The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #259 ｜ The Life of Edward IV

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Epochs where I should be continuing my story all about the English

00:00:25.900 monarchy and specifically the wars of the roses and the reign now of edward the fourth if you

00:00:31.720 remember last time we finished up more or less with the complete yorkist victory over the house

00:00:37.420 of lancaster at tewksbury at barnet when the kingmaker warwick the kingmaker was slain and

00:00:43.480 then at tewksbury the final final battle the final end of the lancastrian attempts to regain the

00:00:50.440 throne and after that they decided they sort of had to do away with the old mad king Henry VI

00:00:56.020 the son of Henry V so now it really is just the full full that really was the full Yorkist victory

00:01:02.820 final victory at that point so nothing stops does it nothing ever stops the the narrative the story

00:01:08.560 continues time pauses for no man so what happens next because the whole saga certainly isn't over

00:01:15.660 if you remember at the beginning of this series I said that basically the whole thing you can say

00:01:19.920 sort of ends in 1485 we're still only here in 1471 that's when Henry VI was murdered 1471 but

00:01:30.140 the whole saga isn't really over until 1485 at Bosworth Field the Battle of Bosworth Field

00:01:35.800 when Henry Tudor Henry VII Henry VIII's father finally wins so what happens in that the next 14

00:01:42.840 years it's a big one ultimately it's the story of in the end anyway we've got a period of

00:01:49.120 of calm but in the end the implosion of the house of york the house of lancaster lasted three

00:01:54.240 generations if you cast your mind back you had the old richard ii the son of the black prince

00:02:00.400 the grandson legit grandson of edward iii the last true plant had true plantagenet he was usurped

00:02:07.680 and murdered probably murdered by henry bolingbroke henry the fourth him with his father and then

00:02:14.880 And then you've got three generations of the Lancastrians there.

00:02:17.520 Well, once the Yorkists beat the Lancastrians, how well do they do?

00:02:21.540 Well, they barely last one generation.

00:02:23.680 Two generations at best, you could argue.

00:02:26.000 So they do worse, really, in the ultimate scheme of things.

00:02:30.400 So let's continue the story.

00:02:32.020 The next chapter I should be reading, as always,

00:02:33.660 from Professor Sir Charles Oman, early 20th century,

00:02:37.260 late 19th century, early 20th century, Oxford Professor of History,

00:02:40.900 Charles Oman and Sir Winston Churchill and his history of the English-speaking people so

00:02:45.880 the next chapter Oman calls it the fall of the house of York 1471-1485 so I'll let Oman pick up

00:02:53.660 the story he tells us this quote all the males of the house of Lancaster had now fallen by the

00:02:59.900 sword or the dagger not only the last representatives of the elder and legitimate branch

00:03:05.380 which had occupied the throne, but also the whole family of the Beauforts, the descendants of the

00:03:11.480 natural sons of John of Gaunt. Hopefully I don't need to say again, although I will, just to be

00:03:16.640 clear. There's the sons, the various sons of Edward III, right? The eldest one was the Black Prince,

00:03:24.380 who I just mentioned. Then a Lionel, whose descendants are the Yorkists. Then it was the

00:03:28.900 third son, remember? That very, very pivotal person, the third son of Edward III, John of Gaunt,

00:03:34.280 Who was the ancestor of all the

00:03:36.520 All the Lancastrian kings

00:03:38.120 Bolingbroke, Henry V, the great Henry V

00:03:40.500 And the mad, ill-fated

00:03:42.980 So all the descendants

00:03:45.000 Of John of Gaunt are now dead

00:03:46.820 One way or another

00:03:47.620 All the natural sons of John of Gaunt

00:03:50.080 Who had been legitimised by the grant

00:03:52.660 Of Richard II 1.00

00:03:53.660 Even in the female line there remained 0.97

00:03:56.300 No one who showed any signs of disputing 0.83

00:03:58.780 The claim of Edward IV to the throne

00:04:00.900 So as I say, complete Yorkist victory

00:04:03.000 after chooksbury he's reigning defending undisputed king of england basically the only descendants of

00:04:09.520 john of gaunt's first family who survived were the kings of spain and portugal just to make it even

00:04:14.940 more complicated john of gaunt had more than one family where his wife had died and he got remarried

00:04:20.120 and things so his other family are the kings of spain and portugal who traced themselves back to

