Edward Westminster

Origins and early years

Edward was born on October 13, 1453 in the Palace of Westminster and was the only child of the King of England Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]} . The father of the prince was the grandson of the English king Henry V and the French princess Catherine Valois , the mother of the duke of Anjou and the titular king of Naples René the Good and the duchess of Lorraine Isabella . In the male line, Edward belonged to the Lancaster branch of the royal Plantagenet dynasty , founded by Edmund Humpback, 1st Earl of Lancaster , the second son of King Henry III . In 1361, the title of Duke of Lancaster retired on the female line to John Gaunt , the fourth son of King Edward III , and already in 1399 the son of Gaunt, Henry IV Bolingbroke , removed Richard II from the throne and became the first king from the Lancaster house on the English throne ^[7] .

Edward was born eight years after the marriage between his parents ^[6] during a political crisis, when his father suffered from a mental disorder ^[2] and was unable to govern the state. Due to the illness of Henry VI, many courtiers considered that he could not conceive a child ^[3] , and the newborn prince was actually the son of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset ^[4] , James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond , or another man however, no evidence of this was provided ^[1] .

Since the birth of the prince coincided with the day of memory of Edward the Confessor , it was decided to name the boy in honor of this holy king. Edward was baptized by the Bishop of Winchester, William Wainfleet , Cardinal , the Duke of Somerset and the ^[6] . According to contemporaries, in January 1454 Edward was presented to his father: “the prince was brought to Windsor by the duke of Buckingham and brought to the king for blessing; the king did not say a word ” ^[8] ; Probably, Henry VI was not aware of what was happening due to his mental state ^[6] . From birth, Edward wore the title of Duke of Cornish, March 15, 1454, he received the titles of Prince of Wales and Count Chester ^[9] , and on June 9 in Windsor Castle passed the procedure of investiture as a Prince of Wales ^{[1] [5] [6]} .

In March 1454, the Duke of York and Margaret of Anjou each tried for themselves to gain the right to exercise royal power during the illness of the king. Although the lords in parliament recognized Edward as the heir to the throne and the Prince of Wales, on March 28, Richard Plantagenet was named the protector of the state during the illness of the king or until the age of majority of the prince, if the king does not recover or dies; at the same time, the parliament decided to limit the number of servants of the little prince to 39 ^[11] . By Christmas 1454, the king was in a state of improvement, and Henry VI met his son again: Queen Margaret led the boy to her husband; the king asked the name of the prince because he did not know it, and when the queen answered "Edward", Henry VI threw up his hands to the sky and began to thank the god ^{[12] [6]} . However, the improvement did not last long, and soon the king fell into insanity again ^[6] .

War of Roses

Being the only son of the monarch, Edward had every chance in the future to safely change his father to the English throne ^[1] , but this was prevented by the War of Roses that broke out in 1455. Before the birth of the prince, the supposed heir to the throne of England was Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York , who lost his privileged position because of the birth of a prince ^[3] . Claims to the throne of the duke, who headed the York branch of the Plantagenet dynasty , were based not only on his direct lineage in the male line from Edmund Langley, Duke of York , fifth son of King Edward III , but also on the rights to the throne of his mother Anna Mortimer , great-granddaughter of Lionel Antwerp, Herzog Clarence , the third son of Edward III ^[13] . The Duke of York did not intend to relinquish power, which forced Edward's mother, Margaret of Anjou, to head the anti-York party ^[3] on behalf of his son and try to take control of parliament ^[6] . There was no simple solution to the problems that arose due to the inability of Henry VI to rule and the unwillingness of the Duke of York to abandon the position of heir, and consequently, power, and the situation was nearing war and major political upheavals ^[3] .

