Edward IV

Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until he died in 1483. A member of the House of York, he was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England fought between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions between 1455 and 1487.

Edward inherited the Yorkist claim to the throne at the age of eighteen when his father, Richard, Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. After defeating Lancastrian armies at Mortimer's Cross and Towton in early 1461, he deposed King Henry VI and took the throne. His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 led to conflict with his chief advisor, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the "Kingmaker". In 1470, a revolt led by Warwick and Edward's brother George, Duke of Clarence, briefly re-instated Henry VI. Edward fled to Flanders, where he gathered support and invaded England in March 1471; after victories at the battles of Barnet (where the Earl of Warwick was killed) and Tewkesbury (where Henry VI's son, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, was killed), he resumed the throne. Shortly afterwards, Henry VI was found dead in the Tower of London, possibly killed on Edward's orders.

Despite facing an overseas threat from Henry Tudor, the last remaining Lancastrian claimant, Edward reigned in relative peace for the next twelve years. However, he nearly restarted the Hundred Years' War, following his invasion of France in 1475, but was assuaged by Louis XI in the Treaty of Picquigny. This diplomatic agreement formally ended the Hundred Years' War, which had been in abeyance since 1453. Following his sudden death in April 1483, Edward was briefly succeeded by his son Edward V. He had appointed his younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Lord Protector of England for the duration of the new king's minority. However, Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, disappeared shortly after and their uncle seized the throne as Richard III.