that they were false, for Edward showed signs of all the Tudor obstinacy, and he was a fanatic into the bargain, as no other Tudor was except Mary. The combination would probably have involved England in disasters far greater than any that ensued upon his premature death; and it was much better that the Anglican settlement of religion should have been left to the compromising temper of Elizabeth. As it was, he bequeathed a legacy of woe; his health began to fail in 1552, and in May 1553 it was known that he was dying. But his will and the various drafts of it only betray the agitated and illogical efforts of Northumberland to contrive some means whereby he might continue to control the government and prevent the administration of justice. Mary and Elizabeth were to be excluded from the throne, as not sufficiently pliant instruments; Mary Stuart was ignored as being under Scottish, Catholic and French influence; the duchess of Suffolk, Lady Jane’s mother, was excluded because she was married, and the duke her husband might claim the crown matrimonial. In fact, all females were excluded, except Jane, on the ground that no woman could reign; even she was excluded in the first draft, and the crown was left to “the Lady Jane’s heirs male.” But this draft was manipulated so as to read “the Lady Jane and her heirs male.” That Edward himself was responsible for these delirious provisions is improbable. But he had been so impregnated with the divine right of kings and the divine truth of Protestantism that he thought he was entitled and bound to override the succession as established by law and exclude a Catholic from the throne; and his last recorded words were vehement injunctions to Cranmer to sign the will. He died at Greenwich on the 6th of July 1553, and was buried in Henry VII.’s chapel by Cranmer with Protestant rites on the 8th of August, while Mary had Mass said for his soul in the Tower.

J.G. Nichols collected almost all that is known of Edward VI. in his excellent edition of the king’sJournal. A few additional facts and suggestions can be gleaned from theLetters and Papers of Henry VIII.vols. xii.-xxi.;Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent, vols. i.-iv.; Domestic, Spanish, Venetian and ForeignCalendars of State Papers; Froude’sHistory; Dixon’sHist. Church of England; A.F. Pollard’sEngland under SomersetandLife of Cranmer; andEnglish Historical Review, xxiii. 286, &c. Sir Clements Markham’sEdward VI.(1907) emphasizes his interest in geography.

(A. F. P.)

EDWARD VII.(Albert Edward) (1841-1910), king of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, emperor of India, the eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and of Albert, prince consort, was born at Buckingham Palace on the 9th of November 1841. He was created prince of Wales and earl of Chester on the 4th of December following, and was baptized on the 25th of January 1842. In his childhood he was educated by the dowager Lady Lyttelton; and in his boyhood successively by the Rev. Henry Mildred Birch, Mr F.W. Gibbes, the Rev. C.F. Tarver and Mr Herbert W. Fisher. He afterwards resided at Edinburgh, studying chemistry in its industrial applications under Professor (afterwards Lord) Playfair at the university; at Christ Church, Oxford; and at Trinity College, Cambridge. In November 1858 he was made a knight of the Garter and a colonel in the army. In 1859 he travelled in Italy and Spain, and in 1860 paid a visit as “Lord Renfrew” to the United States and Canada.

Upon the completion of his Cambridge course in June 1861 he joined the camp at the Curragh. The prince consort died on the 13th of December, and in 1862 the prince of Wales went for a tour in the Holy Land (February-June) under the guidance of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, afterwards dean of Westminster. Early in 1863 he was sworn of the privy council, and took his seat in the House of Lords as duke of Cornwall. The estate of Sandringham, in Norfolk, was purchased for him out of the savings of his minority, and his town residence was fixed at Marlborough House.

His impending marriage to the princess Alexandra, daughter of Christian IX., king of Denmark (b. December 1, 1844), had already been announced, and took place on the 10th of March at Windsor, the beauty and grace of the princess captivating the heart of the nation. Parliament granted the prince an income of £40,000 a year, exclusive of the revenues of the duchy of Cornwall, and he relinquished his right of succession to the duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Prince Albert Victor, afterwards duke of Clarence, was the first offspring of the marriage, being born on the 8th of January 1864. The births followed of Prince George Frederick Ernest Albert, afterwards duke of York (seeGeorge V.), on the 3rd of June 1865; Princess Louise Victoria Alexandra Dagmar, by marriage duchess of Fife, princess royal, on the 20th of February 1867; Princess Victoria Alexandra Olga Mary, on the 6th of July 1868; and Princess Maud Charlotte Mary Victoria, afterwards queen of Norway, on the 26th of November 1869.