00:04:24.580 john's eldest daughter while the beauforts were represented by lady margaret beaufort daughter of

00:04:30.460 that Duke of Somerset who had died in 1444, the elder brother of the man who lost Normandy and

00:04:36.840 fell at St Albans. That was one of the Dukes of Somerset. So there are surviving Beauforts but

00:04:41.260 only through the female line but this Margaret Beaufort is absolutely pivotal, absolutely key

00:04:47.780 particularly due to her progeny. Oman says the Lady Beaufort married Edmund Tudor. Here we go

00:04:54.220 getting to the Tudors Earl of Richmond the half-brother of Henry VI and by him had a single

00:05:01.720 child Henry another Henry now Earl of Richmond by his father's decease just inherited that title

00:05:09.260 in Henry the Beaufort Lion had its last representative but he was but a boy of 14

00:05:15.040 at this stage and was overseas in Brittany whether his mother had sent him for safety

00:05:20.260 because you never know Edward son of York king of England might decide that it's best to kill

00:05:27.220 Henry Tudor at this point he didn't but you know just to be safe she sent him off to France for

00:05:33.160 safety while she herself had wedded as her second spouse Lord Stanley a peer of strong Yorkist

00:05:40.500 proclivities so a few things to say there we must flesh out I said I'd do this earlier than now in

00:05:45.820 this story but flesh out a bit of Henry Tudor and so Edmund Tudor I think I talked about it before

00:05:53.260 didn't I that Henry V's widow Catherine of Valois a full-blown French princess the daughter of the

00:06:00.900 last mad king of France after Henry V had just died of natural causes got dysentery and died

00:06:06.580 she was free eventually years later because she wasn't very old when that happened she was free 0.98

00:06:10.820 To get remarried

00:06:11.900 And she chose

00:06:13.080 Sort of a nobody

00:06:14.420 Called Edmund Tudor

00:06:16.100 Who's like a Welsh knight

00:06:17.440 Not a complete

00:06:18.360 And absolute nobody 0.89

00:06:19.600 Not a peasant 0.99

00:06:20.700 But you know

00:06:21.900 Not a king

00:06:22.740 Or a prince

00:06:23.280 Or anything close to that

00:06:25.000 And then she went on

00:06:26.040 To have another son

00:06:26.900 Catherine of Valois

00:06:28.760 Catherine of France

00:06:29.980 Had married a complete nobody

00:06:32.120 Almost a complete nobody

00:06:33.620 Owen Tudor

00:06:34.860 Wasn't a complete peasant

00:06:36.260 Or anything

00:06:36.840 But he was just sort of

00:06:37.600 A Welsh knight

00:06:38.400 Very really obscure person

00:06:40.420 basically owen tudor apparently he was very very suave and sophisticated and fun to be around and

00:06:47.020 you can only imagine handsome if she could have picked more or less anyone she wanted within

00:06:50.480 reason she picks this kind of nobody but apparently he was fun and interesting to be around owen

00:06:56.240 tudor and they had a son and that's this edmund tudor who you know is basically is the half brother

00:07:03.360 of the old mad henry the sixth they've got the same mum and you might have thought that he might

00:07:08.500 have wanted his half-brother Edmund Tudor to sort of disappear one way or other either not just be

00:07:14.800 seen just put him away send him away or keep him in a castle in a remote place somewhere and just

00:07:20.720 basically never hear or see from him again or even kill him but that's not what Henry VI was like

00:07:25.800 he was kind to him he kept him around the court and things and treated him as you know a normal

00:07:31.520 Brother basically so this Edmund Tudor and it's he who marries Margaret Beaufort the last the last

00:07:39.480 real descendant of John of Gaunt so Edmund Tudor although his father was a nobody Owen Tudor his

00:07:45.640 his mother was extremely eminent extremely eminent in French terms as eminent as you could get and

00:07:51.920 he married very very well married into the direct royal lion in England and it's their son they had

00:07:59.340 she was very very young when she gave birth to the little Henry Henry Tudor she was very young

00:08:05.780 she was like 12 or 13 terribly young I mean in our terms it's it's paedophilia isn't it but there

00:08:11.800 it is some say it was a very difficult birth she never had any more children okay so this little

00:08:16.140 boy Henry Tudor or or Henry of Richmond is sometimes called at this point Omar goes on

