English Royalty. Earl of Warwick. Born at Warwick Castle, Warwickshire, England, the only surviving son of Isabel Neville and George, 1st Duke of Clarence. He was nephew to both Edward IV and Richard III. He was orphaned by the age of 3, after the execution of his father. He succeeded as the Earl of Salisbury in and Earl of Warwick by 1478. Under Richard III, the death of his cousin left him heir presumptive to his uncle's throne for a time, although his potential claim to the throne was questioned, due to the attainder of his father. Eventually, he was set aside and John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, was named Richard's heir. With the the death of Richard, and the coming of a new dynasty, however, the ten year old was precariously placed. As a potential focus for rebellion, he was apprehended by Henry VII and place in custody in the Tower, his education never progressed past that point, and his human contact was limited to his guards; such deprivation later leading to speculations of simple-mindedness. In 1487, Yorkist sympathizers put forward the impostor, Lambert Simnel, as Edward, Earl of Warwick, and had him crowned 'Edward VI' in Dublin in May of that year. Henry VII responded by producing the real Edward from his prison in the Tower, and parading him through London. The rebellion was defeated a month later and Edward returned to his cell. A second pretender, Perkin Warbeck, cultivated a belief that he was Richard, the younger son of King Edward IV. Eventually, he too, was captured and imprisoned in the Tower, where he tried to bribe his jailers, hatched a plot to escape from the Tower, and apparently persuaded Edward to join him in the attempt, which seemed to include flight to the continent where they would raise support in order to place Edward on the throne in place of Henry. Scholars debate whether Edward actually understood what was going, but agree that his continued existence had become inconvenient to the usurping dynasty, who immediately charged both Warbeck and Warwick with treason. Edward was executed at the age of 24, the last direct male line descendant of the Plantagenet dynasty.