Although the birth of Edward did not bring either an increase in the efficiency and popularity of the Henry VI government, nor a reduction in political tensions, the rights of the little prince continued to defend themselves ^[14] . On November 12, 1456, measures were taken to ensure that the prince’s court received 1,000 pounds a year from his possessions for his maintenance until he was eight years old; it was also decided that Edward should have lived with the king until his fourteenth birthday ^[15] . At the same time, the mother was involved in raising the boy, often taking the prince away to the Midlands and Cheshire ^[16] . Since Edward was almost always with his mother during the struggle for power and for the enemy was inseparable from Margaret of Anjou, in 1459 politicized rumors again spread about whether the little prince was the son of the king ^{[3] [16]} ; at the same time, despite the rumors, some lords expressed the opinion that the king should abdicate the throne in favor of his son ^[6] .

On January 28, 1457, a council was appointed for Edward, whose purpose was to manage the prince's possessions, although for the most part Queen Margherita ^[17] still dealt with her son's affairs. In the autumn of 1458, the government made an unsuccessful attempt to arrange a marriage of the Prince of Wales with a princess from the dynasty of Valois or a Burgundian princess ^[18] . Thanks to the leadership of Margarita and finding Edward in the Midlens, Lancaster in the late 1450s managed to consolidate their power here, and local troops were dressed in the livery of the Prince of Wales on September 23, 1459 during the Battle of Blor-Heath ^[19] . In October 1459, the Lancaster succeeded in suppressing the Yorks in a failed battle at Ladford Bridge . In November of the same year, a meeting of the Parliament was held in Coventry , which condemned the Yorks; Edward and his mother were also present at the meeting, and the lords declared the prince of Wales their future king, despite rumors that Margaret was inclining her husband to abdicate from the throne in favor of her son ^[20] . At the beginning of 1460, Edward was formally appointed to the Commission for the Protection of Wales and Cheshire ^[21] .

On July 10, 1460, the Yorks opposed the king at the Battle of Northampton , and Henry VI lost and was captured ^[3] . Even before the battle, the king left his wife and son in Coventry and wished that neither Margarita nor Edward would in any case leave the city before they received a message from Henry VI with a password known only to him ^[6] . With the support of his mother, Edward continued to assert his right to the throne: Margaret and her son fled first to Chester, then to Wales ^[4] , where she took refuge in Harlech Castle ^{[3] [6]} . On the way, the king’s wife and son were robbed by their own people, led by a prince’s man, whom the queen trusted unreservedly ^[6] . In Harlech, the prince and queen learned that the Duke of York had declared his claims to the throne by inheritance ^{[3] [22]} . On October 25, Parliament passed the Act of Consent , which allowed Edward's father to keep the crown ^[3] , but deprived him of the right of inheritance, since he declared the heir to the king of York ^{[1] [4]} and his posterity ^[3] ; while the duke also received possession of the prince in Wales, Chester and Cornwall , the income from which was estimated at 10 thousand marks a year ^[23] . On behalf of and signed by Edward by his advice a protest was sent to London, in which the Duke of York was condemned, the rights of the prince were affirmed and an oath was made to release Henry VI ^[24] . Edward himself and his mother secretly left the castle to join King's half-brother Jasper Tudor ^[25] . At the same time, Margaret, who refused to make a parliamentary decision, agreed to meet in Halle with several of her supporters ^[22] .

