Page "Edward IV of England" Paragraph 10

When Edward returned to England with a relatively small force, he avoided capture.

The city of York only opened its gates to him after he promised that he had just come to reclaim his dukedom-just as Henry Bolingbroke had done seventy years earlier.

As he marched southwards he began to gather support, and Clarence ( who had realised that his fortunes would be better off as brother to a king than under Henry VI ) reunited with him.

Edward entered London unopposed, where he took Henry VI prisoner.

Edward and his brothers then defeated Warwick at the Battle of Barnet, and with Warwick dead he eliminated the remaining Lancastrian resistance at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.

The Lancastrian heir, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, was killed on the battlefield.

A few days later, on the night that Edward re-entered London, Henry VI died.

One contemporary chronicle claimed that his death was due to " melancholy ," but it is widely suspected that Edward ordered Henry's murder in order to completely remove the Lancastrian opposition.