The House of Warwick

If in 1471, Edward IV had met and defeated the Lancastrian forces of the Prince of Wales and killed said Prince as at Tewkesbury in OTL before fighting Warwick the Kingmaker could Warwick have beaten Edward IV?
If so, with both the Prince of Wales and Edward IV dead or at least deposed would Warwick have put himself on the throne?
 
Edward defeated Warwick before killing Prince of Lancaster. It is possible that had Warwick defeated Edward IV, you would have an Lancasterian Royal Family related to the Kingmaker
 
Was what I was thinking. I knew I'd have to change the order of the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury for this to happen.
Would Gloucester have been a credible leader for the Yorkists?
 
The Lancastrian's would have been in disarray if the Prince died before Warwick The Lancastrian Plantagenet succession after the Prince was complicated, disputed and foreign - the Beaufort claim was dubious and technically rested with a woman and the other claimants were the Royal House of Portugal - given that the Lancastrian claim was based on the superiority of direct male line descent it would have been hard to push forward- meanwhile Edward of York's wife has just given birth to a male heir in the Tower.
Edward in his first reign had tended to be rather kind to erstwhile Lancastrian nobles and many of them would have probably deserted Warwick.
 
Considering all the problems of the long minority of Henry VI would nobles have been willing to back an infants claim to the throne when a grown man had the army needed to take it?
Or would Glouscester have taken the helm for his nephew much as he did later on in OTL or as Talbot had done earlier in the 15th century?
 
Gloucester at this time was still untested and the least well known of the york brothers - you actually have the likelihood of George of Clarence declaring himself regent for the infant Edward VI or more likely declaring himself the lawful King as George I. You have no obvious Lancastrian heir and a disputed Yorkist succession. Regency's were dreadful for foreign relations because a country was perceived as being divided and weak - but domestically a regency gave the nobility greater opportunities than a strong adult on the throne - i suspect that many nobles on both sides would seize the opportunity and declare the prince in the tower the only rightful heir.
 
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