Edward I of England

gigatos | June 4, 2022

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Summary

Edward I, English Edward I, also Edward Longshanks (Edward Longlegs) and Hammer of the Scots, († July 7, 1307 at Burgh by Sands), was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1272 until his death. He was commonly referred to as Lord Edward until the time of his coronation as English king. As the first son of Henry III, Edward was involved from childhood in the political intrigues during his father”s reign, including the open revolt of the English barons. In 1259, Edward briefly joined the barons” rebellious movement for reform, which the Oxford Terms supported. After reconciling with his father, he remained loyal to him throughout the rest of the ensuing armed conflict, which became known as the Second War of the Barons. After defeat at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, Edward became a hostage of the rebellious barons, but escaped a few months later and subsequently joined the war against Simon de Montfort. After Montfort”s death at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, the rebellion died out. After peace returned to England, Edward joined the Seventh Crusade and went to the Holy Land (although many historians single out Edward”s campaign as a separate crusade. In English and French literature, it is listed as a separate enterprise and counted here as the Ninth Crusade). In 1272, when Edward was on his way home, he was informed that his father had died. In 1274 he reached England and was crowned in Westminster Abbey on August 19, 1274. Through a series of reforms and new laws, he strengthened royal authority over the barons. In two campaigns by 1283, he conquered Wales, which until then had been largely autonomous. Although his attempt to subject the hitherto independent kingdom of Scotland to his direct suzerainty from 1290 onward failed, he is considered one of England”s great medieval monarchs. Edward I died in 1307 during another campaign in Scotland, leaving his son and heir Edward II many financial and political problems, including the ongoing war with Scotland.

By the standards of the time (at a height of 1.88 m), Eduard was a very tall man, for which he was nicknamed “Longlegs”. Due to his tall stature and temperament, he made a fearsome impression on others. His subjects respected him for fulfilling the ideals of a medieval king as a soldier, ruler and believer, but others criticized him for his uncompromising attitude towards the titled nobility.

Edward I was not the first English king of this name, but it was only after the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by William the Conqueror that the French tradition of numbering king names of the same name was also introduced in England. Therefore, the Anglo-Saxon monarchs Edward the Elder, Edward the Martyr and Edward the Confessor are not counted in today”s chronology either.

Edward I was born in the Palace of Westminster on the night of June 17-18, 1239, the son of Henry III, King of England, and his wife Eleanor of Provence, and descended from the Anglo-Norman ruling dynasty of Anjou-Plantagenet. Edward is a name of Anglo-Saxon origin and was not commonly given among the aristocracy of England after the Norman Conquest, but Henry III was a particular devotee of the canonized King Edward the Confessor and decided to name his firstborn son after the saint. The birth of the heir to the throne initially caused great enthusiasm, which quickly subsided, however, when the king, who was already in financial distress at the time, declared that he demanded gifts from his subjects on the occasion of the birth. The heir to the throne was soon given his own household, where he was brought up along with other children of the high nobility, including his cousin Henry of Almain, who was one of his childhood friends. Initially Hugh Giffard was in charge of the heir to the throne until he was succeeded by Bartholomew Pecche in 1246. Henry III regularly supervised the education of his heir.

There were concerns about Edward”s health as a child, at least three times, in 1246, 1247 and 1251 the boy fell seriously ill, but nevertheless grew into a healthy and handsome young man, at a height of 188 cm he towered over most of his contemporaries and hence received his epithet “Longshanks”, meaning “long legs” or “long shins”. Historian Michael Prestwich notes that his “long arms gave him an advantage as a swordsman, long thighs one as a horseman. In youth his curly hair was blond; in maturity it darkened, and in old age it turned white. His features were marred by a drooping left eyelid (ptosis). His speeches, despite a lisp, were described as persuasive.

Also read, biographies – Ignatius of Loyola

Lord of Aquitaine, Ireland and territories in Wales and England

As heir to the throne, Edward did not have a title of his own, but was simply called Dominus Edwardus or Lord Edward. In 1254, when an invasion of Gascony, which belonged to the English king, by neighboring Castile was feared, a plan arose to marry Edward to Eleanor, a daughter of King Ferdinand III of Castile, in order to improve relations between the two kingdoms. The Castilian king, however, wished his son-in-law to already have considerable land holdings of his own, so Henry III gave his son Gascony, the Lordship of Ireland, and an extensive estate in the Welsh Marches with the Earldom of Chester as well as Stamford and Grantham as an appanage. As a result, on November 1, 1254, the wedding took place in Burgos, northern Spain. Although Edward was to administer the possessions received from his father himself, it was not until 1256 that he was given dominion over Ireland. Even after that, the king occasionally intervened in his son”s rule. Especially about the rule in Gascony, the king and Edward had different ideas. While the king pursued a conciliatory policy after the rebellion of 1253 to 1254, Edward resolutely supported the Soler family from Bordeaux, thus angering other influential families.

From his Welsh possessions, Edward earned an annual income of about £6000, but this was apparently not enough to cover his expenses, for in 1257 Edward had to sell the lucrative wardship of Robert de Ferrers for 6000 marks and borrow another £1000 from Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of Canterbury. The strict rule of Edward”s officials in Wales, who like Geoffrey de Langley pursued an enforcement of the English feudal system, led to a Welsh revolt in 1256. A campaign by the king against the rebels in north Wales in 1257 failed, so that large areas of Edward”s possessions in Wales were lost to the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd.

