WI: Edward IV assassinated after Tewkesbury

[Euphemios]

YORK: Bring forth the gallant, let us hear the boy speak.
SOLDIER: At once, milord.
YORK: ...How is it that such a young thorn can begin to prick?
― What instigates a vassal to bear arms, stir up my subjects, and cause all this trouble for me?
LANCASTER: Speak like a subject, York.
― Truly, for what would an oath-breaker have me answer?
GLOUCESTER: By heaven, brat, I will plague you for that word.
ANJOU: My, you were born to be a plague, were you not?
GLOUCESTER: Urgh, take away the blasted wench!
LANCASTER: Nay, rather, take away this accursed crookback.
CLARENCE: What audacity, simple lad.
YORK: Still your tongue, boy, for a severed sheet is looking to be one replacement.
LANCASTER: I know my duty, and you know naught.
― Rabid March, perjuring turncoat, hound-brain Wigmore.
― What instigated me, This Highness asks, and I shall answer.
― It was all at thine instigation, for I thou thee, thou traitor.
Stabs him.

Now, though Shakespeare liked the idea and wrote it in, we know that no meeting of any kind occurred at all, and that the royal heir probably died in battle, but what if he had personally killed York?
The immediate consequence, I should suppose, is that he is killed as in the play. Is one year old Edward V crowned, or does Richard seize the throne regardless?
He still has to contend with Clarence, though I know not whether he would be a threat.
Henry VI most likely suffers execution as historically, but is there any chance for him if a Yorkist rift materialises?
What happens with Margaret under Richard's protectorate or reign?

 

[Tyler96]

Highly unstable regency council in which the Woodvilles, Richard, Hastings and other Yorkist stalwarts are uneasy allies trying to mitigate the threat of Clarence?

Clarence, in turn, feels snubbed- especially if he Richard still marries Anne and they get into a kerfuffle over the Neville inheritance- and probably starts ineptly plotting with other discontents (...Buckingham?). Rumour-mongering re: Edward IV being a bastard, or Edward V being a bastard by virtue of the alleged Talbot precontract would feature prominently in such plotting. He also has a tenuous claim to being the next Lancastrian heir- part of his collaboration with the Lancastrians involved him being named next-in-line after Edward of Westminster- but I'm not sure anyone would take that seriously.

I can't see Richard seizing the throne here. There's no even halfway reasonable legal justification for it, he's a kid who has only just proven himself, and he has nothing like his 1483 powerbase. Discord between him and the Woodvilles could arise down the line once Clarence does something stupid and gets himself killed, though.

 

[Deleted member 147978]

Westminster would be heralded by the Lancastrians as the "Princeling to took down Edward IV with him into death."

As for the Regency, just like Tyler96 said, it's no going to be pretty stable if Clarence and Gloucester are both alive notwithstanding the Wydeville family. Expect chaotic events in the regency.

 

[Euphemios]

Discord between him and the Woodvilles could arise down the line once Clarence does something stupid and gets himself killed, though.

What, specifically, could this stupidity be? An outright insurrection, or perhaps some foreign adventure?

 

[Tyler96]

What, specifically, could this stupidity be? An outright insurrection, or perhaps some foreign adventure?

Just being too loud about his opinions re: Edward IV or Edward V being bastards could be sufficient, or getting too violent in the course of some provincial dispute with someone who has friends at court.

Woodvilles could even organise something of a frame-up.