Edward V: The Prince in the Tower

by Michael Hicks

Memorable not for his life but his death, Edward V is probably better known as one of the Princes in the Tower, the supposed victim of his uncle, Richard III. Though he was never crowned, Edward reigned for 77 days until Richard made himself his nephew’s Lord Protector before imprisoning him and his younger brother Richard in the Tower of London. Michael Hicks presents to us the backdrop to this tragically short life—Edward’s parents, the contemporary political scenery, his own remarkable achievements—and reveals how he was both the hope of a dynasty and an integral cause of that dynasty’s collapse.

Genres: History, Medieval, Nonfiction, Biography

224 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2003

About the author

Michael Hicks (born 1948) is an English historian, specialising on the history of late medieval England, in particular the Wars of the Roses. Hicks studied with C. A. J. Armstrong and Charles Ross while a student at the University of Bristol. He is today Professor of Medieval History at the University of Winchester, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

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Reviews

[Stephanie Nyhof · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book desperately needed an editor. Multiple errors, like saying Mary Boleyn was the mother of Henry Fitzroy (Bessie Blount was his mother), that Edward IV and Edward V spent Christmas together in 1483 when Edward IV was most definitely dead, and Edward V probably dead, and that Katherine of York, not Margaret predeceased Edward IV when she actually died in 1527. It’s also very repetitive and unfocused.

[Duncan Graham · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is fascinating detail in this biography of Edward V, one of the two Princes in the Tower probably murdered in 1483, such as the in-depth discussion of his father Edward IV's chaotic marital manoeuvrings, Edward V's own education and daily routine as prince and his deposition and final days. There are a very few, very slight, glimpses of the boy's character and actions, though little can be known.

However, there is also much detail of government administration which might not appeal to the general reader.

Worse, there are errors: on p. 66 of the paperback Edward V was "with both parents... for Christmas 1483 at Westminster", when Edward IV died in April 1483 and Edward V and his brother Richard disappeared by August. The same page it is stated "none of [Edward IV's] children were married at his death", on p. 128 the 1478 marriage of his four-year-old son Richard is described. On p. 47 the mother of Henry VIII's illegitimate son the Duke of Richmond is misidentified. Also, the family trees in the book are oversimplified to the point of being partly incomprehensible.

[Edith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars. If it weren't for one thing, I would be inclined to rate Edward V: The Prince in the Tower higher, but that one thing was for me rather a large one.

Early on in this short biography of the young son of Edward IV, who disappeared from history into the Tower of London with his brother Richard, Duke of York, Hicks makes a clanger so big that it is hard for the average reader to judge what to believe of everything else that follows: He compares the fates of the two Boleyn sisters on the basis of whether they capitulated to or held out for marriage with Edward's nephew Henry VIII, saying Mary Boleyn was left holding the baby Duke of Richmond, all unmarried, while her sister Anne held out for marriage and became queen.

Obviously, Mary Boleyn was not the mother of the Duke of Richmond, and Bessie Blount, who was, was married off to Gilbert Talboys, Baron Talboys. (Mary was also married, to William Carey, during her affair with the king; her subsequent children may or may not have been the king's.) And in any event, any woman who bore Henry VIII a son whom he acknowledged was hardly going to be in great trouble.

Of course, anyone can make a blunder, but this is a rather large one, and it does make one wonder about the accuracy of the rest of what Hicks offers us. (And where was his editor?)

It's my impression that Hicks makes a few unsupported leaps in his theories about what happened to the young prince, and his writing tends to be rather dense and sometimes a bit confusing. Some amount of this is no doubt due to my own lack of knowledge of the subject. The passages concerning Eleanor Talbot and Dame (Margaret or Elizabeth) Lucy are particularly wound up, and I emerged wondering what Hicks actually believed out of all of it. Edward IV seems to have been a determined womanizer, but Hicks does not seem to write clearly about it. The passages about Dame Elizabeth or Margaret (he decides it's Margaret for reasons that are totally obscure to me) are particularly muddy--apparently her name (or one of them) was brought up by Thomas More who believed it was to her that Edward was pre-contracted. Are we to believe More, whose evidence by Hicks' own admission is not the most reliable? And because Lucy is mentioned by More, does that really mean there were two instances of pre-contract, she and Eleanor Butler?? Somebody else could doubtless have made more sense than I did of this, but to me it was quite a tangle.

Having said all this however, the details of the Prince's daily life and the expectations that his family and his people had of him were very interesting. Hicks is doing some speculating here too, but on the basis of much better evidence. Some relationships, and some reasons why Richard III made an end of certain people became much clearer. The book is nicely illustrated with black and white, and color plates.

