Public Family Trees/Plantagenet/Edward IV of England

King of England

Edward IV of England

1442 - 1483 Β· Male Β· Rouen, France

Son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville

12

Generation

23

Ancestors

3

Descendants

3

Children

1

Marriages

Biography

Edward IV was King of England from 1461 to 1470 and again from 1471 to 1483, the first monarch of the house of York. Born at Rouen in 1442, the eldest surviving son of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, he took up his father's claim after the defeat at Wakefield and won the crown at the age of eighteen, confirming it with a crushing victory at Towton. His secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464 ali…

Life Timeline

Born1442

Born

Born to Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, Cecily Neville.

Family

Married Elizabeth Woodville

A partnership that connects two branches of the Plantagenet family.

Next Generation

Family line continues

3 children recorded in this branch.

Legacy

King of England

A defining role in the story of the Plantagenet family.

Died1483

Died

The close of a life whose connections continue through the family record.

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Henry II of England

Gen 1 Β· 1133 - 1189

Henry II was King of England from 1154 to 1189 and the first monarch of the House of Plantagenet. Born at Le Mans in 1133 to Geoffrey V of Anjou and Empress Matilda, he inherited Anjou and Normandy, gained Aquitaine through his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, and took the English crown two years later, ruling lands that stretched from the Scottish border to the Pyrenees. He rebuilt royal government after the civil war called the Anarchy, and his legal reforms, among them itinerant justices and sworn juries, laid the foundations of English common law. His reign was marked by his quarrel with Archbishop Thomas Becket and by rebellions led by his own sons. He died at Chinon in 1189 and was succeeded by Richard I.

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Richard I of England

Gen 2 Β· 1157 - 1199

Richard I, known as Richard the Lionheart, was King of England from 1189 to 1199 and one of the leading commanders of the Third Crusade. Born at Oxford in 1157, a son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, he was brought up in his mother's duchy of Aquitaine and became its duke, rebelling against his father more than once before succeeding him. He spent almost his entire reign abroad, campaigning in the Holy Land against Saladin, where he took Acre and Jaffa but never recovered Jerusalem. Returning overland, he was held for a vast ransom in Germany while England was governed by his officials and his mother. He died in the Limousin in 1199 and was succeeded by his brother John.

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John of England

Gen 2 Β· 1166 - 1216

John was King of England from 1199 to 1216, the youngest son of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Born at Oxford in 1166, he succeeded his brother Richard I and by 1204 had lost Normandy, Anjou and most of the family's continental lands to Philip II of France. Heavy taxation to fund attempts at their recovery, together with quarrels with the church and with his barons, provoked a rebellion that forced him to accept Magna Carta at Runnymede in June 1215, the charter that first set down in writing that the king was subject to law. War resumed almost at once, and he died at Newark in October 1216, leaving the throne to his nine-year-old son Henry III.

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Henry III of England

Gen 3 Β· 1207 - 1272

Henry III was King of England from 1216 to 1272, one of the longest reigns in English history. The son of King John and Isabella of AngoulΓͺme, he was born at Winchester in 1207 and crowned at the age of nine while much of the country was still in rebel hands, ruling through regents until 1234. A devout and artistically minded king, he rebuilt Westminster Abbey in the Gothic style as a shrine for Edward the Confessor and as the burial church of his dynasty. His reliance on foreign relatives and his costly foreign schemes provoked the baronial reform movement of 1258 and the Second Barons' War, in which Simon de Montfort briefly controlled the government before being defeated by the king's son, the future Edward I.

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Edward I of England

Gen 4 Β· 1239 - 1307

Edward I, called Longshanks, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Born at Westminster in 1239, the eldest son of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence, he defeated Simon de Montfort at Evesham in 1265 and was away on crusade when he succeeded his father. As king he issued a great series of statutes that reshaped English land law and justice, summoned the Model Parliament of 1295, and completed the conquest of Wales, ringing it with castles such as Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech. His later years were consumed by war in Scotland against William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. He married Eleanor of Castile, whose death in 1290 he marked with the Eleanor crosses, and died at Burgh by Sands in 1307.

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Edward II of England

Gen 5 Β· 1284 - 1327

Edward II was King of England from 1307 to 1327. Born at Caernarfon in 1284, the son of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, he was the first English heir to hold the title Prince of Wales. His reign was dominated by conflict with his barons over his reliance on favourites, above all Piers Gaveston and later Hugh Despenser the Younger, and by military failure in Scotland, where Robert the Bruce destroyed an English army at Bannockburn in 1314. In 1326 his wife Isabella of France and the exiled baron Roger Mortimer invaded England, and in January 1327 Edward became the first English king to be deposed by parliament, in favour of his teenage son Edward III. He died later that year at Berkeley Castle.

