The Destructive Lovelife of Edward IV

Edward IV

In my opinion, Edward IV of the House of York is perhaps the most underrated of all English monarchs. He was incredibly popular during his lifetime, had many positive qualities as a leader and boasted a number of great achievements but these things tend to be generally lost on the historical consciousness due to the fact that Edward ruled (for two non-consecutive reigns) during the chaos of the Wars of the Roses. He was a capable soldier and military commander and was never once defeated on the field of battle; his martial talents proved crucial in his struggle to wrest the English crown from his Lancastrian rival Henry VI and subsequently bring peace to the shattered kingdom. Once on the throne he proved to be a cultured and well-learned King, becoming a keen patron of literature and the arts. He was also a shrewed businessman with strong ties to England's prosperous merchant class, a fact which made him the first financially-stable monarch for centuries.

Edward IV did have one major weakness, however, and it was this weakness that most people tend to remember him for. He was a notorious womaniser and easily susceptible to the charms of any woman who was intelligent enough to know how to exploit the fact. Settling down with a wife only served to exacerbate the problem by triggering a major political crisis. Edward was the first English monarch to marry a woman out of genuine love for her rather than for political, financial or diplomatic gain. His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville would cause him considerable grief during his lifetime but it was not until after his death that it would prove to be instrumental in the dramatic self-destruction of the House of York and the rise of the Tudor dynasty to power.

Shady Marital Dealings

The story of Edward IV of York's sub-career as the English monarchy's most infamous "player" came shortly after his forces captured London and proclaimed him King in March 1461. At that point Henry VI was still alive and had support in the north of England so the eighteen-year-old Edward was obliged to finish the job of crushing the Lancastrians, which he duly did at the bloody Battle of Towton near York on March 29th. Following this victory, Edward's position on the throne was secure; Henry VI fled to Scotland with his wife and son where he remained until he was captured in 1465 and imprisoned in the Tower of London. With his enemies now largely out of the way, Edward was able to get down to the serious business of kingship and all the perks that came with it.

It was in around late-1462, when Edward was twenty, that he was suddenly petitioned out of the blue by a young widow of about twenty-five. She was Eleanor Butler, the daughter of Sir John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, who had commanded the English army at Castillion (the last battle of the Hundred Years War, during which he was killed) back in 1453. Lady Eleanor had gone to the King in an effort to recover the property of her late husband, Sir Thomas Butler, which had been seized by the Crown on a legal technicality following his death. Edward understandably became rather smitten with this attractive damsel-in-distress and it is said that he offered to return the land she asked for in exchange for sexual favours. When Eleanor refused his advances, Edward resorted to Plan B by offering her marriage, a proposal which Eleanor seemingly found far more acceptable to her ladylike sensibilities. The two agreed to enter into a contract to marry and were formally betrothed in a private ceremony.

So is this story true? The revelation that Edward IV had been betrothed to Eleanor Butler was eventually made by a priest, Robert Stillington, who claimed to have officiated at their betrothal ceremony. It can certainly be said that Stillington did very well for himself under Edward's rule; the King appointed him Bishop of Bath and Wells and gave him a number of top government and court offices, including Keeper of the Privy Seal and Lord Chancellor. This could mean that Stillington was effectively being bribed by Edward to keep silent over the issue of his betrothal to Eleanor. That silence would certainly be needed once another attractive lady had made her way into Edward's life.

Elizabeth Woodville

Elizabeth Woodville is one of the most controversial women to have ever been Queen of England. She first came into contact with Edward in 1464 under the exact same circumstances that Eleanor Butler had done, having gone to him in an effort to get back the estate of her deceased husband, Sir John Grey. Once again the King became besotted and tried to proposition Elizabeth for sexual favours to the point that she had to fend him off with a knife. Edward then pulled the old trick of offering marriage and Elizabeth accepted. It was not just a betrothal this time, however; it became a full marriage when the pair were secretly married on May 1st 1464 at Elizabeth's family home in Stony Stratford, Buckinghamshire. It is not clear as to exactly way Edward decided to go through with the marriage on this occasion although there is every chance that he may have actually genuinely fallen in love.

Edward kept his clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Woodville secret for a while. The banns of marriage had not been proclaimed before the wedding in order to prevent either Eleanor Butler or the King's ministers from finding out about it. Eleanor was subsequently shut away in a convent to keep her quiet, and she died in June 1468. By then the Woodville marriage had become public knowledge (Edward revealed it to his astonished council in September 1464) and the whole of Europe was scandalised. Marriage had long been viewed among the ruling classes as a matter of political expediency; it was all about arranging the best political alliances of power and property. Love did not come into it. Elizabeth Woodville, who was impoverished and of decidedly common birth, did not fit this stoic vision of the perfect royal bride.