Around the same time, Margaret and Edward sailed to Scotland ^{[1] [22]} , where they planned to receive assistance ^[26] . On January 5, 1461, at , where he stopped and spent 10 or 12 days with Edward and his mother, the Scottish Regent Queen Maria Geldern agreed to help Lancaster in exchange for the border town of Berik and the marriage between Edward and sister of King Jacob III ^{[3] [22] [27]} . From Scotland, Margarita and Edward, in whose colors (crimson and black stripes with ostrich feathers ^[22] ) were dressed in an army ^[28] , began a victorious attack on London ^[4] : on December 30, 1460, at the Battle of Wakefield, they managed to disperse the army of York and destroy the duke himself and one of his sons , and on February 17, 1461 the army of Lancaster won the second battle of St. Albans , defeating the enemy's army, led by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick ^{[3] [22]} . King Henry VI, reunited with his family on the battlefield, knighted his son ^{[22] [29]} , and he in turn knighted several people ^[30] , including ^{[3] [ 22]} - the “priceless strategist” of Margarita of Anjou ^[31] . The next day, the seven-year-old prince ruled over defeated enemies, including and , executed by order of the Queen ^{[30] [32]} . Some historians have reported that the order for the execution of Kaririel was given personally by the Prince of Wales ^[3] : according to some information, Margarita asked the prince how Sir Thomas and his son should be executed, and Edward suggested beheading; while some of the sources are silent about the fate of Karirill Jr., reporting that his father died on the battlefield, and the decision to execute was made by Prince Edward in respect of William Bonneville ^[22] .

The Fall of Lancaster

Having won two wins in a row, the army of Lancaster, instead of entering London, went north. At the same time, the capital of England was occupied by Edward of York, Earl of March , the eldest son of the late Duke of York, who on March 4 was declared king under the name of Edward IV ^[22] . On March 29, he defeated the Lancastrian army at the Battle of Taunton ^{[33] [22]} , conquering the throne and forcing Prince Edward, his mother ^[4] and father ^[3] to flee again to Scotland ^{[3] [4] [34]} through Newcastle and Berik ^[22] . On June 28, 1461, Edward of York was crowned at Westminster Abbey ; in November ^[22] or December 16, 1461, at the first meeting of the parliament under the new king, the former royal family was deprived of rights ^[35] . For almost a year, the former king spent in Kirkubri , while Edward and his mother were in Edinburgh, where Margarita developed a plan for the simultaneous invasion of three groups of troops in England, followed by unification, but the plan was never implemented ^[22] .

Over the next ten years, Edward grew up in exile with his mother ^[36] . Margarita tirelessly sought an alliance with Scotland and France to restore her husband to the throne and provide her son with a legacy ^[37] . 26 июня 1462 года мать Эдуарда подписала обязательство, согласно которому она передавала французам Кале , а взамен получала от французского короля помощь в борьбе с Эдуардом IV. Людовик дал Маргарите флот, с которым она вместе с принцем Эдуардом отплыла из Нормандии и высадилась в Шотландии в октябре ^[22] . Ланкастерам удалось отбить замки Бамборо и Данстанборо в Нортамберленде ^{[3] [22]} . Когда к замкам приблизилась йоркская армия, принц и его мать сбежали на корабле, но потерпели кораблекрушение в районе Берика ^[22] и в течение нескольких недель были вынуждены бродить вдоль побережья; в конечном счёте, оба они были схвачены разбойниками и сбежали только с помощью одного из похитителей ^[3] . Бывшая королева и принц были переправлены в Уэльс, где скрывался низложенный король; по сообщениям хронистов, в этот период Ланкастеры испытывали такие трудности, что по пять дней подряд не видели никакой другой еды, кроме сельди ^[38] .

В конце 1462 года в положении Ланкастеров наступило некоторое улучшение, поскольку Эдуард и его мать покидали Англию, отплыв из Бамборо, который, судя по всему, вновь оказался в руках сторонников Генриха VI ^[38] . Принц и его мать высадились в Слёйсе , где их встретил граф Карл ; он сопроводил гостей в Брюгге (по другим данным в Лилль ^[38] ) к своему отцу герцогу Бургундскому , который предоставил средства для переправки Эдуарда и его матери к отцу Маргариты Рене Доброму в Лотарингию ^[39] и снабдил их деньгами ^[38] . Во время изгнания Эдуард страдал детскими болезнями, лечением которых занимались врачи Рене Доброго ^[40] . После нескольких лет пребывания при анжуйском дворе Эдуард и Маргарита отплыли во Францию в надежде снова заручиться поддержкой французского короля ^[4] , в то время как отец принца был пленён Эдуардом IV и заточён в Тауэр ^[38] .