Also read, biographies – Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick

Involvement in the power struggles at the royal court

At the royal court at this time, there was a rivalry between Queen Eleanor”s Savoy relatives and the Lusignans, the king”s half-siblings from southwestern France, and their respective supporters. From 1254 onward, Edward was influenced politically primarily by his mother”s relatives, who included Archbishop Boniface of Savoy and, most notably, Peter of Savoy. From 1258, however, Edward”s sympathies switched to the Lusignans. He pledged his English possessions of Stamford and Grantham to William de Valence and wanted to appoint Geoffrey de Lusignan as seneschal of Gascony and his brother Guy as administrator of Île de Oléron and the Channel Islands. This promotion of the Lusignans, who were particularly unpopular in England, also lowered the popularity of the heir to the throne.

Involvement in the power struggle of the aristocratic opposition with the king

Against the unsuccessful policy of Henry III, a powerful aristocratic opposition formed in the spring of 1258, demanding a reform of the government. After the king, under pressure from the aristocratic opposition, agreed to draw up a reform program, the young heir to the throne was also forced to agree to this project, albeit with considerable reluctance. During the Parliament of Oxford in May 1258, this reform program, the so-called Provisions of Oxford, was presented. Among the main demands was that the Lusignans leave England. Edward then openly sided with the Lusignans, fleeing Oxford with them at the end of June and entrenching himself in Winchester. Only a few days later, however, they had to surrender to the militarily superior barons. While the Lusignans had to leave England, Edward swore to uphold the Provisions of Oxford on July 10. John de Balliol and Roger de Mohaut, two supporters of the noble opposition, as well as his former officials John de Grey and Stephen Longespée were subsequently to advise Edward and try to change his mind in favor of the barons. When, to this end, the new government provided by the aristocratic opposition met with increasing success, Edward”s attitude toward the reform movement changed. He surrounded himself with a new retinue of young barons, including his cousin Henry of Almain, John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey, Roger de Clifford, Roger of Leybourne, and Hamo le Strange. In March 1259, Edward officially allied himself with Richard de Clare, 5th Earl of Gloucester, one of the leaders of the noble opposition. It is possible that Edward, especially as Lord of Gascony, sought Gloucester”s support because he was among the negotiators who were to broker a peace treaty with France. When young barons in particular protested against the reform movement in October 1259, Edward replied to them that he now stood firmly by the oath he had taken at Oxford to the reform program. It is possible that at this time he was strongly influenced by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, who was married to Edward”s aunt Eleanor and who had risen to become one of the most important leaders of the aristocratic opposition.

When the king was in France from November 1259 for the recognition of the peace treaty, Edward tried to act independently in England without consulting his father. The disappointed king, who continued to secretly try to regain his power, was now convinced that his son wanted to overthrow him. When he returned to England in April 1260, he initially refused to see Edward. It was only through the mediation of his brother Richard of Cornwall and Archbishop Boniface of Savoy that the two were reconciled. Edward”s temporary quarrel with the Earl of Gloucester was also settled. Edward”s retainers Roger of Leybourne, whom he had appointed commander of Bristol Castle, and Roger de Clifford, who commanded the strategically important Three Castles Grosmont, Skenfrith and White Castle in Wales, were relieved.

After reconciliation with his father, Edward traveled to France in 1260, where he participated in several tournaments. He returned to England in the fall of 1260, but by November 1260 he was traveling again to France, where he met the exiled Lusignans. In the spring of 1261 Edward returned to England, though it briefly appeared that he would again support the barons around Gloucester and Montfort. Shortly thereafter, however, he supported his father”s policies before leaving for his dominion of Gascony in July 1261. There he succeeded in consolidating English rule and pacifying the troubled province. When he returned to England in early 1262, he accused Roger of Leybourne, whom he had appointed as administrator of his English possessions, of embezzling funds. Edward found him guilty and dismissed him from his service. This led to a break with many of the young barons who had hitherto supported him. In particular, Henry of Almain, John de Warenne and Roger de Clifford were convinced of Leybourne”s innocence and now no longer supported the heir to the throne. To prevent further embezzlement and mismanagement, Edward returned most of his lands to his father. In return, he received the protection money that English Jews had to pay to the crown for three years. Apparently, he had nevertheless fallen out of favor with his father, for shortly thereafter in 1262 he again traveled to France, where he presumably again participated in various tournaments in Senlis and elsewhere.

When Edward returned to England in the spring of 1263, he tried to contain the growing power of the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. The latter had taken advantage of the English king”s political weakness and brought large parts of Wales and the Welsh Marches under his control in a war with England. In April and May 1263, Edward led a campaign into Wales, but although he was supported by Llywelyn”s brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the expedition was unsuccessful. In addition, the king”s situation in England worsened after Simon de Montfort, who had also left England in 1261, returned in the spring of 1263. The Earl of Gloucester had died in 1262, and Montfort now became the undisputed leader of the noble opposition, which again wanted to limit the king”s rule. Edward, however, now stood resolutely on his father”s side. When he traveled to Bristol, the behavior of his retinue led the townspeople to lay siege to him at Bristol Castle. Only after Bishop Walter de Cantilupe of Worcester brokered a truce was he able to escape from the castle. To the indignation of the nobility opposition, he reinforced the garrison of Windsor Castle with foreign mercenaries. Since the king”s financial situation continued to be extremely tight, Edward unlawfully seized some of the treasures that had been deposited with the Knights Templar at the New Temple in London. When on July 16, 1263, in the face of political pressure, the king again had to give in to the demands of the opposition of the nobility, Edward continued his resistance. In August, he reestablished contact with his former supporters Henry of Almain, John de Warenne, and Roger of Leybourne and dismissed the unpopular foreign mercenaries. In October 1263, during Parliament, an attempt to reach an understanding between him and the barons failed. Edward then sacked Windsor Castle, which he had shortly before handed over to the government of the nobility opposition. Only after lengthy negotiations were the conflicting parties able to agree that they would accept an arbitration award from the French King Louis IX. Edward accompanied his father to France at the end of 1263, where Louis IX decided in favor of the English king”s position, as expected, in the Mise of Amiens in January 1264.