Elizabeth Woodville

The English ministers who had been trying to negotiate a proper royal marriage for the King were left angry and humiliated by the revelation that he had gone behind their backs and married a penniless nobody. One such minister was Edward's primary adviser and supporter Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Warwick's support had been instrumental in helping Edward to snatch the throne from Henry VI, hence his famous nickname "the Kingmaker" and upsetting him was a serious mistake on Edward's part. The young Edward was too headstrong to realise this at the time and proceeded to alienate Warwick and his other supporters even further by lavishing Elizabeth's family with honours, wealth, estates, titles and decent dynastic marital opportunities; her father Richard Woodville was bestowed with the title Earl Rivers in 1466. As the power of the upstart Woodvilles grew, the situation moved steadily towards a confrontation between them and the more established noble families, with King Edward himself caught in the middle.

The turning point came in 1469 when Warwick and Edward's flighty younger brother George, Duke of Clarence decided to defect to the Lancastrians and ally themselves with Henry VI's Queen, Margaret of Anjou, who was by now living in her native France with her son. The following year Warwick and Clarence returned to England at the head of an expeditionary force backed by the King of France, their aim being to overthrow Edward IV and restore Henry VI. Edward was caught by surprise and had to flee the country along with his youngest brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester while a pregnant Queen Elizabeth took refuge in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey. A befuddled Henry VI, by now almost totally incapacitated by mental illness, was released from the Tower and restored to his throne in October 1470. Warwick and Clarence ruled England through him for the next six months while Edward IV, in exile in Burgundy, plotted his counterstrike.

The Skeleton in the Closet

In April 1471 Edward IV reconciled himself with his brother Clarence and returned to England to reclaim his lost crown, taking full advantage of the breakdown in diplomatic relations between the French backed-Warwick and the Duke of Burgundy. Warwick was killed at the Battle of Barnet on April 14th and the remaining Lancastrian leaders, including Henry VI's son Prince Edward, were defeated and killed at the Battle of Tewkesbury on May 4th. Henry VI himself was recaptured by the victorious Yorkists and re-imprisoned in the Tower where he was murdered a few days later. The entire Lancastrian cause was now dead in the water and Edward IV's rule was now practically unopposed. The only other Lancastrian still alive with any sort of claim to the throne was Henry Tudor, who now seemed condemned to a life in exile on the continent.

The fact that Edward IV was now unopposed subsequently meant that the Woodvilles were unopposed as well, and their power and influence only grew greater following Edward's restoration. It wasn't long before the musings of resentmen were heard again and this time they came from within Edward's own family. The source of it, predictably, was Clarence; he was jealous that the spoils of Edward's victory against Warwick and the Lancastrians were going mostly to the Woodvilles and to Richard of Gloucester rather than to himself. He was also resentful of the fact that Edward now had sons to succeed him (Elizabeth had given birth to the first while in sanctuary at Westminster). It was around this time that Clarence first began spreading rumours that his brother's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was not all that it seemed, as well as other rumours which called into question the King's own paternity. Who was the source of this information? Chances are that it was the priest-on-the-make Robert Stillington, who had become closely acquainted with Clarence during the 1470s. What was clear however, was Clarence's motive; if he could successfully remove Edward and/or his children from the succession on the grounds of their parents' marriage being found to be invalid, then Clarence would once again be next-in-line to the throne.

Edward IV obviously could not tolerate the stink that his brother was kicking up, especially when there was a serious risk of Stillington spilling the beans on the King's contract to marry Eleanor Butler. Clarence had tested his brother's patience one too many times and in 1478 he was convicted of treason and privately executed. The story goes that he was drowned in a butt of malmsey wine. Stillington spent a year locked in the Tower after which, perhaps nervous of the power of strong drink, he maintained a sensible silence until Edward suddenly fell ill and died in April 1483. The dead King's son Edward V was only twelve at the time of his succession and therefore needed a regent to act as his guardian and protector of the kingdom until he came of age. That regent, according to the will of Edward IV was to be his remaining brother, the ever-loyal Richard, Duke of Gloucester.