In August 1463, Margarita and Edouard went to Flanders to prevent the rapprochement of France and Burgundy with Edward IV ^[41] . From September 1463 to 1470, Edward and his mother were in Coeur Castle near Saint-Michel de Barrois in France, which belonged to Margaret’s father ^[3] ; here Lancaster organized a small courtyard, where exiles from England flocked to ^[42] . Together with the exiles, the former queen and her son looked for influential supporters among their relatives, and Edward personally sent letters calling for help ^[43] . So, the prince and his mother received a message from Count Ormond that the king of Portugal was entirely on the side of Lancaster, but Margarita herself made no attempt to get close to Afonso V ^[38] . Margaret also hoped to conclude an advantageous marriage for her son, considering even one of the daughters of the French king ^[40] as a bride in January 1468, which greatly disturbed the English court. In 1470, Edward became the godfather of the son of Louis XI of Charles ^[38] .

In Kör, Edward was under the tutelage of John Fortescue , thanks to which the prince grew up as a smart young man, but because of his mother’s influence, Edward had a very militant temper. Contemporaries described the prince as a very energetic boy ^[44] . In a letter from the Milan ambassador to France to the duke of Milan in 1467, a thirteen-year-old prince is described as a child who does not say “about anything but cutting off heads and war, as if he has everything he needs, or he is a god of war, or peacefully occupies [English ] throne " ^[45] . Fortescue himself described how violently Prince Edward wanted military exploits ^[3] : “as soon as he became an adult, he completely devoted himself to military exercises; and, sitting on the fierce and half-tamed horses, which he tamed with his spurs, he often enjoyed and attacked and fought with young comrades visiting him ” ^[46] . The contrast with the peaceful disposition of Henry VI could not be more visible, and Edward's mentors believed that if he returned to England, his rule would be more effective than his father ^[47] . It is possible that George Ashby, former secretary of Henry VI and Margarita, addressed his book on the active policy of the prince to Edward ^[48] .

In 1470, through the mediation of the French king Louis XI , Edward's mother entered into an alliance with the “ kingmaker ” Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick ^[49] , who had turned over to the side of Lancaster ^{[1] [50]} . 15 ^[38] or July 25, 1470, the former enemies met in Angers and during the negotiations they came to an agreement according to which Prince Edward marries Warwick's youngest daughter Anne ; in turn, the count will help the Lancaster regain power in England ^{[51] [3]} . The betrothal was also held in Angers in July 1470; Anna was placed under the care of Margaret until the wedding day ^[38] , which supposedly took place on December 13 ^{[5] in} 1470 ^[52] at Amboise Castle ^[5] . Warwick sailed to England soon after the betrothal of her daughter, by order of Margarita without waiting for the wedding ^{[53] [38]} . Margarita refused to let her son go to England with Warwick, demanding that the count independently win the throne; this decision of Edward's mother weakened the strength of Warwick and cost vital support to the Lancaster ^[3] . According to the plan of Margaret, when the throne would be returned to Henry VI, Edward was to become the regent with an incompetent father ^[38] .

