Edward was the eldest surviving son of Richard, duke of York, by Cicely, daughter of Ralph Neville, earl of Westmorland. His father was descended from two sons of the 14th-century king Edward III and, in the 1450s, led a revolt against Henry VI; (Henry VI) in 1460, Richard's supporters declared him Henry's successor. When his father was killed in December of that year, Edward gathered an army in Wales and defeated Henry's supporters (called Lancastrians because of Henry's descent from John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster). Edward was crowned as King Edward IV in London on June 28, 1461.

Edward at this time showed little promise. He owed his throne largely to his cousin Richard Neville, earl of Warwick (Warwick, Richard Neville, 1st earl of, 2nd earl of Salisbury), who was in the first years of Edward's reign the most powerful man in England. Warwick crushed Lancastrian resistance in the far north of England between 1462 and 1464 and conducted England's diplomacy. Edward, however, was winning many friends (especially in London) by his comeliness and charm and was determined to assert his independence. On May 1, 1464, he secretly married a young widow, Elizabeth Woodville (Woodville, Elizabeth), of no great rank, offending Warwick and other Yorkist nobles who were planning to marry him to a French princess. By showering favours on Elizabeth's two sons by her first husband and on her five brothers and her seven sisters, Edward began to build up a group of magnates who would be a counterpoise to the Nevilles. Gradually Warwick lost all influence at court, and when he was negotiating an alliance with France, Edward humiliated him by revealing that he had already concluded an alliance (1467) with France's enemy Burgundy. Edward's sister Margaret was married in July 1468 with great pomp to Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy, and the brothers-in-law planned a joint invasion of France.

Warwick, in a countermove encouraged by Louis XI of France, seized Edward and made him a prisoner in July 1469. But Edward had by now too many supporters (especially in London) for him to be kept under tutelage for long. He regained his freedom in October; Warwick fled to France, allied himself with the Lancastrians and with Louis, and invaded England in September 1470.

Surprised, Edward fled with a few faithful supporters to the Netherlands in October. Aided by Charles of Burgundy, he and his brother, Richard, duke of Gloucester, returned to England in March 1471. Taking London, he defeated and killed Warwick at Barnet (Barnet, Battle of) on April 14. On the same day, Queen Margaret (Margaret of Anjou) (Henry VI's wife) belatedly landed in Dorset from France with her only son, Edward, prince of Wales. Her advisers hoped to gain Lancastrian support in Wales, and it became a race for time between Edward IV's forces and hers as to whether she could get there before he overtook her. At Tewkesbury (Tewkesbury, Battle of), after some remarkable forced marches (one of more than 40 miles at a stretch), he caught up with her army on May 4. There he won another crushing victory. Nearly all the remaining Lancastrian leaders were killed on the field or executed afterward, and, after murdering Henry (May 21–22) and repelling an attack on London, Edward was secure for the remainder of his life.

He was now able to revive the project of an invasion of France in concert with the Duke of Burgundy. He made great preparations in 1474 and obtained a large grant from Parliament. In 1475 he invaded France with the largest army, it was said, that had ever left England, but he found the Duke of Burgundy very ill-prepared and the French formidable and willing to buy him out. Hence the Treaty of Picquigny was made by which Edward agreed to withdraw from France in return for 75,000 gold crowns down and a pension of 50,000 gold crowns a year. These sums helped to free Edward from dependence on parliamentary grants. As he grew older, he showed considerable ingenuity in raising money by reviving obsolescent rights and using doubtfully legal devices. Commercial treaties with France (1475), Burgundy (1468), and the Hanseatic League (1474) combined with external peace and growing internal order to revive trade strikingly after 1475, and this benefitted the customs duties and other revenues. Edward became a trader himself, transporting goods in his own ships and those of foreign merchants. He began a reorganization of the revenues from the crown estates, experimenting with methods of improving yields and promoting more efficient auditing under officials of the flexible royal household treasury instead of the unadaptable Exchequer. These and other measures enabled him to leave behind a fortune; some of his improved financial administration was continued and developed by his successors Richard III and Henry VII.

The last decade of Edward's reign also saw an improvement in law enforcement. One especially disturbed area was Wales and the Welsh marches; Edward used the royal estates there as a foundation on which to base a council that acted in the name of his infant heir, the Prince of Wales, and employed the royal prerogative to make a start in repressing disorder. It was the forerunner of the council of Wales and the marches that subjugated the area to English rule.

Modern research has emphasized these administrative achievements of Edward IV, and contemporary and Tudor historians viewed his later years as a time of prosperity and success. He rebuilt St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and collected illuminated Flemish manuscripts. He was also a friend and patron of the printer William Caxton, and his book collection became the foundation of the Old Royal Library, later one of the glories of the British Museum.

Edward's promiscuity enabled Richard of Gloucester, after his death, to question the validity of his marriage and so to ruin his sons. As a young man Edward had been trustful and openhanded, but his experiences made him increasingly suspicious, leading him in 1478 to execute his brother George, duke of Clarence (Clarence, George Plantagenet, duke of), who in former years had sided with Warwick against him. In 1482, Louis XI, in order to come to terms with the rulers of Burgundy, tacitly repudiated the Treaty of Picquigny and the annual tribute that it provided. Edward contemplated a fresh invasion of France, but before it could be carried out he fell ill and died at the age of only 40. By Elizabeth Woodville he had seven children who survived him: two sons, Edward (afterward Edward V) and Richard, duke of York, who were probably murdered in the Tower of London in August 1483, and five daughters, of whom the eldest, Elizabeth, married Henry VII.