The Bombshell

The appointment of Richard, Duke of Gloucester as protector triggered a brief game of cat-and-mouse between himself and the Woodvilles; both factions were eager to be first to take control of the young Edward V as doing so would mean safeguarding their positions (and their heads). Elizabeth Woodville moved first by sending her brother Anthony, the 2nd Earl Rivers and other relatives rushing up to Ludlow Castle on the Welsh border, where the King was staying in his prior capacity as Prince of Wales. From there they hoped to quickly whisk him back to London and install him on the throne before Gloucester could react, thus giving them control of the government. Gloucester did react, however, and had moved quickly southwards from his stronghold in the north. The Woodvilles were intercepted, accused of treason and either imprisoned or executed while Edward V was taken into Gloucester's custody at Stony Stratford and escorted onwards to London. Elizabeth, suspicious of Gloucester's motives, once again took up sanctuary at Westminster Abbey upon hearing of what had happened, taking her younger son Richard, Duke of York and her daughters with her.

Richard III

Once in London, Gloucester installed Edward V in the Tower of London (as was customary for a monarch awaiting coronation) and had his position as protector confirmed. Not even the walls of Westminster Abbey could protect Elizabeth from Gloucester's threats of force and she was forced to relinquish her younger son to the care of his uncle; Prince Richard was reunited with his brother at the Tower in June 1483. It was shortly afterwards that the late King Edward's little secret was at last properly revealed when Robert Stillington at last spoke up and informed Gloucester of the prior marriage contract with Eleanor Butler. Stillington's story, if true, would mean that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous and that subsequently Edward V could not be King because he was illegitimate. Sensing the golden opportunity to clear a path for himself to the throne (Clarence's children had been already barred from the succession when their father was executed), Gloucester decided to go along with the Eleanor Butler story, which was first made public in an open-air sermon given by the theologian Ralph Shaw on June 22nd at St Paul's Cross outside the cathedral in London.

Having begun the campaign to win over public opinion, Gloucester next turned to his ally Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who was tasked with the greater task of winning over the people that mattered, the nobles, clergy and commoners that constituted England's Parliament. By June 25th Parliament had collectively agreed with Buckingham that the new King and his brother were indeed illegitimate. They passed the Act Titulus Regius which formally declared the children of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville to be ineligible for the throne. It also effectively handed the Crown to Gloucester, who was the next legitimate successor by law; he "reluctantly" accepted. On July 6th 1483 Gloucester was crowned King Richard III. His two disinherited nephews remained at the Tower until they disappeared off the face of the Earth in the late Summer of 1483. Presumably murdered on the orders of the new King, they were never seen alive again.

Summary

Edward IV's notorious way with women ultimately proved instrumental in the eventual collapse of the Yorkist dynasty. His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was unpopular with the nobility and left him vulnerable during his first reign. Even after Edward had got rid of the majority of that opposition there remained the spectre of his previous little mistake in the form of his prior contract to marry Eleanor Butler. Getting rid of his troublesome brother George, Duke of Clarence provided a short-term solution to the problem but Edward made a major error by not taking the opportunity to get rid of Robert Stillington as well. Despite everything that the King had done for him in exchange for his silence, it was Stillington's testimony that eventually proved to be the smoking gun which allowed Richard of Gloucester to bump off the Woodvilles and seize the throne from Edward's son.

Of course we all know what happened next. Richard III's twenty-six months on the throne were dogged by the mystery of what had happened to the Princes in the Tower and his opponents were increasingly drawn to the banner of the exiled Lancastrian Henry Tudor. Henry invaded England in 1485 and defeated and killed Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field, after which he was crowned Henry VII. Richard III's fall was the final undoing of the House of York, concluding a process of violent self-destruction which had begun with his brother's secret marriage contract with Eleanor Butler more than two decades earlier.

Despite this, however, there was something of a redemption of Edward IV during the reign of Henry VII. The new Tudor King needed to shore up his own dodgy claim to the throne and it was decided (some time before he actually took the throne) that the best way to achieve this would be for him to marry Edward IV's eldest daughter Elizabeth, a direct descendant of the Plantagenet monarchs, thus ensuring that his descendants would be of the proper blood royal. But Elizabeth and her siblings had, of course, all been declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament so that had to be dealt with first. Richard III was subsequently written-off as a regicidal usurper by Tudor chroniclers in a successful effort to discredit him while Henry had Titulus Regius revoked and destroyed any documents he could find which referred to either Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville or the legitimacy of their children. This was done so efficiently that only one surviving copy of Titulus Regius has ever been found, which is how we know that it ever existed at all. Henry VII and Elizabeth of York were married in January 1486 and their union ensured the return of the blood of Edward IV and his controversial Queen to the line of succession.