Death

In 1470, Warwick was able to recover on the throne of his father Edward, and the prince himself with his mother and wife was preparing to return to England ^[52] . However, their departure was delayed until March 1471 due to storms, while storms detained them: from Lancaster from Honfleur sailed on March 24 and reached the English coast in just twelve hours, but then the headwinds prevented them from disembarking for seventeen days and nights , and to Weymouth, the Lancaster arrived only late in the evening on April 14, 1471. Edward IV, who fled to Flanders a year earlier, was ahead of Lancaster with a landing for three weeks ^[38] . On the day they landed in Weymouth ^[52] (according to other sources, the next day ^[38] ), the Lancaster learned of the defeat and death of the "king maker" in the battle of Barnet ^{[1] [3] [38] [54]} . On April 15, the Lancaster arrived at , where they were greeted by the Duke of Somerset , who advised Edward's mother, due to the death of Warwick, to rely on the loyalty of the western counties, who, according to Somerset, were ready to rise to the defense of the prince and queen at any time. Margaret ordered the general assembly, and the troops led by Prince Edward marched through Exeter and Bristol ^[38] , and reached Tewksbury on the evening of May 3 ^{[55] [38]} . Edward IV went to meet them, but was not sure whether they intended to go to London or to the northern border of Wales ; The Lancasters were able to deceive the King of York in their movements when they went to Gloucester , where, however, they were denied entry by ^[38] . Lancaster camped in front of the city of Tewkesbury in a very advantageous position: the camp was protected by "dirty alleys, deep dams and many hedges" ^[56] . Edward IV reached Chiltenham at the same time and the next day he built his troops at Tewkesbury for battle ^[57] . The army of Lancaster was led by the seventeen-year-old prince Margaret of Anjou, with the support of Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset ^{[1] [58]} , but was also defeated as Warwick ^[52] .

When the battle began, the Duke of Somerset led his men from safe positions and lined up on the hill in front of the vanguard of King Edward. The Lancaster troops were distracted by the King-York army ahead and did not notice when a detachment of two hundred spearmen of Edward IV sent them from the flanks, sent them ahead of the rest of the troops in case of an ambush in the forest. The people of Somerset were confused, and very soon the rest of the Lancastrian forces were defeated and fled ^[57] . Prince Edward was nominally appointed commander of the central part of the troops; counsel was given to him by Sir , a prior of the Hospitallers in England, and ^{[59] [57]} . When Somerset left his position to attack Edward IV’s avant-garde, he relied on Venlok’s support, but he did not move and just watched the battle, until Somerset, returning, did not call him a traitor and didn’t knock his brains out. Prince Edward's second adviser, Sir John Langstrother, fled from the battlefield and took refuge in the abbey ^[57] . Edward himself died in battle ^[60] or was killed immediately after him ^{[5] [52] [61]} . The body of the prince was buried with honors at Tewkesbury Abbey ^{[5] [52] [62] [57]} , where the victorious Yorkies put to death many of Lancaster's supporters ^[63] . The prince's mother was arrested and held in custody for several years, until French king Louis XI bought her in 1475 or 1476 ^{[63] [64]} . Edward's widow, Anna Neville, was captured after the battle, in 1472 she married the younger brother of King Edward IV Richard, Duke of Gloucester ^[65] and with her ascended the English throne in 1483 ^{[5] [57]} .

In addition to the version of the death of Edward in battle, there is also a version of his killing by the Yorks after the battle. Who struck the prince a mortal blow is not reliably known. James Penton writes that there were reports of the capture of Edward Richard of Gloucester and the assassination of the prince by the duke for insulting his brother the king ^[66] . Professor , the author of an article about Edward in the Oxford Biographical Dictionary, writes that the prince could have been killed while fleeing from the battlefield; he suggests that Edward could have appealed to Duke Clarence for help, since he was supposed to fight on the side of Lancaster with Warwick, but went over to his brother king. Griffiths also reports that the version about the capture of Edward, his defiant behavior before the king and the subsequent murder of the prince by the Yorkists was first described by continental writers, and only then by Tudor authors and eventually popularized Shakespeare ^[61] . James Gairdner, author of an article about Edward in the National Biographical Dictionary, tells two versions of the prince’s death. According to the first, when it became clear that the battle was lost, Edward fled to the city, on the way he turned for help to his son-in-law, Duke Clarence (Edward and George were married to their sisters), but was killed. According to another, later sources reported that the prince was captured by a knight named Richard Crofts and transferred to King Edward IV for the promised reward of £ 100 a year; the king allegedly vowed to save the prince's life, but the oath was broken, if not by Edward IV himself, then his companions: when the prince appeared before the king, Edward IV asked how the prince dared to come to the country with the banner of war, to which the prince replied: "To return the kingdom my fathers "; further, the prince allegedly pushed the king away or even hit him with a gloved hand, after which he was killed by the dukes Gloucester and Clarence, the Marquis Dorset and Baron Hastings ^[57] .

