His personal beauty, his success in war, the familiarity of his manners, his splendid household, and the share which he allowed himself to take in the commercial enterprise of the day, endeared Edward to the burgher class, and rendered him on the whole a popular monarch. But beneath this splendid exterior there existed a pitiless cruelty, a selfishness which sought its gratification in unbounded license, and which was ready to crush relentlessly any, however nearly related to himself, who crossed his path. The mixture of sensuality, love of the new state of society, mingled with political selfishness and cruelty, remind us rather of the character of an Italian tyrant than of an English king. The character of the monarchy which he established was also different from that which had hitherto been seen in England. It has been usual to name the reign of Henry VII. as that in which this change began. It is true that that Prince and his successors completed it; but already there are visible all the elements of that peculiar despotic government resting upon popular favour, which is the characteristic of the Tudor rule. In all respects Edward is the popular King. The old nobility had for the most part been destroyed. As around the Buonapartes of modern time, a new nobility of relatives or personal friends of the King had begun to be called into existence. The balance of the Constitution had been changed by the removal of the Baronage, the great check on the royal power, which now stood, as it were, face to face with the Commons, who were as yet unfitted to make head against it. The practice of tampering with the elections had ruined the independence of Parliament. The Church, no longer in sympathy with the nation, sought to secure their wealth by devotion to the Crown. The King thus found no class sufficiently strong to check his prerogative. For a time, therefore, the constitutional advance of the preceding century was lost, and the government of England was practically despotism. At the same time, as the disturbances caused by the Wars of the Roses were not yet wholly over, and a short period of rapid revolutions intervenes before the final establishment of the constitutional change now begun, it is more convenient to adopt the old division, and to place the epoch of the new monarchy at the Battle of Bosworth.

[EDWARD V.]
1483.

[RICHARD III.]
1483–1485.

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Born, 1450 = Anne of Warwick. | Edward. Died 1484. CONTEMPORARY PRINCES. _Scotland._ | _France._ | _Germany._ | _Spain._ | | | James III., | Charles VIII., | Frederick III., | Ferdinand, } 1479. 1460. | 1483. | 1440. | Isabella, } POPES.--Sixtus IV., 1471. Innocent VIII., 1484. _Archbishop._ | _Chancellor._ | Thomas Bouchier, 1454. | John Russell, 1483.

Edward’s reign a revolution.
State of parties.

Edward V. was between twelve and thirteen when he came to the throne. His reign, which lasted from the 9th of April to the 26th of June, was entirely occupied by a short and not very intelligible revolution, which terminated in the accession of his uncle, Richard of Gloucester. On the death of Edward IV., the state of parties was rather complicated. In the period of success which followed his restoration in 1471, he had collected round him counsellors from all parties, although chiefly inclined to the new nobility. His friends were thus divided into three sections—the Queen and her family, the most prominent members of which were Anthony, Lord Rivers; Grey, Earl of Dorset; his brother Sir Richard Grey, and Lord Lisle, who seem to have worked in unison with the Chancellor, Cardinal Rotheram, Archbishop of York, and Morton, Bishop of Ely: there were, secondly, the new nobility, of whom Hastings and Stanley were the representatives: and, thirdly, a certain number of the older nobles led by Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and Sir John Howard. The two latter sections were full of jealousy of the Queen’s party, in which feeling Richard joined. But his real connection was with Buckingham and the old nobles. His first step was, by a union of the other two parties, to overthrow the influence of the Queen. This he immediately proceeded to do.