Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/445

 EDWARD V. 437 Burgundy, Edward collected a body of Flem- ings and Dutchmen in a few months, with whom he landed at Eavenspur. He advanced into the interior, pretending at first that he came only to recover his patrimony as duke of York, and making his followers cry "Long live King Henry," till he received reinforcements which put him in a condition to face the enemy. The armies met at Barnet on April 14, 1471, and the Lancastrians were defeated and Warwick himself was slain. Edward again became mas- ter of London, and of the person of Henry, who was remanded to the tower. Meanwhile Margaret, with her son Edward, 18 years of age, landed at Weymouth at the head of a body of French troops on the very day of the battle of Barnet. With an army commanded by the duke of Somerset she made a stand at Tewkes- bury, May 4, 1471. Her army was defeated, her son Prince Edward slain, and she herself taken prisoner and held in captivity five years, when she was ransomed by the king of France. Her husband perished in the tower a few weeks after the battle. Edward formed an alliance in 1474 with the duke of Burgundy, by which France was to be divided into two states, one of which, comprehending the northern and east- ern provinces, should belong to Burgundy, and the other should be possessed by England. He passed over to Calais with a force of archers and men-at-arms, only to be disappointed by the duke of Burgundy, who sent his apology instead of an army, and to make an advanta- geous treaty with Louis without a battle. By this treaty pensions of considerable amounts were bestowed by Louis not only upon the English king, but upon all the considerable persons of the English court. Edward then became involved in a bitter strife with his bro- ther Clarence. The interference of Edward prevented the marriage of Clarence with the wealthy heiress of Burgundy ; soon afterward two of the friends of Clarence were put to death upon a frivolous pretence, joined with an accu- sation of sorcery ; and when he maintained their innocence, he was himself privately put to death in February, 1478, on a charge of trea- son for arraigning public justice. During the latter part of his life Edward was sunk in indo- lence and pleasure. He left five daughters, of whom Elizabeth was afterward married to Henry VII. ; and two sons, the ill-fated princes Edward and Eichard. EDWARD V., king of England, of the York branch of the Plantagenets, son and successor of the preceding, born Nov. 4, 1470, in the sanctuary of Westminster abbey, whither his mother had fled from the army of the Lan- castrian Queen Margaret and of Warwick, died doubtless by murder in the tower of Lon- don in 1483. At the time of his father's death, April 9, 1483, young Edward was re- siding on the borders of Wales, in the care of Earl Eivers, brother of the queen. In com- pany with Eivers he immediately set out for London, while the duke of Gloucester, brother of the late king, and now regent during the minority, started south from York, attended by a splendid retinue. The two processions met at Stony Stratford, when Gloucester ap- proached the young prince with the great- est demonstrations of respect, but soon after charged Eivers and the queen's son, Sir Eich- ard Grey, with having aimed to estrange from him the affection of his nephew, arrested and imprisoned them in the castle of Pomfret, and endeavored unsuccessfully to satisfy Edward with regard to the violence thus exercised upon his kindred. The king was from this time a captive. The queen mother hastily took refuge with her second son, the duke of York, and her five daughters, in the sanc- tuary at Westminster. Gloucester postponed the coronation of the young king, confined him for security in the tower, and was for- mally invested with the office of protector. His next step was to withdraw the duke of York from his retreat with his mother at Westminster; but he had still to fear oppo- sition on the part of those noblemen, such as Lords Hastings and Stanley, who were friends of the late king, and unswerving in their fidelity to his children. Their destruction or imprisonment without form of trial, or even specification of offence, swiftly followed. Earl Eivers also and his friends were put to death without any semblance of judicial forms. The amours of the late king now suggested to Gloucester a means of vilifying the queen dow- ager and her descendants. He did not hesitate to malign his own mother, affirming that the resemblance of Edward IV. and of the duke of Clarence to notorious gallants was a suffi- cient proof of their spurious birth, and that the duke of Gloucester alone, of all his sons, appeared by his features and countenance to be the true offspring of the duke of York. He openly denied the title of Edward V., who meanwhile, with his brother, languished in prison. The precise time and the details of the death of these princes are unknown. A conspiracy had been set on foot for their lib- eration during the first year of the usurper's reign, when it was announced that they were no longer alive. Sir Thomas More's account, which was collected from the confession of the murderers in the next reign, is as follows : that Eichard had in vain tampered with the governor of the tower, Brackenbury, to put them to death, but found a ready instrument for the execution of his purpose in Tyrrel, his master of horse ; that Tyrrel was despatched with a commission to receive the keys of the tower for one night, and during that night he watched without while one of his grooms, accompanied by a notorious assassin, entered the sleeping room of the princes, stifled them with feather beds and pillows, and buried their bodies at the foot of the staircase. The tes- timony of More is almost contemporaneous with the event itself, and is confirmed by the honors which were certainly conferred upon