However, the Mise of Amiens did not end the conflict between the king and the noble opposition, but expanded it into open civil war. Edward himself was actively involved in the first battles when he tried to retake rebel-held Gloucester. When a relief army under his former ward Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby arrived to relieve the city, Edward concluded a truce. However, when Ferrers left again, Edward had the city sacked. He then moved to Northampton, where he was instrumental in the capture of the town, which was occupied by a rebel garrison. Edward then left the royal army and plundered the Earl of Derby”s estates. Now the royal troops turned on the City of London, whose citizens continued to resolutely support the rebels. Montfort moved to meet the royal troops, whereupon the Battle of Lewes took place on May 14, 1264. Edward had previously rejoined the royal army. The mounted attack of the right wing of the royal army led by him crushed the left wing of the rebel army, but afterwards his knights pursued the fleeing enemies. By the time Edward returned to the battlefield with his troops, Montfort had in the meantime defeated the main royal army. After prolonged negotiations, Edward surrendered. As a hostage for the good behavior of the king, who had also come under the control of the noble opposition, Edward was to be held until he accepted the government of the barons led by Montfort. As security, he had to hand over Bristol Castle to the government, as well as five other royal castles, for the period of five years. After that, he was officially released, but he remained under close supervision of Montfort”s supporters. In time, this supervision loosened, and when Edward took a ride in May 1265, he was able to escape his guards, which included Thomas de Clare and Henry de Montfort, at Hereford. He fled to Wigmore Castle to Roger Mortimer, an opponent of the barons” government, then joined Gilbert de Clare, the young Earl of Gloucester, who had fallen out with Montfort the previous year. They were quickly joined by the Marcher lords and other supporters of the royal party, and finally they united their army with the small contingent of John de Warenne and William de Valence, who had landed in Wales coming from French exile. Without a fight they moved into Worcester, while Gloucester Castle was captured after a fierce siege. Montfort, who had moved into the Welsh Marches with an army, allied with Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd on June 19. The royal party destroyed the bridges over the Severn, leaving Montfort cut off from further reinforcements in the Welsh Marches. One of Montfort”s sons, Simon de Montfort the Younger, reached Kenilworth Castle with his troops. In a night march from Worcester, Edward and his troops surprised the rebels camped outside the castle and routed them. He then moved to meet the elder Montfort. On August 4, 1265, Gilbert de Clare and Edward decisively defeated the rebel army under Montfort at the Battle of Evesham. What part Edward had in the triumphant victory, however, can no longer be clarified.

Even though the Battle of Evesham had decided the Second War of the Barons militarily, it could not end the war. The main reason for this was the merciless treatment of the surviving rebels, who were declared dispossessed by the victorious royal party. The so-called disinherited therefore desperately continued the rebellion. Edward himself took a hard line against the disinherited and in late 1265 led a campaign against the Isle of Axholme in Lincolnshire, where Simon de Montfort the Younger had taken refuge. Because of his military superiority, Edward was able to force Montfort to surrender at Christmas 1265. Edward then turned with Roger of Leybourne against the Cinque Ports, who surrendered to him before March 25, 1266. Thereafter, Edward proceeded against the disinherited in Hampshire. In the process, he defeated the well-known rebel Adam Gurdun, a knight, in single combat. According to legend, Edward was so impressed by Gurdun”s bravery that he returned his lands to him. In fact, Edward surrendered his prisoner to the queen, and Gurdun only regained his possessions in exchange for a large fine. In May 1266, Edward joined the siege of Kenilworth Castle, where a large number of the disinherited had entrenched themselves. However, Edward had no major part in either the siege or the drafting of the Dictum of Kenilworth, which was intended to reconcile the disinherited with the king. Even before the Kenilworth garrison surrendered in December 1266, Edward had moved to northern England, where he put an end to John de Vescy”s revolt. To redeem his land, Vescy had to pay a heavy fine of 3700 marks. Nevertheless, he reconciled with Edward and became one of his closest followers. The last rebel group was led by John de Deyville. This received support from the Earl of Gloucester, who together with the rebels occupied the City of London in April 1267. In doing so, he sought to extort better terms from the king for the disinherited. Gloucester had played a large part in the victory of the royal party in 1265, but afterwards he had received only small rewards from the king. His alliance with the disinherited meant that there was a danger that civil war could break out again. After negotiations, Gloucester finally left London while the king made concessions to the disinherited. Edward now moved against the last rebels who had retreated to the Isle of Ely. Due to the dry summer, the wetlands of the Fens were no obstacle for Edward”s troops, so the disinherited surrendered at Ely on July 11.