00:08:21.540 saying neither the distant Spaniards nor the boy Henry of Richmond was seriously thought of even by

00:08:27.440 themselves as claimants to the English crown, right? We just had the Wars of the Roses and

00:08:32.360 Edward's finally won it and he's a great general and everything. There's no question of anyone

00:08:37.700 trying to unseat Edward IV at this point. And King Edward might for the rest of his life repose

00:08:43.480 on the laurels of Tewkesbury and Barnet and take his ease without troubling himself about further

00:08:49.540 dynastic troubles. He reigned for 12 years after his restoration in 1471, i.e. after Tewkesbury,

00:08:56.360 and did little that was noteworthy in that time end quote do you remember we talked about in one

00:09:01.920 of the previous episodes how when there's things to be done like having battles and raising armies

00:09:06.760 edward the fourth is superb but when there isn't anything to be done like that he just takes his

00:09:12.780 foot off the gas entirely and just enjoys hunting and feasting and womanizing and having a good time

00:09:18.860 and he's not really interested in the business of government he's not interested in rushing around

00:09:23.100 and passing loads and loads of new laws,

00:09:26.040 you know, like Henry II or Edward I or anything like that.

00:09:29.060 He's content to just enjoy himself.

00:09:31.780 Really, it's just that.

00:09:32.620 Omar says,

00:09:32.960 His love of these gradually sapped all his energy.

00:09:36.560 Indolent.

00:09:37.620 His life grew more and more extravagant and irregular

00:09:40.640 as he sunk into all the grosser forms of self-indulgence.

00:09:44.600 He completely ruined a handsome person and a robust constitution

00:09:48.500 and by the age of 42 had declined into an unwieldy and bloated invalid so he got fat basically some

00:09:57.740 a slightly kinder way of saying he got extremely fat and unhealthy and of course in those days in

00:10:03.160 the 15th century they had no real concept of well no concept what constitutes a healthy diet

00:10:10.280 you know if you have anything go wrong like you start having minor heart attacks or strokes or

00:10:14.960 things like that then there's no way back really there's no real cures so to speak for things like

00:10:20.760 that if you lose your health it's almost certainly lost forever everyone says Edward's rule was not

00:10:26.000 so bad for England as might have been expected from his very unamiable character his second reign

00:10:32.660 was comparatively free from bloodshed if we accept one dreadful crime committed on the person of his

00:10:39.600 own brother so end quote so you remember his brother Clarence George Duke of Clarence had

00:10:46.000 betrayed him during the Wars of the Roses badly right you remember that they'd made up again to

00:10:53.180 remind you there's three boys there's the eldest boy the eldest son of Richard Duke of York is this

00:10:56.960 Edward the king the second brother George Duke of Clarence and a third brother Richard or during

00:11:02.880 the Wars of the Roses Warwick the kingmaker when he'd fallen out with Edward George Duke of Clarence

00:11:07.620 over to his side and said, you know, if Edward dies or is killed one way or another, you can be

00:11:11.880 king, right? Marry my daughter. Yeah. And he'd had. And then George obviously realised perhaps

00:11:18.100 the way the winds were going and betrayed the kingmaker and gone back into Edward's camp.

00:11:23.260 However, you know, once you've badly betrayed someone once, it's never the same again,

00:11:28.320 is it really? And it seems that George, even after Tewkesbury and everything, still wasn't

00:11:34.820 trustworthy, still couldn't be trusted in a number of ways. Oman tells us, perhaps he deserved little 0.56

00:11:40.560 praise on this score, for both the Lancastrians and the partisans of Warwick had been practically

00:11:46.260 exterminated by the slaughter of 1471, i.e. the Battle of Tewksbury and afterwards. It is more to

00:11:52.420 his credit that he bore lightly on the nation in the matter of taxation. His pockets were full of

00:11:58.120 plunder of the House of Neville, that's Warwick, Warwick the Kingmaker, and the old Lancastrian

00:12:02.960 families and though self-indulgent he was not a spendthrift indeed he lived within his means

00:12:09.620 and seldom asked for a subsidiary from parliament remember the state is much much much smaller at

00:12:16.360 this stage you've got the king's household the royal household and as long as you can pay for

00:12:20.880 that there isn't there is no giant machinery of government that needs to be paid for from the

