Edward IV

 Edward IV: The Sun In Splendour

Edward IV has always been overshadowed by his controversial younger brother Richard III. Such was his reputation that he is mostly remembered for his pursuit of pleasure—the archetypal medieval royal playboy. There was considerably more to him than this. During the first half of his reign he was an astute military tactician, almost on a par with Henry V, who never lost a battle, and during his campaigns invariably triumphed over seemingly unsurmountable odds. Edward was a big man—6 feet 4 inches tall—extremely courageous, and a level-headed strategist at home and abroad. He was a personable, charming and approachable monarch, revered and respected by his subjects. The second half of his reign finds him entirely different. With his Treasury solvent after being stretched to the limit financing the quelling of a decade of civil strife, and with England enjoying a renewed peace marred only by the murky intrigues of his brother Clarence, Edward found himself at liberty to indulge in his fancies. He lived and loved more extravagantly than any king before him. Though devoted to his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, he played the field—there were hundreds of women and at least one male lover. Edward threw lavish parties which were the talk of Europe, and sadly ate himself into an early grave, his death leaving England to face the most chaotic period in its history thus far—and with its greatest mystery, the Princes in the Tower, which remains unsolved to this day.