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Historical person
1442–1483
Edward IV was the first Yorkist king of England, taking the throne in 1461 after victory at Towton. His secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville disrupted plans for a foreign alliance and contributed to conflict with the Earl of Warwick and Edward’s brother George, Duke of Clarence. Deposed briefly in 1470, he returned to defeat the Lancastrians and ruled with greater stability until his sudden death in 1483, leaving a vulnerable child heir.
Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour gives Edward a substantial role, while Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen tells the story largely through Elizabeth Woodville. Conn Iggulden’s Wars of the Roses novels also dramatise his campaigns and family divisions. Fiction often contrasts Edward’s physical charisma and military decisiveness with his political indulgence, sexual reputation and failure to secure a peaceful minority for his son.
In non-fiction, Edward IV is discussed in A. W. Boardman’s Towton 1461, Dan Jones’s The Hollow Crown, A. W. Boardman’s The Rose, the Bastard and the Saint King, and A. W. Boardman’s The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses. In A. W. Boardman’s Towton 1461, after the Lancastrian victory at the second battle of St Albans, Edward, Earl of March, was proclaimed Edward IV and led his army north.
Historical context
Series
The Wars of the Roses series follows the dynastic struggle from the weakness of Henry VI’s government through the rise of York, Edward IV’s victories and exiles, and the final contest between Richard III and Henry Tudor. The novels combine court politics with the major military turning points…
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Kingmaker follows former monk Thomas Everingham and former nun Katherine as the Wars of the Roses break apart the religious, social and political order that once defined their lives. Beginning with their flight from a priory in 1460, the sequence carries them through Yorkist campaigns, the northern Lancastrian…
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The House of York series follows Edward of York from adolescence to kingship during the Wars of the Roses. It begins amid Henry VI’s recurring incapacity and Richard, Duke of York’s challenge to Lancastrian government, then traces the battles and family losses that bring the young Edward to…
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The Tudor Dynasty sequence traces the family’s survival during the later Wars of the Roses. First of the Tudors centres on Jasper and Edmund Tudor, Margaret Beaufort and the protection of the young Henry Tudor after the collapse of Lancastrian power. The Tudor Crown continues with Henry in…
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The Tarnished Crown follows Isobel Fenton, later Isobel Langton, and Robert Langton through the political reversals of Edward IV’s reign. Beginning with Warwick’s rebellion in 1469, the series places their struggle for Beaumoncote Manor, marriage and family security inside the conflicts that divide the Yorkist court and repeatedly…
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The Plantagenet and Tudor novels form a chronological sequence of connected but independently readable stories about women near the English throne. They move from the Lancastrian court and the Wars of the Roses through the rise of the Tudors, Henry VIII’s marriages, the mid-Tudor religious crisis and the…
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New World Rising follows the fictional half-brothers Jack Wynter and Harry Vaughan through the dynastic upheavals that ended Plantagenet rule and opened the early Tudor age. Sons of the Blood begins in 1483 with Edward IV’s death, the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower and Richard III’s…
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The Tudor Saga recounts the dynasty from Henry VII’s exile and victory in the Wars of the Roses to the final years of Elizabeth I. Historical rulers, ministers and royal relatives occupy the centre of the sequence, while fictional attendants and agents reveal how decisions at court affect…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
