King Edward IV was born in Rouen to the 3rd Duke of York under suspicion of being illegitimate. Richard of York had a strong geneaological claim on the throne against Henry VI and the Wars of the Roses broke out. By the time Edward was nineteen, his father and older brother had been killed and Edward marched on London and took the crown. In 1464, Edward married Elizabeth Woodville, a Lancastrian sympathiser, polarising his supporters.However, they were happily married for seventeen years. Edward IV was profligate after the Wars and died of food-poisoning
