Edward IV
Edward IV is the only fifteenth-century king whose reputation stands substantially higher today than it did a half-century ago. This book is essentially a study in the power-politics of late medieval England. It could hardly be otherwise. The reign of Edward IV began with his forcible seizure of the throne; it is punctuated in mid-term by his deposition, exile, and his subsequent recovery of the crown, again by force; and his premature death was the prelude to two further usurpations, the first removing his heir, the second extinguishing the Yorkist dynasty itself. Any student of the reign must, therefore, be primarily concerned to provide an explanation of these violent changes of political fortune. The ways and means of gaining and keeping power are central themes of this study. For the same reason, Edward's relations with the English nobility, and especially his use of patronage, occupy a prominent place, since, as the late K. B. McFarlane once remarked, 'no one but a fool would deny that the territorial power of the nobility was the supreme factor in later medieval society'. In his own time Edward IV was seen as an able and successful king who rescued England from the miseries of civil war and provided the country with firm, judicious, and popular government
Print Book, English, 1974
University of California Press, Berkeley, 1974