The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [178]
On Friday, 26 June, Edward IV was conducted by the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London to the Tower, where custom decreed he must spend a night prior to his coronation. There he created twenty-eight Knights of the Bath, among them his brothers George and Richard, and a further five the following morning. These knights, clad in gowns of blue with white silk hoods on their shoulders, like those worn by priests, then preceded him in a grand procession through the streets of the city to the Palace of Westminster, there to lodge the night before his coronation.
On the morning of Sunday, 28 June 1461 Edward issued a proclamation promising his subjects good and just government, and condemning ‘the oppression of the people, the manslaughter, extortion, perjury and robbery amongst them, the very decay of merchandise wherein rested the prosperity of the subjects’ that had characterised Lancastrian rule. This touched a sensitive nerve in the London merchants, who had suffered much under Edward’s predecessor.
Before leaving the palace, Edward created his brother George, then twelve, Duke of Clarence: later that same year he would be made a Knight of the Garter. The King’s youngest brother, Richard, was just eight, and would for a time remain under their mother’s care.
That Sunday, Edward was crowned in Westminster Abbey in a ceremony of great splendour, amidst public acclaim. ‘I am unable to declare how well the commons love and adore him, as if he were their god,’ wrote one London merchant. ‘The entire kingdom keeps holiday for the event, which seems a boon from above. Thus far he appears to be a just prince, and to mean to mend and organise matters otherwise than has been done hitherto.’
On the 29th, the King went again to Westminster Abbey to give thanks, and on the following day to St Paul’s Cathedral to attend its 800th centenary celebrations and be entertained by a series of elaborate pageants. Everywhere he received an ecstatic welcome. It was obvious to the Londoners that he had the makings of a great ruler: at the very least, he was a considerable improvement on Henry VI.
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‘A Person Well Worthy To Be King’
Unlike Henry VI, Edward looked every inch a king. Sir Thomas More called him ‘princely to behold, of body mighty, strong and clean made’. Polydore Vergil, who, like More, never saw him but relied on descriptions given by those who had, described him as ‘very tall of personage, exceeding the stature almost of all others, of comely visage, pleasant look, [and] broad breasted’. In 1789, when Edward’s skeleton was found by workmen repaving the choir in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, it was discovered to be over 6’3″ long, and still had wisps of golden-brown hair adhering to the skull.
Commines remembered Edward in youth as ‘the handsomest prince my eyes ever beheld’. In November 1461 the Speaker of the Commons, Sir James Strangeways, addressing the King in Parliament, referred to ‘the beauty of personage that it hath pleased Almighty God to send you’. Edward was aware of the effect that his good looks had on people, and enjoyed showing off, wearing magnificent and daringly cut clothes that revealed his fine, well-proportioned physique to onlookers. By the standards of his day he was very clean, having his head, legs and feet washed every Saturday night, and sometimes more often. But he loved food and drink to excess, and in later years would even take an emetic so as to be able to gorge once more. Predictably, he steadily gained weight