From the time of their marriage the prince and princess were prominently before the country. Queen Victoria remained in retirement, but they filled her place at important public functions. The prince’s readiness to promote every worthy cause was most marked; no one was a more constant attendant at meetings for objects of public utility of a non-political nature, and his speeches were always characterized by excellent sense. The most important external event of these years was a tour to Egypt, undertaken in 1869 in company with the duke of Sutherland, Sir Samuel Baker and others, an account of which was published by Mrs William Grey. The prince also visited Ireland more than once, and opened the International Exhibition of 1871.

On the 23rd of November 1871 it was announced that the prince would be prevented from paying a visit which had been arranged to the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh by a feverish attack. It soon appeared that the malady was typhoid, contractedas was supposed, on a visit to Scarborough. The case became so serious that on November 29 the queen and Princess Alice hurried to Sandringham. On the 1st of December there was a slight rally, but on the 8th so serious a relapse occurred that for some days the prince’s life was despaired of. Under the skilful treatment of Sir William Jenner, Sir William Gull and Sir James Paget, however, the crisis was surmounted by December 16, and by Christmas day the danger was regarded as virtually over. On the 27th of February 1872 a thanksgiving was held at St Paul’s, amid imposing demonstrations of public joy.

In January 1874 the prince of Wales attended the marriage at St. Petersburg of his brother, the duke of Edinburgh, with the grand-duchess Marie of Russia. In the same year he paid a historic visit to Birmingham, where Mr Joseph Chamberlain, not yet a member of parliament, received him officially as mayor. In March 1875 it was officially announced that he would make a visit to India, carrying out an idea originally conceived by the first Indian viceroy, Earl Canning. He was supposed to travel as heir-apparent, not as representative of the queen; but the characters could not be kept apart, and in fact the prince’s visit was a political event of great importance. Leaving England on October 11, he was received at Bombay by the viceroy, Lord Northbrook. Here he met a very large number of Indian feudatory princes, whose acquaintance he subsequently improved by visiting at their courts during the seventeen weeks which he spent in the country. During these four months the prince travelled nearly 8000 m. by land and 2500 m. by sea, became acquainted with more rajahs than had all the viceroys who had reigned over India, and saw more of the country than any living Englishman. The visit led up to the queen’s assumption of the title of empress of India in the following year.

The prince’s life after this date was full of conspicuous public appearances. In 1885 he visited Ireland at a time of much political excitement, and was received enthusiastically in many quarters and without symptoms of ill-will in any. In 1886 he filled the presidency of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, opened the Mersey Tunnel, and laid the first stone of the Tower Bridge. In 1887 a large share of the arrangements for the queen’s Jubilee devolved upon him. On the 27th of July 1589 his eldest daughter, Princess Louise, was married to the duke of Fife. In the autumn he paid a semi-incognito visit to Paris, where he was always highly popular, viewed the Exhibition, and ascended the Eiffel Tower. In 1890 he opened the Forth Bridge. On the 14th of January 1892, however, a heavy blow fell upon him and his house by the death of his eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, duke of Clarence, after a brief illness. The young prince, who with his brother George had made the tour of the world (1879-1882) in H.M.S. “Bacchante,” and after a short career at Oxford and Cambridge was just settling down to play his part in public life, had recently become engaged to Princess Victoria Mary of Teck (b. May 26, 1867), and the popularity of the heir to the crown had been increased by the expression of his satisfaction at his son’s bride being an English princess. On the 6th of July 1893 the broken thread was reunited by her marriage to Prince George, duke of York.

The year 1894 was a busy one for the prince of Wales, who became a member of the royal commission on the housing of the poor, opened the Tower Bridge, attended the Welsh Eisteddfod and was duly initiated, and paid two visits to Russia—one for the marriage of the grand-duchess Xenia, the other for the funeral of the tsar, his brother-in-law. In 1896 he became first chancellor of the university of Wales, and his first act after his installation at Aberystwyth was to confer an honorary degree upon the princess. He had already been for some years a trustee of the British Museum. On the 22nd of July 1896 his daughter. Princess Maud, was married to Prince Charles of Denmark, who in 1905 was offered and accepted the crown of the new kingdom of Norway. The arrangements for the queen’s Jubilee of 1897 depended upon the prince even more than those of the corresponding celebration in 1887: he rode on the queen’s right at the great procession to St Paul’s, and as an admiral of the fleet presided at the naval review at Spithead. In July 1898 the prince had the misfortune to fracture his knee-cap while on a visit to Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, but completely recovered from the effects of the accident. In December 1899, while passing through Brussels on his way to St Petersburg, he was fired at by a miserable lad named Sipido, crazed by reading anarchist literature. Fortunately no injury was done.