England after the Civil War

In order to secure the king”s position after the end of the Civil War, important measures were taken in the fall of 1267. On September 29, 1267, the Treaty of Montgomery was concluded, ending the English-Welsh War. In it, not only was Llywelyn ap Gruffydd recognized as prince of Wales, but Edward also renounced Perfeddwlad in northeast Wales, which had been captured by Llywelyn in 1256. By 1265, Edward had already surrendered his remaining Welsh possessions of Cardigan and Carmarthen to his brother Edmund. In November 1267, the Statute of Marlborough was enacted, incorporating many of the legislative reforms of the earlier aristocratic opposition. In many respects it prepared laws enacted during Edward”s reign, but again it is unclear to what extent Edward had a hand in the many provisions of the Statute of Marlborough. In fact, little is known about Edward”s role in the years following the War of the Barons, and his known actions were not always well received. He continued to have a strained relationship with the Earl of Gloucester. Among other things, the possession of Bristol was disputed between them, and when Edward had the conflict between the Marcher lords and Llywelyn ap Gruffydd investigated in 1269, he snubbed Gloucester. In 1269 he supported the harsh treatment of his former ward Robert de Ferrers, the former Earl of Derby. The latter had to accept a monstrous debt of £50,000 to Edward”s brother Edmund for his release, effectively dispossessing him. Otherwise, Edward participated in tournaments, but also took over debts that Christians had with Jewish moneylenders and recovered them at a profit. The king had endowed him with numerous estates, which included oversight of the City of London, seven royal castles and eight counties. He obviously needed the income from these estates to pay the debts he had incurred in the War of the Barons. Despite these extensive possessions and although he was often a leading participant in discussions in the Crown Council, Edward”s political influence remained limited. In place of the aging king, it was primarily the papal legate Ottobono and Edward”s uncle Richard of Cornwall who had greater political influence. Edward, on the other hand, concentrated on preparing for his crusade after taking a crusading vow in June 1268 at Ottobono”s instigation.

Also read, biographies – J. R. R. Tolkien

Edward”s crusade

Edward”s father Henry III had already taken a crusade vow in 1250, but had not yet honored it. Usually, his second son Edmund could have undertaken the crusade on his behalf. Why then also the heir to the throne Edward made a crusade vow is unclear. The pope actually saw Edward”s presence in England as necessary due to the further tense political situation after the war of the barons. Now, however, Edward was determined to lead the crusade. Possibly he wanted to escape the problems in England, possibly he also felt offended in his honor, since not only the French king, but also his sons wanted to undertake a crusade. Thus, with Edward and Edmund, even both sons of the English king wanted to set out on the crusade.

Since both funding and recruiting soldiers for the crusade was difficult after the long civil war, Edward left England in the summer of 1270 with only a relatively small army to travel to the Holy Land. However, he wanted to unite with the crusading army of the French king. However, by the time Edward and his troops reached the French army at Tunis, Louis IX of France had died of a plague that had also affected many other French soldiers. The French therefore concluded a truce on November 1 and had to retreat to Sicily, where the French broke off the crusade. Edward, on the other hand, continued his journey to Acre with his contingent in 1271. Once there, however, he realized that with his few crusaders he could do little against the militarily superior Mamelukes.

After King Hugh I of Jerusalem concluded a ten-year truce with the Mamelukes in May 1272, the English crusader army began its return journey. Edward himself remained in Acre, where he was critically wounded by an assassin in June 1272. The assassin had apparently been familiar to Edward, as he had granted him a private conversation. During the conversation, the assassin attacked Eduard with a poisoned dagger. Eduard was able to fend off the attack and kill the suspected assassin, but he was wounded in the arm in the process. How Eduard survived this injury is reported differently. The Grand Master of the Knights Templar is said to have tried in vain to heal the wound with a special stone. It is likely that the wound began to become infected and was eventually treated by an English physician who cut the affected flesh from the arm. According to a later legend, Edward”s wife Eleonore sucked the poison out of the wound; according to other accounts, Edward”s close friend Otton de Grandson did so. However, this is not mentioned in any of the contemporary sources, which report that the complaining Eleonore had to be led out of the room before the operation. On September 24, 1272, Edward finally began his journey home.

Edward”s crusade was characterized by overzealousness and simultaneous awareness of limited means. Militarily, Edward had appropriately restrained himself, but he had misjudged the cost of the crusade. The available funds lasted only until Edward”s arrival in Acre, so that thereafter he had to borrow funds from Italian merchants and other financiers. The Riccardi merchants of Lucca loaned him over £22,000 during the return voyage alone. In all, the crusade had probably cost over £100,000, making it an extremely expensive adventure through which little had been achieved militarily. Edward”s attempts to gain the support of the Mongols against the Mamelukes had been unsuccessful and his own military actions had been only pinpricks for the Mamelukes. However, the joint expedition to the Holy Land had led to close, good contacts between numerous crusaders even after the end of the crusade. Edward himself had gained the trust of a number of barons such as John de Vescy, Luke de Tany, Thomas de Clare or Roger de Clifford, who served him faithfully from then on.

During the return journey from Acre, Edward learned in Sicily that his father had died. However, instead of now quickly returning to England to take up his reign there, Edward traveled leisurely through Italy to France. On the way, he visited Pope Gregory X, who had also been in Acre before his election as pope, where Edward had met him. He then traveled on to Savoy, where he visited Count Philip I, an uncle of his mother. There he also met several English magnates who had traveled to meet their new king, including Edmund, 2nd Earl of Cornwall, and the bishops John le Breton, Nicholas of Ely, Godfrey Giffard, and Walter of Bronescombe. Edward was a guest at the new, heavily fortified castle of St-Georges-d”Espéranche, which later served as one of the models for the castles he built in Wales. On their onward journey, Peter de Châtelbelin, a son of John of Chalon, invited the English to a tournament in Chalon-sur-Saône. During this tournament, heavy fighting took place between the English and Burgundians in the Buhurt. Peter de Châtelbelin is said to have grabbed Edward”s neck in a most unchivalrous manner in order to pull him off his horse. Edward was able to fend this off and returned the favor, eventually forcing Peter to surrender not to him, but to a common knight. This little war of Chalons had no further consequences, however, and the English were able to continue their journey. At the end of July 1273, Edward reached Paris, where he paid homage to the French King Philip III for the Duchy of Aquitaine. He then traveled to Gascony, where the French barons paid homage to him as Duke of Aquitaine. When the powerful Baron Gaston de Béarn, who had originally also wanted to join the crusade, failed to appear for the homage, Edward led a swift campaign against him and captured him. It was not until late spring 1274 that Edward left Gascony. Traveling north through France, he crossed the English Channel and reached Dover on August 2, 1274. Thus, Edward had not returned to England until nearly two years after his father”s death. Nevertheless, this was the first uncontested accession to the throne since the Norman Conquest.

