A VINTAGE CARTOON OF EDWARD IV

I seem to collect pictures of Edward IV. He’s quite searchable online and has many various portraits come up, ranging from small illuminations in manuscripts to copies of copies of copies. They range from the sublime to ridiculous, as they rather do with Richard, but there are a lot more of them, as one might expect.

My latest discovery is probably my favourite–as it’s a cartoon. I believe it might have come from that old classic of the classroom, LOOK AND LEARN.

In it Edward stands, big-headed and wearing outlandishly long-toed shoes, with the barrel in which George of Clarence was drowned looming behind him. It even has Clarence’s name on it.

That interests me as it shows that the illustrator was aware that only ONE person was responsible for Clarence’s death…and that was Edward. (No sign in this drawing of Shakespeare‘s Evil Richard lurking while ancient duffer Edward, portrayed as elderly and dithering, is fooled into killing George!)