The one thing that emerges with crystalline clarity from this book was the fact that Edward IV's early and rather sudden death doomed his young sons. Nothing was more certain that they would be chewed up in the strife among the Woodvilles, Richard III, Henry VII, and possibly others, like Buckingham. The way Edward IV had lived his life, his secret marriage to the boys' mother, in combination with his early death, set in motion a catastrophe that seems to have doomed them almost before they were born. As Hicks says of Richard III, whether or not he murdered his nephews (and he believes that Richard did), he deprived twelve-year-old Edward V of his crown, separated him from everyone who had cared for him since he was a baby (and executed some of them), and put Edward in fear of his life. For that alone, Richard deserves obloquy.

[Dan Keefer · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you want to hate History like you likely did in high school, read this book. There's no story to speak of. The characters never come to life. They remain dead and buried. Reading this book was a bit like reading a reference book. If you're doing research on English royalty of the most bland kind, you may rate this book a little higher than I have.

If you want to know what property, title and amount allotted to everyone around Edward IV was and when, this book will probably tell you more trivia than you could ever care for.

I bought this book because I was curious as to why a list of *Edward* English monarchs went from Edward IV to Edward VI. I quit this book with about 50 pages remaining. I decided to read articles using Google to get a better sense of what happened and why . . . maybe. Knowing what I know now, I'd suggest you read Shakespeare's Richard III.

[Debi Emerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very good book, but definitely not for a beginner! A knowledge of York/Lancaster history is almost essential to understanding this book. And even then, it can get confusing. As the author acknowledges, little is know about Edward V as his life was so short and his reign even shorter. So, much of the book is the history around him which puts his life into context. The author is convinced that Richard III killed his nephews or had them murdered. Elsewhere, I have read some very convincing arguments refuting this, though this authors only mentions them & does not discuss them in full. In my mind, this leaves a large gap in Edward V's story. Nevertheless, this is a book well worth reading.

[Michael Mahoney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book was like a rollercoaster; a few pages would be good and flowing and then the following ten pages are filled with banal facts and you have so many names thrown at you it makes your head spin. However, the final 20 pages or so do finish on a high note.

[Hilde Helseth]

'9. A book with a family tree'

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book that I very much wanted to read. I have been fascinated with the story of the Princes in the Tower ever since I saw a picture of the painting by Millais as a child. Actually this is the second time I’ve read this book. I picked it up again partly because I’ve just finished the Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman and there has been renewed media interest in Richard III since the finding of his bones in Leicester. I had always grown up with the view that Richard III killed his nephews. I was unaware that there is a whole society trying to prove that Richard III was innocent. I thought Penman’s version was well written, but the bit about the princes didn’t ring true. Then we had members of the Richard III society stating on TV that Richard III is innocent, that he couldn’t have killed his nephews. It was all a Tudor cover up. So, I wanted to read the historical version to see, if not what really happened, then what probably happened and what unlikely.

This book was well written historically. The beginning section, about Edward IV and the precontract, and the end section, about Edward V’s short reign and death were compelling and the arguments that Hicks made were strong. The middle section about the politics of the Welsh Marches and Edward’s times as Prince of Wales was a bit tedious. For an historian, it was probably great stuff, but for someone doing this as a hobby, it was a bit much. However the beginning and the end made up for the weakness in the middle. The section on the Princes’ death had me hooked on every word. After all, this is one of the great unsolved murders. But that pathos came from the historical records that stated that Edward spent much of his last days in prayer, as if he knew he didn’t have long to live. That and the fact that the boys were seen playing in the grounds, and then only at the windows and then not at all. It was a terrible tragedy and as Hicks argues, other kings, including Edward’s father had done the same by killing their rivals (Edward II, Richard II and Henry VI), what made this different was the fact that the King that was killed was a boy of 12. I think Richard III killed those boys out of necessity to preserve his reign as he saw his brother do 12 years earlier, however I think he misjudged what the reaction would be. And as Hicks argues, Edward IV deserves some of the blame for the death of his sons. If Edward IV hadn’t got himself involved with other women before he was married and if he had gotten married properly, Richard III’s use of the precontract to delegitimize Edward V would not have been possible. If only Edward IV hadn’t died so young, maybe those boys would have lived. In the end, Edward V is not remembered for his life, but merely for the manner of his death. This book goes some way to remind us that he had a life, albeit a short one.

[Jan Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having read biographies of Edward IV and Richard III, I didn't really find any new insights or information. Sadly, Edward V was too young to leave much of a footprint behind, except legend and pity for his untimely murder.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Commissioned by me at Tempus Publishing.

[Tom Delise · Rating 3 out of 5]

There really isn't much known about the young prince/king, and this book pads the story a bit with a great deal of speculation.