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Edward III of England

Gen 6 Β· 1312 - 1377

Edward III was King of England from 1327 to 1377, one of the longest and most celebrated reigns of the Middle Ages. Born at Windsor in 1312 to Edward II and Isabella of France, he came to the throne as a boy after his father's deposition and took power into his own hands in 1330. Claiming the French crown through his mother, he opened the Hundred Years' War, winning at Sluys in 1340 and CrΓ©cy in 1346 and taking Calais, while his eldest son, the Black Prince, triumphed at Poitiers. He founded the Order of the Garter in 1348 and presided over the arrival of the Black Death and the steady growth of parliament. His many sons, and the rivalry of their descendants, shaped English politics for a century.

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Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince

Gen 7 Β· 1330 - 1376

Edward of Woodstock, known to later ages as the Black Prince, was the eldest son of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault and the most admired English soldier of his age. Born in 1330, he was created Prince of Wales in 1343 and commanded a division at CrΓ©cy in 1346 at the age of sixteen. Ten years later at Poitiers he captured John II of France, and from 1362 he ruled the principality of Aquitaine for his father. His later campaign in Castile drained his resources and his health, and he returned to England in 1371. He married his cousin Joan of Kent and died in 1376, a year before his father, so the crown passed instead to his young son Richard II.

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Lionel of Antwerp

Gen 7 Β· 1338 - 1368

Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, was the second surviving son of Edward III and Philippa of Hainault, born at Antwerp in 1338 while his parents were in the Low Countries. Through his marriage as a boy to Elizabeth de Burgh he became Earl of Ulster and one of the greatest landholders in Ireland, and in 1361 Edward III sent him there as lieutenant; the parliament he held at Kilkenny in 1366 produced the Statutes of Kilkenny. Created Duke of Clarence in 1362, he travelled to Italy in 1368 for a second marriage and died at Alba a few months later. His only child, Philippa, carried his line to the Mortimer earls of March and, through them, to the house of York.

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Henry IV of England

Gen 8 Β· 1367 - 1413

Henry IV was King of England from 1399 to 1413 and the first monarch of the house of Lancaster. Born at Bolingbroke Castle in 1367, the son of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster, he was one of the Lords Appellant who curbed Richard II in 1388 and was later exiled, his inheritance seized. He returned in 1399, deposed his cousin Richard and was accepted as king by parliament. His reign was spent defending that title against the revolt of Owain Glyndwr in Wales, the Percy risings in the north and repeated conspiracies, and against a persistent shortage of money. He was the first king since the Norman Conquest whose first language was English. He died at Westminster in 1413.

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Richard II of England

Gen 8 Β· 1367 - 1400

Richard II was King of England from 1377 to 1399, the son of Edward the Black Prince and Joan of Kent. Born at Bordeaux in 1367, he succeeded his grandfather Edward III at the age of ten and faced the Peasants' Revolt at fourteen, riding out to meet the rebels at Smithfield. His adult rule was marked by struggles with the Lords Appellant, who curbed his power in 1388, and by a later reassertion of royal authority that his opponents called tyranny. A notable patron of art and architecture, he rebuilt the roof of Westminster Hall. In 1399 he was deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke, who took the throne as Henry IV, and he died at Pontefract Castle early in 1400.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Who were Edward IV of England's parents?+

Edward IV of England's recorded parents are Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, Cecily Neville.

Who were Edward IV of England's children?+

Edward IV of England has 3 recorded children: Edward V of England, Richard of Shrewsbury, Elizabeth of York.

Who did Edward IV of England marry?+

Edward IV of England married Elizabeth Woodville.

Who were Edward IV of England's siblings?+

Edward IV of England has 2 recorded siblings: George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, Richard III of England.

What did Edward IV of England do?+

Edward IV of England is recorded as King of England in the Plantagenet family tree.

Where was Edward IV of England from?+

Edward IV of England's recorded native place is Rouen, France.

How many relatives of Edward IV of England are recorded?+

23 ancestors and 3 descendants of Edward IV of England are recorded so far, within a tree of 50 people.

What family tree does Edward IV of England belong to?+

Edward IV of England is recorded in the Plantagenet family tree on My rOoOts, alongside 49 other people.

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