The Significance of Europe in the Cold War

As the Second World War came to an end and the common enemy in the form of Nazi Germany was vanquished, the already fragile relationship between the Soviet Union and her ideologically opposed allies in the west began to break down even as American and Russian soldiers were shaking hands on the banks of the Elbe. This souring of relations between the US-led capitalist states and the Soviet-dominated Communist bloc, made all the more ominous by the advent of nuclear weapons, would come to be known as the Cold War, dominating global politics for the better part of half a century. Europe would become a key focal point during this complex period of international tension, technological competition, arms races, alliances and games of political cat-and-mouse between the two nations which had merged out of the war as global superpowers. However, it is crucial to remember that the influence of the Cold War extended far beyond Europe’s borders, affecting not just the superpowers themselves but also Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and even Space.

The Argument For

The main argument in favour of the Cold War being focused essentially in Europe relies heavily on the fact that Europe was the point where the two superpowers physically met in military terms, was often the subject of their various disagreements and was the location of the majority of their respective allied or satellite powers. The creation of the Iron Curtain led to the idea that Europe, Germany in particular, was the point where the two opposed ideologies of Capitalism and Communism met and was thus the centre-stage of the Cold War. Should the situation between the Soviet Union and the United States escalate into all-out war, continental Europe would most likely be the battlefield.

The status of Europe as a military outpost for both the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War was a direct consequence of the Second World War. The advance of the Soviet armies into Eastern Europe led to the creation of puppet Communist governments within Joseph Stalin’s “sphere of influence” which soon became permanent as the Soviet leader went back on his promises to hold free elections in the countries that his armies had liberated. On the other hand you had the American armies who had swept in from the west along with their French and British comrades, creating a pro-American bloc in Western Europe that would eventually become an integral part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Both sides would keep their troops in place as negotiations between the allied powers broke down following the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. The Western leaders protested in vain at the Soviet client governments that were already in the process of being set up in Eastern Europe but were really not in any position to force their will on Stalin, creating the stalemate that would persist until 1989. The political and military situation in Europe and the immense resources committed to it by both superpowers demonstrates the continent’s importance as a focal point of the Cold War, at least in its early stages.

The status of Germany in particular is crucial to understanding the delicate position shared by the Americans and Soviets in Europe during the Cold War. Germany had been occupied and divided between the four victorious powers after the war. Following the unification of the British, American and French zones of occupation into what would become known as West Germany in 1949, troops from those nations remained stationed there, an obvious indication that the western allies did not trust the Soviets who also kept forces stationed in their zone. Berlin, deep inside the Soviet occupation zone, remained under four-power administration. The German situation and that of Berlin became a symbol of the Cold War and a potential flash-point for all-out conflict as the Soviets and Americans tested one-another’s patience. Events such as the 1948-9 Berlin blockade and airlift and the Checkpoint Charlie tank stand-off in October 1961 demonstrated just how far the two sides were prepared to go. The construction of the Berlin wall in August 1961 reinforced the idea that Berlin was at the centre of the Cold War and that any incident significant enough to tip the superpowers into war was most likely to come from there.

Troops guard the border between East and West Berlin

The argument that the Cold War was focused on Europe is further backed up by the monumental events which took place in the Eastern Bloc countries in 1989, a series of events that came to be seen as symbolic in bringing the Cold War to a close. As part of the continuing reforms under Gorbachev the Soviets abandoned their commitment to upholding the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. Without the support of Soviet forces those governments quickly fell to the will of the people and were replaced by more democratic systems. The rapid succession of the collapse of the Warsaw Pact regimes was arguably the beginning of the end of the Cold War, bringing down the Iron Curtain and culminating in the reunification of Germany in 1990 and the final collapse of the Soviet Union a year later. The colossal impact of the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe demonstrates just how much the continuation of the Cold War was dependant on the situation in Europe and how it could not go on as before once that situation changed.

The Argument Against

On the other hand, events and locations outside of Europe during the Cold War are viewed as being just as crucial to superpower relations and became more important as the Cold War progressed and the threat of Communist expansion spread beyond Europe into other parts of the world As Communism spread, the Americans’ desire to contain it spread along with it. Between 1945 and 1990 both the Americans and the Soviets were involved in various issues affecting areas across the globe, especially when it came to vying for influence in the new countries of Africa and Asia that were emerging as the former European colonial powers began withdrawing from their empires. The involvement of the superpowers in these regions shows just how important the rest of the world, as opposed to simply Europe, was to the Cold War.

