A history of England

by Charles Oman

He reigned for twelve years after his restoration in 1471, and did little that was noteworthy in that time. His love of ease gradually sapped all his energy; his life grew more and more extravagant and irregular, as he sank into all the grosser forms of self-indulgence. He completely ruined a handsome person and a robust constitution, and by the age of forty-two had declined into an unwieldy and bloated invalid.

Parliament rarely summoned.—Benevolences.

Edward's rule was not so bad for England as might have been expected from his very unamiable character. His second reign was comparatively free from bloodshed—if we except one dreadful crime committed on the person of his own brother. Perhaps he deserves little praise on this score, for both the Lancastrians and the partisans of Warwick had been practically exterminated by the slaughters of 1471. It is more to his credit that he bore lightly on the nation in the matter of taxation. His pockets were full of the plunder of the house of Neville and the old Lancastrian families, and, though self-indulgent, he was not a spendthrift. Indeed, he lived within his means, and seldom asked for a subsidy from Parliament. This moderation, however, does not imply that he was a constitutional sovereign. He ruled through a small clique of ministers and personal dependents, mostly members of his wife's family. He disliked parliamentary control so much that he seldom summoned a Parliament at all. For one whole period of five years (1478-82), he was rich enough to be able to refrain from calling one together. When he did want money, however, he did not shrink from raising it in the most objectionable manner, by compelling rich men to pay him forced loans, called "benevolences." It is fair to add that he generally paid his debts, and only owed £13,000 when he died. On the whole it may be said that his rule, though selfish and autocratic, was not oppressive. He gave the land peace in his later years, and any kind of quiet was an intense relief after the anarchy of the Wars of the Roses.

Revival of industry.

Commerce and industry began slowly to rally, and the wealth of the land seems to have suffered less than might have been expected. The bloodshed and confiscations of the unhappy years between 1455 and 1471 had fallen almost entirely on the nobles and their military retainers, and the cities and the yeomen had fared comparatively well. England had never been left desolate like France at the end of the Hundred Years' War.

Treaty of Picquigny.

Edward's foreign policy was feeble and uncertain. At first, after his restoration, he intended to attack France in alliance with his brother-in-law, Charles the Rash of Burgundy, who had given him shelter and succour during his day of exile. He raised an army and crossed the Channel, talking of recovering Normandy, and of asserting his right to the French crown. But Lewis XI., the wily King of France, offered to buy him off, proffering him a great sum down and an annual subsidy, if he would abandon the cause of Duke Charles. Edward was selfish and ungrateful enough to accept the offer with delight. He met King Lewis in a formal interview at Picquigny, in Picardy, and bargained to retire and remain neutral for 75,000 gold crowns paid down, and an annuity of 50,000 more so long as he lived. He also wrung a second 50,000 out of Lewis as a ransom for the unfortunate Queen Margaret of Anjou, a prisoner since the day of Tewkesbury, and stipulated that the Dauphin was to be married to his eldest daughter, the Princess Elizabeth (1475).

Edward came home with money in his purse, and found that the French annuity, which was punctually paid him, was most useful in enabling him to avoid having to call Parliaments. His betrayal of Charles of Burgundy was deeply resented by that prince, but Edward took no heed, and the duke was slain not long after, while waging war on the Swiss and the Duke of Lorraine.

Death of the Duke of Clarence.

Two years after the treaty of Picquigny occurred a tragedy which showed that Edward could still on occasion burst out into his old fits of cruelty. His brother George, Duke of Clarence, had been received back into his favour after betraying Warwick in 1471, and had been granted half the King-maker's estates as the portion of his wife, Isabel Neville. But Clarence presumed on his pardon, and seems to have thought that all his treachery to his brother in 1468-70 had been forgotten as well as forgiven. He was always a turbulent, unwise, and reckless young man, and provoked the king by his insolent sayings and open disobedience. Edward had twice to interfere with him, once for illegally seizing, and causing to be executed, a lady whom he accused of bewitching his wife Isabel, who died in childbirth; a second time for trying to wed without his brother's leave Mary of Burgundy, the heiress of Charles the Rash. When Clarence was again detected in intrigues with a foreign power—this time with Scotland—the king resolved to make an end of him. Suddenly summoning a Parliament, he appeared before it, and accused his brother of treason, though he gave no clear or definite account of Clarence's misdeeds. Awed by Edward's wrath and vehemence, the two houses passed a bill declaring the duke convicted of high treason. The king then condemned him, cast him into the Tower, and there had him secretly slain (1478).