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 King as Edward IV. He was a thoroughly bad man, being cruel, vindictive and, except in warfare, lazy. But Margaret had been vindictive too, and, as regards cruelty, there was little to choose between the parties; after every battle the leaders of the vanquished side were put to death almost as a matter of course.

But, just as Henry IV had quarrelled with the barons who had crowned him, so did Edward IV quarrel with his ‘Kingmaker’ and best friend, the Earl of Warwick. Warwick thereupon deposed Edward and took poor Henry VI, who had been an ill-used prisoner in the Tower of London, and put him back on the throne again. It was only a six months’ restoration (1470-1), for Edward returned, slew Warwick in battle, slew Henry’s only son after the battle, slew all the Lancastrian leaders he could catch, and finally had King Henry murdered in the Tower. After this he ‘reigned more fiercely than before’; he struck down his own brother George, Duke of Clarence; he employed spies, tortured his prisoners, and hardly called Parliament at all; he took what taxes he pleased from the rich. But he kept order very little better than Henry VI had done. Once he thought he would play the part of a ‘fine old English king’, so he led a great army across to France in 1475, but there allowed himself to be bribed by the cunning Louis XI to go home again without firing a shot. At his death in 1483 his brother, the hunchback Richard, seized the crown, and murdered Edwards two sons (Edward V and Richard, Duke of York) in the Tower. Richard III was a fierce, vigorous villain, and had, in two years and a half, succeeded in murdering a good many nobles, both of the Lancastrian and Yorkist parties.