00:12:26.180 king's purse at this stage but there's no police there's no health service there's there's hardly

00:12:30.220 anything hardly anything this moderation however does not imply that he was a constitutional

00:12:35.780 sovereign he ruled through a small clique of ministers and personal dependents mostly members

00:12:41.560 of his wife's family remember the woodvilles elizabeth woodville the white queen and all her

00:12:47.120 brothers the ones that survived the was of the roses that is he disliked edward the king edward

00:12:52.220 he disliked parliamentary control so much that he seldom summoned a parliament at all for one

00:12:58.060 whole period of five years between 1478 and 1482 he was rich enough to be able to refrain from

00:13:05.400 calling one altogether a personal rule there when he did want money however he did not shrink from

00:13:11.720 raising it in the most objectionable manner by compelling rich men to pay him forced loans

00:13:17.460 called benevolences again you've got to be kind of careful with that thing that sort of thing

00:13:22.840 remember Edward II did that sort of thing didn't go down well did it Richard II did that sort of

00:13:29.000 thing didn't go down well did it both Edward II and Richard II found themselves murdered in the

00:13:34.280 end so you've got to be you've got to be careful with that sort of thing I mean Edward IV is a

00:13:38.160 whole different beast to someone like Edward II or Richard II who were weak men weren't they

00:13:42.880 our Edward here is far from from weak when it comes to it right so he extorted money out of

00:13:48.460 rich men and called it benevolences it is fair to add that he generally paid his debts and only

00:13:54.280 owed 13 000 pound when he died which is a lot of money for those days but not insane it's about

00:14:00.580 what you could expect to be honest not bad at all imagine that if our whole national debt now was

00:14:06.380 13 000 pounds even adjusted for inflation from the late 15th century the drop in the ocean isn't it

00:14:11.500 on the whole it may be said that his rule though selfish and autocratic was not oppressive he gave

00:14:18.080 the land peace in his later years and any kind of quiet was an intense relief after the anarchy of

00:14:24.600 the wars of the roses commerce and industry began slowly to rally and the wealth of the land seemed

00:14:30.700 to have suffered less than might have been expected again we talked about that before

00:14:34.360 the wars of the roses although it's a civil war it is a civil war it's not the type which these

00:14:39.460 whole towns burnt down the massacre of tens of thousands of civilians over and over again it

00:14:45.020 wasn't like that was it there were a few odd big battles but the nobles the cousins kept it largely

00:14:50.660 between themselves it didn't ravage the land we've got the anarchy right back in the end of the 11th

00:14:57.820 or beginning of the 12th century during the 12th century that that did that ended in like large

00:15:02.780 scale famine and things the wars of the roses wasn't that destructive yeah oman says the land

00:15:07.820 suffered less than it might have expected the bloodshed and confiscations of the unhappy years

00:15:13.120 between 1455 and 1471 had fallen almost entirely on the nobles and their military retainers and

00:15:20.000 the cities and the yeomen had fared comparatively well. England had never been left desolate like

00:15:26.440 France at the end of the Hundred Years' War. Edward's foreign policy was feeble and uncertain.

00:15:32.380 At first, after his restoration, he intended to attack France in alliance with his brother-in-law,

00:15:38.160 Charles the Bold of Burgundy

00:15:40.260 Or sometimes called Charles the Rash

00:15:41.900 Who had given him shelter and succor

00:15:44.080 During his day of exile

00:15:46.060 Remember that? Everything looked lost for Edward

00:15:48.160 He'd had to flee to Burgundy

00:15:49.620 I think that was just last episode, wasn't it?

00:15:51.560 And he was given just 1,200 men

00:15:54.060 To try and turn everything around

00:15:56.080 And he did. Remarkable thing, that really

00:15:58.520 So he wants to attack France

00:16:00.500 With Charles the Bold

00:16:02.140 Omar says, he raised an army 0.71

00:16:03.980 And crossed the Channel, talking of

00:16:06.060 Recovering Normandy, Henry V

00:16:08.100 style and of asserting his right to the French crown but Louis XI the wily king of France

00:16:14.280 offered to buy him off proffering him a great sum down to an annual subsidy if he would abandon the

00:16:20.720 calls of Duke Charles Charles the Bold of Burgundy abandon him and I'll pay you loads and loads of