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Eduard as a legislator

When Edward returned to England in 1274, he first took care of the final preparations for his coronation, which took place on August 19, 1274 by Archbishop Robert Kilwardby in Westminster Abbey. A dispute arose with his brother Edmund over the latter”s role as Steward of England at the ceremony, so Edmund presumably stayed away from the coronation. There was also a dispute between the Archbishops of Canterbury and York over their primacy, which led to Archbishop Walter Giffard of York being excluded from the ceremony. The actual coronation then proceeded as planned and was accompanied by exceptionally splendid festivities. After the coronation, Edward appointed his confidant Robert Burnell as the new chancellor, in addition to appointing other new ministers and high-ranking officials. On October 11, 1274, he ordered a survey of the royal lands, which was completed before March 1275. Although only a few reports of this survey, the so-called Hundred Rolls, have survived, they attest to the large scale of the survey. However, the compilers were able to uncover fewer cases than hoped for in which barons had illegally seized royal estates and rights. Instead, numerous examples of abuse of office by officials and judges were reported, but since this had not been the reason for the capture, no judicial commissions were formed to punish these abuses. Because of the enormous volume of returns, the coverage was probably of limited use. However, the results of the Hundred Rolls were incorporated into the First Statute of Westminster enacted during Parliament in April 1275. In addition to this statute, Edward as king enacted a number of other statutes or laws, including the Statute of Gloucester in 1278, the Statute of Mortmain in 1279, the Statute of Acton Burnell in 1283, the Second Statute of Westminster in 1285, and the Statute of Winchester. In 1285 followed the Statute of Merchants, in 1290 Quia emptores as well as Quo Warranto. A major focus of these laws were rules for land ownership. The first article of the First Statute of Westminster, De donis conditionalibus, addressed the frequent complaint that the precise rules by which land tenure was granted to tenants and vassals were often disregarded. The Quia emptores, enacted in 1290, regulated that when a fief was transferred to a new fief holder, the new owner also assumed the same feudal duties as his predecessors. In addition, the law regulated the rights of tenants and protected them from unjustified seizure of their property. However, the law also strengthened the rights of landowners against recalcitrant tenants. The Second Statute of Westminster made it easier for landowners to take action against fraudulent bailiffs. The Statute of Mortmain was probably the most political law that Edward enacted. Against the background of his dispute with Archbishop Pecham, the king renewed a provision of the Provisions of Westminster, issued in 1259, under which grants of land to the church required royal approval. The treatment of debts were the subject of the Statute of Acton Burnell, which was supplemented by the Statute of Merchants. These laws enabled merchants to register their debtors. If a debtor failed to repay his debts on time, he faced imprisonment and eventual dispossession. The Second Statute of Westminster dealt with the observance of law and order and renewed the right to bear arms. For the cities, it determined who was responsible for guarding and supervising within the walls. In addition, it regulated that the Hundreds, a subdivision of the counties, were responsible for the prosecution of crimes. It also decreed that the streets should be wide and the edges free of undergrowth, so that highwaymen could not hide in them.

These numerous laws show that the king had an intense interest in legislation, and in memory of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian, who had the Corpus iuris civilis collection of laws compiled, Edward I was referred to as the English Justinian in the 19th and early 20th centuries. However, Edward obviously did not pursue the vision of fundamentally reforming the legal system. Instead, the laws he enacted were intended to supplement the complex system of common law where it seemed necessary. The extent to which the king himself was involved in the formulation of the laws cannot be traced. Based on his experience with the barons” reform efforts in the 1250s and 1260s, he certainly had a personal interest in the legislation, but he certainly left the drafting of the details to the experts in the royal chancery. The expansion of the royal central administration led to an increasing specialization of the administration. Separate from the Curia Regis, the royal council, were the major central courts, the Court of King”s Bench and the Court of Common Pleas.

Relationship with the Church and the Judiciary

After John Pecham became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1279, several conflicts arose between the king and the Primate of the English Church. Pecham announced at a synod in Reading that same year that he wanted to implement ecclesiastical reforms. In doing so, he also attacked royal officials, who were often provided with ecclesiastical benefices in lieu of a salary. In doing so, he challenged the king”s traditional right to grant ecclesiastical benefices. During the parliament in the fall of 1279, the archbishop was therefore forced to limit the scope of his reforms. Nevertheless, Pecham continued to excommunicate royal officials who held multiple benefices at the same time, in violation of canon law. Pecham”s stance was strengthened in 1281 by a council meeting at Lambeth, which decided to implement further church reforms. In a long letter to the king, Pecham pointed out to him his duty as a Christian king to protect the church in England according to the general rules of Christianity. After numerous complaints by the clergy against royal officials had already been presented to Parliament in 1280, there were further complaints in 1285, especially from clergy in the diocese of Norwich. The Crown, on the other hand, took the view that in this diocese clerical courts were illegally interfering in secular matters. However, since the king was now planning to travel to France, he instructed the royal judge Richard of Boyland in 1286 to act with special consideration toward the clergy in the diocese of Norwich.