The first major series of events to take place outside of Europe during the Cold War that drew in the Americans and Soviets were related to the rise of nationalism in colonial Africa, Asia and the Arab World . This coincided with the beginning of the protracted period of withdrawal by the European colonial powers from their empires, beginning with the end of the British Raj in India in 1947. The European powers attempted to leave sympathetic governments in their place as they withdrew but in some cases there remained opportunities for the superpowers to lodge their influence. This change is made most evident by the Suez Crisis of 1956-7, which is seen as the last major attempt by Britain and France to exert their power abroad. Their attempt to retake control of the Suez Canal from the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser was blocked by diplomatic pressure from the United States; President Dwight D. Eisenhower was fearful of Soviet and Warsaw Pact intervention on the side of Egypt. The actions of America on the Suez issue demonstrated the dramatic shift in the balance of global influence from the former colonial empires to the post-war superpowers. This became all the more obvious in the Middle East as the foundation of the Jewish state of Israel stirred up resentment among the surrounding Arab Powers. Between 1948 and 1973 there were no less than four major armed conflicts between Israel, backed strongly by the Americans, and its Arab neighbours who received substantial help from the Soviet Union. Although assistance from the superpowers was material and financial rather than military, the Arab-Israeli conflicts show how both Washington and Moscow were prepared to take risks by backing opposing camps in regional disputes outside of Europe for the sake their own interests.

Perhaps the one incident that brought the superpowers closest to all-out war involved a country outside of Europe situated right on America’s doorstep. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 stemmed from the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power. Castro’s government was the first significant Communist regime outside of the monolithic Eurasian bloc and created a Soviet ally within one-hundred miles of the coast of the United States. The failed CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 only drove the Castro regime closer to Moscow, culminating in the Soviets’ attempt to place mid-range nuclear missiles on the island in 1962. When President John F. Kennedy's administration in Washington discovered what was going in the situation developed into a major international incident. The US Navy blockaded Cuba, stopping Soviet vessels transporting the missiles and other materials. The crisis came dangerously close to war until Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles provided Kennedy did the same with the American Jupiter missiles based in Turkey. Although the crisis was ultimately resolved it shows just how important events beyond Europe were during the Cold War, with the Cuban incident perhaps being the most significant flash-point.

John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev

Among the key events of the Cold War were the various proxy wars around the world that either the United States or Soviet Union became involved in. The two superpowers never fought one-another directly but instead backed smaller countries in regional conflicts that best represented their various interests. The most well-known examples are the United Nations intervention in the Korean War, American involvement in Vietnam and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. These conflicts are crucial to the story of the Cold War as they represent the superpowers’ attempts to preserve or promote their own ideology in other countries whilst at the same time trying to contain or reverse the expansion of the other. The Vietnam War is perhaps the most well-known example as the United States committed substantial military forces to defending the regime of South Vietnam from the Communist North during the 1960s and early 1970s. The Korean War demonstrated the growing importance of China, which had been a Soviet ally following the victory of Mao’s Communists in the civil war but would later become a thorn in Moscow’s side as the Chinese aspired to be the true leaders of the Communist world, dismissing the Soviet system as corrupt and outdated.

Indeed it can be said that the Cold War goes much further beyond Europe even than Cuba, Korea or Vietnam. One of the most significant aspects of the Cold War was the Space Race. The massive advances in Space exploration during this period represent the pinnacle of technological competition between the Americans and the Soviets. The Soviets were successful in putting the first human in Space when Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth aboard Vostok 1 in April 1961 but the Space Race was effectively concluded with the Americans’ successful Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969, a feat which the Soviets made no serious attempt to emulate or surpass. Along with Vietnam, Cuba and the Berlin Wall, the Space Race is seen as one of the defining aspects of the Cold War and demonstrates the importance of events outside of Europe.

Conclusion

In all it is arguable that the Cold War’s central focus was placed on Europe given the tense political and military situation that developed there between the Soviet Union and the United States in the aftermath of the Second World War. The Cold War is seen to have originated in Europe as it was the major point of disagreement between the superpowers immediately following the war and was where the two armies and those of their allies directly faced one-another across the Iron Curtain. It is understandable that Europe is seen as the focal point and the most-likely location of any potential flash-point, especially given the unpredictable situation in Germany and Berlin, where the Berlin Wall came to be viewed as the ultimate symbol of the divide between East and West. The Americans misguided belief that all Communist nations represented a single monolithic bloc answerable only to Moscow would no doubt have reinforced the idea that, at least from the West’s point-of-view, that the Communist cause would be focused on Europe.

However it is impossible to discount the other events that took place outside of Europe as the Cold War progressed and that some of those events were more significant than those that took place within Europe’s borders. Events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War were crucial to superpower relations and the Cold War policies of the American and Soviet governments. The Space Race too demonstrates that the impact of the rivalry between Washington and Moscow extended even beyond the Earth itself. Because of all these other factors it must be said that the Cold War was a truly global phenomenon that affected all parts of the globe in some form or another. Europe’s Cold War history forms an integral and symbolic part of that picture but to call the Cold War an essentially European phenomenon would have to be considered somewhat reckless from a historical perspective.