00:16:26.220 money including every year going forward Edward was selfish and ungrateful enough to accept the

00:16:31.940 offer with delight he does like an easy life if possible doesn't he he met King Louis in a formal

00:16:37.320 interview in Picardy and bargained to retire and remain neutral for 75,000 gold crowns paid down

00:16:45.440 and an annuity of 50,000 more so long as he lived. A lot of money. He also rung a second 50,000 out

00:16:53.060 of Louis as a ransom for the unfortunate Queen Margaret of Anjou a prisoner since the day of

00:16:58.760 Tewksbury because they're the same family Margaret of Anjou is closely related to the French kings

00:17:04.240 And stipulated that the Dauphin was to be married to his eldest daughter

00:17:08.560 The Princess Elizabeth

00:17:10.060 The Dauphin, the equivalent of the Prince of Wales

00:17:12.900 The next in line to the French crown

00:17:15.240 And that was in 1475

00:17:17.500 Edward came home with money in his purse

00:17:20.200 And found that the French annuity

00:17:22.360 Which was punctually paid

00:17:24.340 Was most useful in enabling him to avoid having to call parliaments

00:17:28.580 His betrayal of Charles of Burgundy

00:17:30.640 Was deeply resented by that prince

00:17:32.860 but edward took no heed and the duke was slain and not long after while waging war on the swiss

00:17:38.680 and the duke of lorraine okay now we get the story all about george duke of clarence the king's

00:17:44.500 younger brother we're told two years after the treaty of picagny occurred a tragedy which showed

00:17:50.420 that edward could still on occasion burst out into his old fits of cruelty his brother george duke of

00:17:57.440 Clarence, had been received back into his favour after betraying Warwick in 1471 and had been

00:18:04.480 granted half of the kingmaker's estates as the portion of his wife, Isabel Neville, you know,

00:18:10.120 Warwick the kingmaker's daughter. But Clarence presumed on his pardon and seems to have thought

00:18:15.040 that all his treachery to his brother between 1468 and 1470 had been forgotten as well as

00:18:23.300 forgiven he was always a turbulent unwise and reckless young man and provoked the king by his

00:18:29.720 insolent sayings and open disobedience edward had twice to interfere with him once for illegally

00:18:36.140 seizing and causing to be executed a lady whom he accused of bewitching his wife isabel who died in

00:18:43.220 childbirth yeah poor poor ill-fated isabel neville very unhappy life basically a second time the king

00:18:50.440 had to intervene in his brother's affairs a second time for trying to wed without his brother's leave

00:18:56.600 mary of burgundy the heiress of charles the bold when clarence was again detected in intrigues with

00:19:03.200 a foreign power this time with scotland the king resolved to make an end of him kill his own brother

00:19:09.200 suddenly summoning a parliament he appeared before it and accused his brother of treason though he

00:19:14.580 gave no clear or definite account of clarence's misdeeds awed by edward's wrath and vehemence

00:19:20.100 the two houses passed a bill declaring the Duke convicted of high treason. The king then condemned

00:19:26.180 him, cast him into the tower, and there had him secretly slain. And that was in 1478, seven years

00:19:33.280 after Tewksbury and the death of Warwick and his brother's betrayal. Ten years after his first

00:19:39.140 betrayal, finally felt the need to have him killed, executed. You can only picture, you can only 0.99

00:19:45.400 really imagine that George was, Duke of Clarence, was actively plotting against his own brother

00:19:51.960 again, because it's the ultimate thing, isn't it, to have them executed. It's like you've got no

00:19:57.420 other choice. Remember, Edward has got a streak. We'll talk about a streak of cruelty. He's also

00:20:01.880 got a streak of clemency, hasn't he? Remember at one point in the middle of the Wars of the Roses,

00:20:05.820 he wanted to just try and forgive everyone and let them all live and execute as few as possible.

00:20:11.440 He has got that gear, right? He's not Genghis Khan, so you can only think that really he had to,

00:20:17.440 his calculation was that he had to execute George. Some say he was drowned in a vat of wine,

00:20:25.240 malmsy wine. It's quite a way to go, isn't it? We hope you enjoyed that video, and if you did,

00:20:31.200 please head over to lotusseaters.com for the full unabridged video.

00:20:41.440 Thank you.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - April 19, 2026

PREVIEW： Epochs #259 ｜ The Life of Edward IV

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