When the king returned to England in 1289 after an absence of almost three years in France, complaints were made against numerous officials and judges. The king then appointed a commission to collect the complaints. A total of about 1000 officials and judges were accused of misdemeanors and abuse of office. The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Thomas Weyland, for example, was accused of covering up for two murderers. As a result, he fled to church asylum, from which, however, he was later forced to surrender. The king forced him to go into exile. Ralph de Hengham, Chief Justice of the King”s Bench, was also accused of misdemeanors. Numerous judges and officials were dismissed, but overall the king judged his officials rather leniently and imposed almost only fines. Hengham also later returned to favor with the king.

The conquest of Wales

By the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267, Edward had acknowledged the loss of most of his Welsh possessions. As king, however, he again had to deal with relations with the Welsh princes after his return from the Crusade in 1274. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, who had been recognized as prince of Wales in the Treaty of Montgomery, did not grasp how the political situation in England had changed after the death of Henry III. He refused to pay homage to the new king and continued to wage a border war against the Marcher lords, which is why he started building Dolforwyn Castle. To this end, he persisted with his plan to marry Eleanor, the daughter of the rebel leader Simon de Montfort. In 1274, his own brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd and Prince Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn rebelled against his supremacy in Wales. However, their revolt failed and they had to flee to England. After Llywelyn failed several times to comply with the request to pay homage to Edward I, war became inevitable.

In the fall of 1276, Edward I decided to campaign against Wales. In the summer of 1277, he mustered a feudal army of over 15,000 men, with which he moved from Chester along the coast of North Wales to Deganwy. At the same time, an English fleet landed on the island of Anglesey, where English harvesters brought in the grain harvest. Threatened by famine and facing overwhelming English military superiority, Llywelyn was forced to surrender and make far-reaching concessions in the Treaty of Aberconwy. In addition to cessions of territory, part of which Dafydd ap Gruffydd received, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was to pay a large fine of £50,000, although this was never seriously collected. Although Edward I ultimately left the Welsh prince his rank and eventually allowed him to marry Eleonor de Montfort, relations remained strained. This was mainly due to the strict English officials and judges who were active in Wales after the war and who aroused the displeasure of the Welsh. In addition, a dispute arose over the affiliation of Arwystli, which was claimed by both Prince Llywelyn and Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn.

Despite the tense situation, the English were taken by surprise when Dafydd ap Gruffydd attacked Hawarden Castle on April 21, 1282, signaling a nationwide uprising of the Welsh. Prince Llywelyn quickly assumed leadership of the revolt, which was to drive the English back out of much of Wales. In April, at a council meeting in Devizes, Edward I decided to conquer Wales completely. In doing so, the main English army was to advance once again into north Wales, while smaller armies attacked from central and from south Wales. For his army, the king drew together troops not only from England, but also from Ireland and Gascony. Once again an English fleet captured Anglesey, and by the fall of 1282 Snowdonia, the heartland of Prince Llywelyn”s realm, was surrounded by English troops. Llywelyn then made a push into mid-Wales with a small force, where he fell in the battle of Orewin Bridge. Dafydd now assumed leadership of the Welsh, but could do little against the vastly superior English, who continued their advance into Snowdonia. In April 1283 Castell y Bere was the last Welsh castle to be captured, and in June the fugitive Dafydd was captured with his last retainers. He was taken to Shrewsbury, where he was tried as a traitor and executed.

In conquered Wales, Edward I now established an English administration, which was legislated in the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284. Almost all the Welsh lords who had supported Prince Llywelyn lost their dominions, some of which Edward distributed among his English magnates. To secure his conquest, Edward expanded his castle-building program in Wales, establishing a series of boroughs to be inhabited only by Englishmen. In 1287, the Welsh lord Rhys ap Maredudd rebelled in Wales. As a Welsh lord, he had previously been on the side of the English and was therefore allowed to retain his rule after the conquest of Wales. Rhys ap Maredudd, however, did not feel adequately rewarded by the king for his support, and when he was increasingly harassed by English officials, he began an open rebellion with extensive raids in 1287. Because Rhys had sided with the English during the conquest of Wales, he received almost no support from the rest of the Welsh. Edmund of Lancaster, acting as regent for the king who was in Gascony, was therefore able to put down the rebellion easily. In September 1287 Dryslwyn Castle, the headquarters of Rhys ap Maredudd, was captured. Then, at the end of the year, the latter was able to surprisingly conquer Newcastle Emlyn, which was then recaptured in January 1288. Once again, however, Rhys was able to escape. He was not caught until 1292 and executed as a traitor.

Much more dangerous for English rule was the Welsh rebellion, which gripped large parts of Wales in 1294. High taxes, a strict English administration and massive troop deployments for the war with France led to the rebellion being supported by numerous Welshmen. The king now used his army, which he had assembled in southern England for the war with France, to put down the rebellion. Once again, the Welsh could do little against this military superiority, and the rebellion was finally put down by the summer of 1295. The king then made a triumphal tour of Wales and imposed heavy penalties on the Welsh communities. The campaign, however, cost the handsome sum of about £55,000 and delayed the dispatch of English reinforcements to southwestern France for a year.

