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Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England episode 187, Edward the Phil.

First of all just to remind you that I am a proud member of the Agora Podcast Network, a group of independent minded folk who like a bit of a cast now and again.

You can find out more at agorapodcastnetwork.com and this month our featured podcast is The Renaissance English History Podcast by Heather Tesco.

Social History, Music, The Arts, with a bit of our modern and wild and iron industry threatening for fun, The Renaissance English History Podcast is the uncreatively named podcast that can't seem to get out of the 16th century.

And hang on at the end, I've got some news about a bit of fun I thought us History of Englanders should have.

Oh and don't forget to go to the website, thehistoryofingland.com, there's a timeline of all today's events that I'm sure you'll like and it took me ages to do, so go have a look at that.

Okay then, last week Edward the Fourth popped his clogs.

All rather surprisingly as it happens he was only 40 years old, no one expected him to die for quite a while yet, past his or no past his, got the size of a compost heap or not.

Really it was most thoughtless of him to do such thing, but then actually England, unlike France, has a pretty good record of dealing with minorities.

If you look back to Henry III and the rock William Marshall for example, or to Henry VI and his Royal uncles, and compared to those situations things looked pretty rosy.

Not only was Edward the VII, which is just a stone's throw away from his majority really, but the King's loyal brother the Duke of Gloucester was at hand, to become protector of the realm, which indeed seemed to have been Edward's last wishes.

Not all the players were at hand in London however, the main event himself Edward was in Ludlow in Shropshire, some days journey away.

Although there had been a rumour of Edward's death earlier in York, Richard of Gloucester first heard for sure when a messenger clattered into his castle at Middleton in the north of England somewhere around mid-April, Edward had died on the 9th of April.

The message came from William Hastings, the King's right hand man, it said,

The King has left all to your protection, goods, air, realm, secure the person of our sovereign lord Edward V and get you to London. Or worse to that effect.

So Gloucester took himself to his beloved York for a funeral ceremony, and there he was the first to pledge his allegiance to the New Yorkist King, the 12-year-old Edward.

But even a grieving brother had to bear attention to the affairs of state, and so he wrote to the royal council stating his claim to be recognised as protector.

But at the same time he expressed his consolation for the Queen Elizabeth Woodville and for her loss, and told her that he was preparing himself and guarding his loins to do his duty, that his fealty to Edward V demanded.

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