King Edward fencing short, timid eastern ruler (5)
I believe the answer is:
emeer
'eastern ruler' is the definition.
'king edward fencing short timid' is the wordplay.
'king edward' becomes 'er' (abbreviation for Eduardus Rex).
'fencing' means one lot of letters goes inside another (to fence can mean to contain or put a limit round).
'short' means to remove the last letter.
'timid' becomes 'meek' (I've seen this before).
'meek' with its last letter taken off is 'mee'.
'er' going around 'mee' is 'EMEER'.
(Other definitions for emeer that I've seen before include "Leader of Arabs" , "Arabic title" , "independent ruler" , "Meryl -, US actress" , "Islamic governor" .)