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The reform of the royal finances 1275 to 1289

At the beginning of his reign, Edward I found himself in a difficult financial situation. His father had left him shattered finances, and Edward himself was heavily in debt to foreign bankers due to the costs of his crusade. In addition to the income from the royal estates, as king he could dispose of customs revenues, while taxes had to be approved by parliaments as needed. Therefore, starting in 1275, Edward tried to increase his revenues through several measures. In April 1275, Parliament voted to impose a duty of six shillings and eight pence on each sack of wool exported. This duty yielded about £10,000 annually. Since this was still insufficient, in October 1275 Parliament granted a tax on the fifteenth part of movable goods, which brought in over £81,000. To this end, the king took measures to improve his financial management. New regulations were enacted for the treasury, and to this end the king appointed three officials to be responsible for the administration of the royal estates in place of the local sheriffs. This measure, of course, met with resistance from the sheriffs and ultimately did not prove successful. Therefore, it was abandoned after three years. In contrast, in 1279 the English clergy granted the king a temporary tax on their income. The clergy of the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury granted him a tax of the fifteenth for three years, and the clergy of the ecclesiastical province of York granted him a tithe for two years in 1280. Since the silver coins in circulation had lost value through use and through clipping, the king decided to reform the coinage in early 1279. For this purpose, numerous foreign skilled workers were recruited and local mints were re-established. The mints remained in operation until the late 1280s, but by 1281 alone, silver coins worth at least £500,000 had been newly minted. The coinage reform proved successful, for although the new coins were slightly lighter in weight than the old coins, they traded higher in value than the previous ones. Around 1300, however, counterfeit coins were increasingly discovered, probably coming from abroad.

Despite these successes, the king”s numerous wars placed a considerable burden on the royal finances. No tax was yet levied for the first campaign against Wales in 1277, as the government did not want to impose a new tax shortly after the one levied in 1275. The Welsh revolt of 1282 was so unexpected that no parliament could be summoned to pass a tax. Therefore, the campaign was initially financed by loans of £16,500 granted to the king by the English cities. However, these loans were far from sufficient. In January 1283, regional parliaments were convened in York and Northampton, which granted the king a tax of the thirtieth. Further loans came from the banking house of Riccardi, and other Italian banks granted the king about £20,000 more. The problems of war finance fed into the Statute of Rhuddlan 1284. The statute provided for simplification of the Treasury”s accounting by not having to continually restate old loans in the Pipe Rolls. Nevertheless, the large debts forced the king to send commissioners to the counties to collect more of the king”s outstanding debts. To this end, the Court of Exchequer was to deal only with suits brought by the king and his officials and no more by nobles. These measures caused resentment among the nobility and brought in only a little money.

Another regular source of income for the king was the levies of the Jewish population, which in England was directly subject to the king. In 1275, the king had passed a law prohibiting usurious interest from Jewish moneylenders. In return, this Statute of Jewry allowed Jews to operate as merchants and as traders and, under certain circumstances, even to lease land. While the Jews had previously had to pay high taxes and had also suffered considerable financial losses as a result of the coinage reform, they were spared financially in the 1280s. However, the pope had objected to the Statute of Jewry, and in 1285 there were increasing complaints that the Jews were not complying with the law, continuing to act as moneylenders and thereby continuing to charge usurious interest. To this end, anti-Semitism was rife in England. While Edward”s wife Eleanor was actively doing business with Jews and profiting handsomely from the collection of debts she had taken on from Jews, Edward”s mother Eleanor of Provence had declared in 1275 that no Jew could live on her lands. To this end, Jews were repeatedly accused of alleged ritual murder, as in the case of Hugh of Lincoln, a youth who died in 1255. Having already expelled the Jewish population from Gascony in 1287, the king also had all Jews in England declared under arrest on May 2, 1287. The Jewish communities were to pay a fine of £12,000, but in fact little more than £4,000 was collected. Finally, on July 18, 1290, the king ordered the expulsion of the Jews from England. At that time there were about fifteen Jewish communities with about 3000 members in England. The expulsion of the Jews was generally welcomed by contemporaries, but it proceeded without much difficulty and also without pogroms. There were only isolated reports of attacks, for the king had granted the Jews safe conduct to the Cinque Ports. He had also arranged that the Jews did not have to pay too high a fee for the crossing. The king took over the Jewish property and also the debts that Christians had still owed to Jewish creditors. He was able to sell the houses for about £2000, but by expelling them he closed off a regular source of income. The role of Jewish moneylenders was taken over by Italian bankers such as the Riccardi, but they could not fill this role nationwide, nor did they pay taxes to the king. After the expulsion, Jews were allowed to live only sporadically in England. It was not until 1656 that they were allowed to settle again.

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The king”s relationship with his magnates

Edward I”s power, as with all medieval kings, depended primarily on the support of his magnates. His relationship with some magnates was consistently good, such as with Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln, who was an important friend and ally, or with barons like Roger de Clifford. With the powerful Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Gloucester, on the other hand, the king had had a tense relationship since the 1260s. Although the king was known for his lack of generosity towards the barons, numerous knights and barons nevertheless served him faithfully.

