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King Edward IV is the older brother of Richard and Clarence, and the king of England at the start of the play. Early in the text, we learn that he was a key player in the Yorks’ brutal overthrow of the Lancaster regime. However, by the time that readers meet King Edward IV, an illness has rendered him weak and impressionable. Richard III takes advantage of his older brother’s declining health and poisons him against their brother Clarence so that Richard himself will be one step closer to the throne. Edward sees the error of his ways too late, and his insurmountable guilt over Clarence’s death causes his health to take a turn for the worse. When he dies, he leaves behind a convenient vacancy with which Richard III is able to seize control of the monarchy. Richard uses the existence of Edward’s well-known mistress, Jane Shore, to attempt to create rumors about the legitimacy of the princes, to “infer the bastardy of Edward’s children” and “urge his hateful luxury and bestial appetite in change of lust,” in 3.5.
One gets the sense that, following the overthrow of the Lancasters, King Edward IV strongly desired peace. He demands the warring factions resolve their differences in his royal court right before he dies in 2.1, an action that is essential to our understanding of his character; as a dying man, he summons enough energy to attempt to ensure there will be peace after he is gone. However, the fact that he dies believing this will be so emphasizes the extent to which Richard has fooled him. Perhaps the most important indicator of Edward's character occurs when he learns that Clarence has been killed (on Richard’s orders, though Edward remains unaware of this). Consumed with guilt that he was too late to stop the execution, he delivers a lengthy and touching monologue in which he praises Clarence and condemns himself and his court for not thinking of “brotherhood” or “love” before arresting him (2.1.109). King Edward IV is characterized as the antithesis of the ambitious, decisive, and conniving Richard; where Edward clearly seeks peace, Richard generates strife and wants only power.
