The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [168]
Parliament was in session at this time, and therefore Edward must be seen to be elected king by the will of the people, whose assent would be expressed by their public acclamation of him. Evidence of such acclamation had already been displayed at St John’s Fields, and on 3 March the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Salisbury and Exeter, Warwick, Norfolk, Lord FitzWalter and other peers held a council at Baynard’s Castle, which resulted in all the magnates there present agreeing that Edward should be offered the throne. On the following day a deputation of lords and commons, led by Warwick, went to Baynard’s Castle and presented a petition to him, begging him to accept the crown and royal dignity of England, while outside a crowd of Londoners was crying, ‘King Edward! God save King Edward!’ and begging him to ‘avenge us on King Henry and his wife’. Edward graciously acceded to the lords’ petition and was shortly afterwards proclaimed King Edward IV at Baynard’s Castle.
Edward IV was not a usurper, as Henry IV had been, but the rightful heir to the crown of the Plantagenets legitimately restored to the throne sixty-two years after it had been usurped by the House of Lancaster. Yet although his claim to the throne had been acknowledged by the Lords in Parliament as superior to that of Henry VI, what really determined the issue was the fact that he was in control of the capital and had the military advantage over the Lancastrians. He had become king thanks to the efforts of a small group of magnates headed by Warwick, who had seen that the only way to maintain his position was to uphold the Yorkist claim.
On the day of his accession London’s leading citizens were summoned to St Paul’s, where they enthusiastically acclaimed their new sovereign when he arrived there after being proclaimed king. In the cathedral he made a thanksgiving offering to God, and then, at the invitation of the Lord Chancellor, went in procession to Westminster Hall where he took the oath required of a new monarch. Afterwards, attired in royal robes and a cap of estate, he was enthroned upon the King’s Bench, to the cheers of the assembled lords, who then escorted him past huge crowds, waving and cheering, to Westminster Abbey, where the abbot and monks presented him with the crown and sceptre of St Edward the Confessor. He made more offerings at the high altar and at the Confessor’s shrine before returning to the choir and mounting the coronation chair, which had been hastily placed there. He addressed the congregation, asserting his right to the crown. When he had finished speaking, the lords asked the people if they would have Edward for their king, at which they cried that they indeed took him for their lawful king. The magnates knelt one by one before him and paid homage, placing their hands between his, and afterwards the Abbey was filled with the glorious sound of a Te Deum: at its conclusion the King made yet more offerings before leaving the church and proceeding to the landing stage at the Palace of Westminster, where he boarded a boat which took him back to Baynard’s Castle.
Later that day his councillors came with plans for his formal coronation, but Edward vowed that he would not be crowned until Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou had been taken and executed or driven into exile. In his speech in Westminster Abbey Edward had declared that Henry had forfeited his right to the throne