Edward IV: The Original Royal Who Rebelled For Love
A few years back, much of the world was surprised one morning when we woke up to see an Instagram post from The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, saying that they were stepping back as royals and going to essentially rewrite their jobs becoming progressive members of the royal family in a way that worked for them. In the subsequent months, we saw that changes in their lives were made for their own health and happiness, which ultimately resulted in them all but completely stepping away from the royal family, starting their own charity, and moving to California.
In the firestorm that these moves by two senior members of the royal family caused, the articles and pieces about Harry’s Great Great Uncle, Edward VIII, another British Royal, started popping up because of the similarities between these two situations. Although in the case of Edward VIII and his wife Wallace Simpson, it was the establishment who would not allow Edward VIII to discharge his duties as King and be married to Wallace. Edward, just like Prince Harry, made the choice that his happiness and his own family was more important than the job that the was born into.
While you may think that Edward VIII and Prince Harry are the two British Royals who set the world ablaze by standing up for themselves and the women they loved; they actually have another royal ancestor who beat them to the punch about 600 years ago, and that man was Edward IV of York. Edward IV was the Yorkist claimant who eventually went on to win the throne of England from his cousins, the Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses. At that time, he was groomed by his own cousin, the Earl of Warwick, who was easily one of, if not the most powerful man in England, and is often referred to as The Kingmaker. The Earl of Warwick had ambitions for himself and for England and needed Edward to carry them out for him. After Edward took the throne and brought the power to the York side of the family, one of Warwick’s chief concerns was who Edward would marry. The right marriage was imperative in order to make an advantageous match to help secure the York dynasty so that the new royals would be accepted by the people. Edward faced heavy pressure to marry a French Princess, who would have produced doubly royal heirs, and would have created an alliance between the new York Dynasty and the powerful French Kingdom, but, Edward rebelled.
Legend has it that King Edward came across Elizabeth Woodville sitting under an oak tree as she was waiting to plead with the king so that she might retain her lands. As the story goes, Edward came across her and was struck by her well documented blonde beauty and he began to pursue her. They eventually were married in secret on May 1,1464. He brought her to court and almost everyone was upset, chiefly Warwick. Edward of course knew that this would likely cause outrage, but he did it anyways, because he loved Elizabeth. As Edward began to show favor to Elizabeth’s family, Warwick and the other York nobles began to become more and more obsolete. This eventually led to Warwick joining up and plotting with Edwards brothers. Later after Edward had reunited with his brothers, he ended up killing Warwick in the battle of Barnet.
When we hear about the moves that Prince Harry and Edward VIII made for their families, speculators often call them brave, or at the very least, acknowledge their courage, whether they agree with their choices or not. And while I do think any change of that magnitude does require courage, my thoughts always drift to Edward IV. I imagine the courage that it took for him to marry the woman he loved. Unlike Prince Harry and Edward VII, he was not born into the position he held, he had just won it. He was not living in a relatively safe time, half of his country wanted him dead. He was virtually a puppet for his cousin Warwick (or at least Warwick thought he was), and he was choosing to risk his life, and completely rebelling against the establishment that had just helped him win a crown. He was on very shaky footing at the time, and he still rebelled to marry the person that he wanted to. I have always tried my best to imagine how nervous he must have been. But, when compared with two of his later family members, I must say that Edward IV seems to be the ultimate royal rebel for love.
For Further Reading:
-https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-IV-king-of-England
-https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/edward_iv_king.shtml
Some wonderful historical fiction from the perspective of Elizabeth Woodville:
The White Queen by Philippa Gregory and the Starz show The White Queen that is based off of her novel.