It was the especial distinction of Albert Edward, while prince of Wales, to have been a substantial support of the throne before he was called upon to fill it. This cannot be said of any of his predecessors except Edward the Black Prince. He was exemplary in the discharge of his public duties, and in his scrupulous detachment from party politics. He was a keen patron of the theatre, and his thoroughly British taste for sport was as pronounced as his inclination for most of the contemporary amusements of society. The “Tranby Croft Case” (1890), in which Sir William Gordon Cumming brought an unsuccessful libel action for having been accused of cheating at a game of baccarat, caused some comment in connexion with the prince’s appearance in the witness-box on behalf of the defendants. But it did him no disservice with the people to have twice won the Derby with his horses Persimmon (1896) and Diamond Jubilee (1900)—his third victory, in 1909, with Minoru, being the first occasion on which the race had been won by a reigning sovereign; and his interest in yacht-racing was conspicuously shown at all the important fixtures, his yacht “Britannia” being one of the best of her day. His activity in the life of the nation may be illustrated by his establishment (1897) of the Prince of Wales’s (afterwards King Edward’s) Hospital Fund, his devotion to the cause of Masonry (he was first elected grand master of the Freemasons of England in 1874), and his position as a bencher of the Middle Temple, where he also became (1887) treasurer.

On the death of Queen Victoria on the 22nd of January 1901, the question what title the new king would assume was speedily set at rest by the popular announcement that he would be called Edward the Seventh. The new reign began auspiciously by the holding of a privy council at St James’s Palace, at which the king announced his intention to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps and to govern as a constitutional sovereign, and received the oaths of allegiance. On the 14th of February the king and queen opened parliament in state. Shortly afterwards it was announced that the visit of the duke and duchess of York to Australia, in order to inaugurate the new Commonwealth, which had been sanctioned by Queen Victoria, would be proceeded with; and on the 16th of March they set out on board the “Ophir” with a brilliant suite. The tour lasted till November 1, the duke and duchess having visited Australia, New Zealand, the Cape and Canada; and on their return the king, on November 9, created the duke prince of Wales and earl of Chester. Meanwhile parliament had settled the new civil list at £470,000 a year, and the royal title had been enlarged to include the colonial empire by an act enabling the king to style himself “Edward VII., by the grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and of all the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India.” At the end of May 1902 the long-drawn-out war in South Africa came at last to an end, and the coronation was fixed for the 26th of June. But on the 24th, amid general consternation, the king was announced to be suffering from perityphlitis, necessitating the immediate performance of an operation; and the coronation, for which unprecedented preparations had been made, had to be postponed. The operation—performed by Sir Frederick Treves—was, however, so marvellously successful, and the king’s progress towards recovery so rapid and uninterrupted, that within a fortnight he was pronounced out of danger, and soon afterwards it was decided to hold the coronation service on August 9. Though shorn of much of the magnificence which would have been added to it in June by the presence of foreign royalties and the preparations for a great procession through London, the solemnity duly took place on that date in Westminster Abbey amid greatrejoicings. The king spent several weeks (partly in a yachting trip round the coast and up to Stornoway) in recruiting his health, and on the 25th of October he went in procession through the main streets of south London, when he was most enthusiastically received. Next day the king and queen attended St Paul’s cathedral in state to return thanks for his restoration to health. On New Year’s day 1903 the coronation was proclaimed in India at a magnificent durbar at Delhi.

At home the king opened parliament in person in February 1903, and on the 31st of March he sailed from Portsmouth to pay a visit to the king of Portugal at Lisbon, leaving Lisbon for Gibraltar on the 7th of April. On the 11th he held a review of the garrison troops and next day left for Malta, and the tour was continued to Naples (23rd of April). On the 27th of April he was received at Rome by the king of Italy—the first time an English king as such had been there; and two days later he paid a visit to Leo XIII. at the Vatican. On May day he was received in Paris by President Loubet. Later in the year return visits were paid to England by President Loubet (July) and the king and queen of Italy (November). On the 11th of May His Majesty paid his first formal visit to Edinburgh, and held courts at Holyrood. In July the king and queen went to Ireland, and though the Dublin corporation refused to vote a loyal address the reception was generally cordial. In September the king took his annual “cure” at Marienbad, and paid a visit to Vienna, where he was received by the Austrian emperor. In 1904 again the king and queen went to Ireland; in June the king was cordially received by the German emperor at the yacht-races at Kiel, and he included a visit to Hamburg, where the welcome was hearty. In November the king and queen of Portugal were entertained at Windsor and at the Guildhall.

