Edward IV

Edward IV is presented in Thomas Paine’s argument against hereditary monarchy as a central participant in the struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster. His changing fortunes—captor, prisoner, fugitive, and restored king—illustrate how a contest over dynastic succession could overturn political power repeatedly rather than preserve peace.

Role in the Dynastic Conflict

Paine places Edward within a prolonged contest for the English crown between the houses of York and Lancaster. The struggle, which began during the reign of Henry VI, involved twelve pitched battles as well as skirmishes and sieges. Paine describes its causes as personal and dynastic, making the fighting an example of the disorder he attributes to monarchy and hereditary succession.

Edward’s position was never secure. He twice held Henry VI prisoner, but was himself later taken by Henry. These reversals make their conflict more than a straightforward account of one claimant’s victory: each king could become the other’s captive, and control of the crown shifted with the fortunes of the struggle.

Reversals of Power

Paine emphasizes the abruptness of Edward’s changes in fortune. Henry was carried from prison to a palace in triumph, while Edward had to flee from his palace to a foreign land. The opposing movements—from confinement to royal restoration, and from royal residence to exile—show how quickly apparent victory could be undone.

Edward was subsequently recalled to the throne after Henry was driven from it. Paine adds that Parliament followed the stronger side, presenting political allegiance as responsive to whichever claimant held the advantage rather than as a stable check on the conflict. Edward’s restoration therefore did not resolve the underlying struggle; it marked another turn in it.

Historical and Political Significance

Paine uses Edward’s reversals as evidence against the claim that hereditary succession prevents civil war. He argues that the English record contradicts that defense: thirty kings and two minors had reigned since the Norman Conquest, amid eight civil wars and nineteen rebellions, including the Revolution. The York–Lancaster conflict supplies a particularly extended example of the instability contained within dynastic rule.

The struggle began in Henry VI’s reign and was not fully extinguished until Henry VII, through whom the rival families were united. Paine dates the span from 1422 to 1489, a period of sixty-seven years. Edward’s successive victories, captivity, flight, and restoration thus belong to a conflict that outlasted his own changes of fortune and ended only with the later union of the houses. In Paine’s account, his history is not an independent character portrait but a political example: the crown could change hands repeatedly while succession continued to generate the very disorder it was supposed to avert.