Although the circumstances of Edward's death are not known for certain, he is considered the only Prince of Wales to fall in battle ^[1] . The death of Edward decided the fate of his father, who was killed in the Tower on May 21, 1471 ^{[60] [67]} , and put an end to the claims of the main line of Lancaster on the English throne; she also marked the assertion on the throne of the York dynasty, whose rule lasted until 1485, when Henry Tudor defeated Yorkist King Richard III in the battle of Bosworth ^[63] .

Alison Ware writes that Edward was knighted by the Order of the Garter , but does not name the date of dedication ^[5] .

Edward is one of the episodic characters of the third part of the Shakespeare chronicle "Henry VI." In another work, the chronicle " Richard III ", Shakespeare makes the killer of Prince Richard Gloucester, and the prince himself calls "the color of chivalry"; Richard himself confirms his guilt in the murder of Edward when he seduces the widow of Prince Anna ^[68] :

Edward is mentioned in Philippe Gregory ’s novel The White Queen, and is also a minor character in Gregory’s Daughter of the Cardinal, a novel about the life of Prince Anne Neville’s wife. In it, Edward is described by his wife as a cruel prince, similar to his mother and extremely attached to her: “He inherited the mother’s features: blond, almost copper-colored hair, her round face and small mouth with forever displeased lips. He is graceful and strong and was raised to ride and fight. They say that he is good at fighting, so I know that he dares. He had been in battles since early childhood, and there his heart could harden, so it was hardly worth expecting from him tenderness for a girl, especially for the daughter of his former enemy. It was rumored that at the age of seven he ordered the knights of York to protect his father to be cut off, although they valiantly defended the sleeping king during the battle, and so far no one denied their veracity ... His face is always wary, and his eyes are half-closed and not visible from for eyelashes. He almost does not look at me, all the time looking away to the side. When someone turns to him, he never looks into the interlocutor's eyes, as if he does not trust himself, but looks down. Only he looks at his mother, and only she can make him smile. As if in the whole world, he trusts only her alone ” ^[69] . At the same time, according to Richard Gloucester, Edward fell in battle "the death of a soldier, the honorable death" ^[70] . In the film adaptation of Gregory’s novels “The White Queen ”, the role of Prince Edward was played by Joey Bayty ^[71] .

According to the image in the Book of the Founders and Benefactors of Tewksbury Abbey (c. 1525), the coat of arms of Edward, Prince of Wales, consisted of the English royal coat of arms and the coat of arms of his maternal grandfather, the Duke of Anjou.

The shield is divided in two. On the right is the English royal coat of arms of the Plantagenets: the shield is dissected and crossed; in the 1st and 4th parts in the azure field there are three golden lilies [French royal coat of arms], in the 2nd and 3rd parts in the scarlet field there are three golden azure-armed leopards (walking the lion on guard), one above the other [England] ^[72] .

On the left - the emblem of Rene Good : shield twice dissected and crossed; in the 1st part of the “ Arpad strip” - the scarlet and silver stripes [Hungary]; in the second part, the azure field dotted with French lilies and burdened with scarlet titl [Neapolitan Kingdom]; in the third part in a silver field, five golden crosses [Jerusalem]; in the 4th part, an azure field dotted with French lilies, edged with a scarlet edging [Anjou Valois]; in the 5th part, in an azure field dotted with golden pointed crosses, two golden fish [duchy Bar]; in the 6th part in the golden field, the right scarlet band with three silver alerions [Lorraine] ^[73] .

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