The success of King Edward as a promoter of international friendliness, and the advantage of so efficient a type of kingship, attracted universal attention, and treaties of arbitration were concluded by Great Britain with France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Portugal in 1903 and 1904. In his first two years the king had already earned the title of Edward the Peacemaker, and established his position as a source of new strength to the state. This reputation was confirmed in the years which followed, during which the royal hand was to be seen in the progress of foreign affairs in a manner somewhat new to old-fashioned politicians. Theententewith France was promoted by his influence, notably by his reception of President Fallières in England in 1908. It was noticed that the permanent under-secretary for foreign affairs, Sir Charles Hardinge, generally accompanied the king, as one of his suite, on his visits abroad: and the conclusion of the Anglo-Russian agreement (1907)—which was attributed with some reason to royal policy—was hotly criticized in Radical quarters. It was pointed out that neither the foreign secretary (Sir E. Grey) nor any other secretary of state accompanied the king on his foreign visits. These objections were, however, scouted by the government, and undeniably public opinion approved of the sovereign’s personal activity in a sphere peculiarly his own. The strengthening of British influence in Europe, which was the marked result of the Anglo-French and Anglo-Russianententes, and of the closer ties between England and countries like Portugal and Spain (whose young king Alfonso married Princess Ena of Battenberg, King Edward’s niece), had, indeed, temporarily the effect of rousing German suspicion, the view taken being that the object of British foreign policy was to isolate Germany; and during 1907 and 1908 the political situation was coloured by the discussions in the press with regard to Anglo-German rivalry. But in February 1909 the king and queen paid a state visit to the Kaiser in Berlin, where the greatest cordiality was displayed on all sides; the event was prepared for, in both countries, as a means of dispelling the clouds which had gathered over the relations between England and Germany, and the success of the visit proved once more how powerful King Edward’s personality could be as an agency for peace and international amity.

During the year 1909, however, the political situation at home was developing into an acute constitutional crisis, which seemed likely to involve the Crown in serious difficulties. Mr Lloyd-George’s budget convulsed the House of Commons and the country, and was eventually rejected by the House of Lords; and the Liberal government now put in the forefront of its programme the abolition of the Peers’ “veto.” As was hinted, not obscurely, later by the doctors, King Edward, although certainly not prejudiced against a Liberal ministry, was seriously disturbed in mind and health by the progress of events, which culminated in the return of Mr Asquith to office after the elections of January 1910, and in his statement that, if necessary, guarantees would be sought from the Crown for the purpose of enforcing the will of the representative chamber. A remarkable sign of the king’s discomfort was his insertion, in the official “King’s Speech” at the opening of parliament, of the words “in the opinion of my advisers,” in connexion with the passage dealing with the House of Lords. The king had been far from robust for some little time, and while he was taking change and rest at Biarritz in the early spring of 1910 he had a bronchial attack which caused some anxiety, although the public heard nothing of it. When he returned to England there is no doubt that he was acutely affected by the prospect of being forcibly dragged into the political conflict. In the country at large there was indeed considerable confidence that the king’s tact and experience would help to bring order out of chaos; but this was not to be. Within two days the public heard with consternation that he was ill, and then was dead. On May 5 it was announced that he had bronchitis; and he died at 11.45P.M.on the 6th, of heart failure. On May 17, 18 and 19 there was an impressive lying-in-state in Westminster Hall, attended by unprecedented crowds; and on May 20 the burial took place at Windsor, after a great funeral procession through London, the coffin being followed by the new king, George V., and by eight foreign sovereigns—the German emperor, the kings of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Bulgaria—besides the archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary), the prince consort of Holland and many other royalties, and a number of special ambassadors, including Mr Roosevelt as representative of the United States. Mourning was as sincere as it was universal; for not only England and the British Empire, but the world, had lost a king who was both a very human man and a tried and trusted statesman.

Queen Victoria’s long reign had solidly established the constitutional monarchy; it remained for her son to rehabilitate the idea of English kingship by showing how the sovereign could be no less constitutional but personally more monarchical. While prince of Wales he had had little real training in statecraft, but when he became king his genuine capacity for affairs was shown. Ably advised by such men as Lord Knollys and Lord Esher, he devoted himself to the work of removing the Throne from its former isolation, and bringing it into touch with all sections of the community for the promotion of social happiness and welfare. His own love of pageantry and his interest in the stately ordering of court functions responded, moreover, to a marked inclination on the part of the public and of “society” for such things. It was significant that even Radicals and Socialists began to advocate extensions of the prerogative, and to insist on the active part which the Crown should play in public life. The king won the genuine affection and confidence of the people; and in Queen Alexandra he had an ideal consort, to whom all hearts went out.

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