Edward

(ed'würd,) the name of several English monarchs, who are mentioned here in the following order: -Anglo-Saxon line: E. I., called the Elder, s. his father Alfred the Great, 901; D. 925.-E. II., surnamed the Martyr, B. 960 A. D., was great-grandson of the foregoing, and s. his father, Edgar, in 975. His reign was troubled by the ambitious designs of his step-mother, Elfrida, who at last caused E. to be murdered, in 978.-E. III., known as the Confe or, B. 1004, s. his half-brother, Edmund Ironsides, in 1042, after the interim usurpation of the throne by Canute. He married in 1044 Editha, daughter of Godwin, Earl of Kent, on the proviso that she should remain a virgin:-whence the chaste monarch's title of Confe or. D. 1066.- Plantage net line: E. I., surnamed Long shanks, from the length of his legs, B. 1239, s. his father Henry III., 1274. He had previously distinguished himself in the war between the crown and the revolted barons under Simonde Montfort, Earl of Leicester, over whom he gained a brilliant victory at Evesham. He had also made himself a great name by his military prowe in a crusade to the Holy Land in 1271. In 1296, E. entered Scotland, dethroned Baliol, and took po e ion of the kingdom. His reign was one of the most glorious in English annals. He confirmed Magna Charta, established the House of Commons to protect the rights of the people, and effected many important legislative improvements. D. 1307.- He was s. by his son, E. II., B. in Caernarvon Castle, Wales, in 1284, whence his title of PRINCE OF WALES, being the first heir of an English monarch to adopt the same. D. 1327, murdered by Roger de Mortimer, the paramour of his queen Isabella of France. His son and succe or, E. ÎII., B. 1312, defeated the Scots at Halidon Hill, and placed his va al Baliol on the Scottish throne. Next, claiming the crown of France, as nephew of Charles IV., who had died without heirs, E. commenced hostilities against that country in 1340, and, in 1346, invaded France, where he gained the great victory of Crecy, and took po e ion of Calais. In 1356, his son, the Black Prince, won the great battle of Poitiers, taking John, king of France, prisoner. In 1360, by treaty, E. became master of a third of France, only to be dispo e ed of the whole (save Calais) after the acce ion of Charles V. in 1370. Dying in 1377, E. was s. by his grandson Richard II., son of EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE, SO styled from the color of his armor, who was at once the idol of the English nation, and the bravest and most chivalrous prince of his time. B. in 1330, he at the age of 15 accompanied his father, Edward III., in the invasion of France, and to him may rightly be attributed the honors of the battle of Crecy (q. v.). In 1356, he gained the great victory of Poitiers, in which he had the sole command of the English forces engaged, and in which he immortalized his name not le by his headlong valor, than by his knightly generosity and magnanimity towards his brave opponents. D. 1376.-E. IV., B. at Rouen, 1441, was the son of Richard, Duke of York, who was the great-great-grandson of Edward III. In right ofhis mother, and as head of the great house of York, he claimed the English crown, in opposition to the house of Lancaster, represented by Henry VI., king de jure, as the son of Henry V. With the nomination of E. as king, commenced that long and bloody struggle known in English history as the Wars of the Roses; the cognizance of the Yorkists being a white rose; that of the Lancastrians, a red rose. After inflicting several disastrous defeats upon the loyalist or Lancastrian party, E. remained in undisturbed po e ion of the crown; but, by his marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, a lady of the lower cla of nobility, he gave offence to the Earl of Warwick (q. v.), called the King-maker, who, espousing the cause of Henry VI., entered into an alliance with France and Burgundy, and compelled E. to retire to the Low Countries. In 1471, E. returned, accompanied by a foreign army, and defeated the King-Maker in the battle of Barnet, where the great Warwick fell. In the same year he was again succe ful on the field of Tewkesbury, after which Margaret of Anjou, the Queen-Mother, and her son, afterwards Edward V., were taken prisoners. The long and calamitous Wars of the Roses shortly afterward came to an end, after exhausting the best blood of England. E. died in 1483.- His son E. V., B. 1470, s. him, and is said to have been murdered along with his younger brother in the Tower of London, 1483, by order of their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III.- Tudor line. E. VI., only son of Henry VIII. by Jane Seymour, B. 1537, s. his father, 1547; the government, during his minority, being confided to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, who was created Duke of Somerset, and a umed the title of lord protector. Somerset favored the Protestant religion. During his rule, Henry's famous " Bloody Statute " was repealed, and, in 1548, the Book of Common Prayer was ordered to be used. In 1550, Somerset was supplanted by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick and Duke of North umber land, who married his son to Lady Jane Grey, a member of the royal family of Tudor, and induced the young and dying king to settle the succe ion in her favor. The weak E. consented, and died some weeks after, 1553. [s. 317]