Edward tried to gain advantages from family fates, not shying away from interpreting the law of succession in his favor. He was apparently reluctant to confirm the succession of existing earldoms, nor did he create new earldoms. After the death of Aveline, heiress to the Count of Aumale in 1274, the king supported an impostor who claimed the title. To this he bought the supposed rights in return for the annual payment of only £100, thus acquiring a considerable inheritance for the crown. He exerted considerable pressure on Aveline”s mother, the widowed Countess of Devon, to sell her extensive estates to the Crown. However, it was not until she was on her deathbed in 1293 that she was persuaded by royal officials to give the Isle of Wight and other possessions to the king in return for the payment of £6000. This effectively disinherited the rightful heir, Hugh de Courtenay. Another case was the Earl of Gloucester when he married the king”s daughter Joan of Acre in 1290. Before the marriage, he had to hand over his possessions to the king and then received them back as fiefs along with his wife. His heirs were to be his children from his marriage to Joan of Acre, while his daughters from his first marriage were effectively disinherited. Edward achieved a similar arrangement in 1302, when the Earl of Hereford married the king”s daughter Elizabeth. In 1302, the Earl of Norfolk was persuaded to surrender his lands to the crown. He subsequently received them back with the condition that they be inherited strictly in male succession. Since he was already an older man and as yet childless, this meant that his lands would almost inevitably fall to the Crown rather than to his brother on his death. Also, when Alice de Lacy, a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln married Thomas of Lancaster, a nephew of the king, in 1294, the king persuaded the earl to give most of his estates to the king and have them returned as a fief for life. To this end, an agreement was made whereby the possessions would fall to the crown and not to the rightful heirs if Alice died childless. Through these agreements, the king unscrupulously circumvented the traditional right of inheritance on several occasions. However, the acquired lands did not fall to the crown estate, but the king used them to endow members of the royal family with lands.

The manipulations of the law of succession carried out by the king concerned only a few noble families. However, the review of jurisdictions he instigated between 1278 and 1290, in which landowners were required to produce written evidence, known as Writs of Quo Warranto (German with what authority), affected almost all nobles. The 1274 Hundred Roll Inquiry had found that there was often uncertainty as to whether the local jurisdiction that many magnates exercised was even justified or whether royal courts did not have jurisdiction. Initially, the king wanted to have the magnates” claims reviewed by Parliament, but before Easter 1278 it became clear that this procedure was too burdensome and therefore not appropriate. During the Parliament of Gloucester in 1278, therefore, a new procedure was adopted. Those claiming jurisdiction were to prove their claims before traveling judges. To this end, the crown could directly summon magnates to prove their claims through a quo warranto. This led to numerous lawsuits, especially for old property claims from the time of the Norman Conquest. The Quo Warranto Inquiry clarified that it was a privilege granted by the Crown to exercise local jurisdiction, but no agreement could be reached as to what evidence was generally accepted to support it. Numerous cases were adjourned by the courts, and in only a few cases did the Crown deprive magnates of the right of local jurisdiction. Thus, this process also ultimately proved ineffective. However, by refraining from consistently enforcing its claims, the crown probably avoided major conflicts with the magnates. When the king returned to England from his extended stay in Gascony in 1289, he addressed the problems of the procedure. He appointed Gilbert of Thornton, who had hitherto been one of the king”s most energetic lawyers, chief justice of the king”s bench. The latter now took over numerous proceedings that had hitherto been adjourned, and in numerous cases he did not consider even centuries of land ownership as a substitute for a missing deed confirming the right to jurisdiction. This was followed by angry protests from numerous magnates during the Easter 1290 Parliament, after which the Statute of Quo Warranto was enacted in May. In this statute, the year 1189 was set as the cut-off date. Those who did not have a deed but could prove that their ancestors had held the lands before 1189 were confirmed to have local lesser jurisdiction. Nevertheless, in 1292 crown attorneys again began to review the rights to jurisdiction of barons. Faced with the threat of war with France, in which the king needed the support of his barons, the king finally prohibited further proceedings in 1294.

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The foreign policy of Edward I until 1290

Through his crusade, Edward I had undoubtedly been able to raise his standing vis-à-vis the other European rulers. It was particularly recognized that he had stayed in the Holy Land much longer than the other leaders of the 1270 crusade, although the crusade had obviously failed militarily. Despite this failure, Edward I had long held out hope of being able to undertake a second crusade to the Holy Land. In 1287, he again took a crusading vow. His compromising foreign policy toward France must be seen in this context, for it was clear to him that he could only leave England if the security of his realm, including the possessions in southwestern France, was not threatened. However, the conflict between Charles of Anjou and the kings of Aragon over the kingdom of Sicily prevented a new crusade. Therefore, Edward I tried to mediate in the conflict in the 1280s. In 1283, he even offered that a duel could take place in Bordeaux, which was part of his possessions in France, as a judgment of God between Charles of Anjou and Peter III of Aragon, but this was never implemented. In 1286 Edward was finally able to broker a truce between France and Aragon, but it was not kept for long. In 1288, he concluded the Treaty of Canfranc with Alfonso III of Aragon, thus mediating the release of Charles II, the son and successor of Charles of Anjou, from Aragonese captivity. For the release of Charles, Edward I paid a large sum of money and provided high-ranking hostages, but ultimately there was no lasting peace between the Angevins and the kings of Aragon. Further, Edward planned marriage alliances with Navarre, Aragon, and with the German king Rudolf I of Habsburg, all of which failed for various reasons. The only marriage alliance he was able to form was with the Duchy of Brabant, whose heir John married Edward”s daughter Margaret in 1290. Edward I even hoped that the Christian Western European empires would ally with the Mongols to jointly fight the Islamic empires in the Holy Land. This idea, however, was too idealistic, far too ambitious for the time, and too far-reaching. Ultimately, Edward”s lively diplomacy and his attempt to pacify the Western European empires in order to persuade them to launch a new crusade had failed by the early 1290s. With the Muslim conquest of Acre in 1291 and the capture of the last remnants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem shortly thereafter, Edward I”s dream of a new crusade became moot.

The reign of Edward I in Gascony

Already under Edward”s father Henry III, England had become the main part of the Angevin Empire, while the remaining French possessions became secondary. During Edward”s reign, this development continued. However, Gascony had a special significance for Edward I, perhaps because he was allowed to rule there independently for the first time, albeit on a limited basis, from 1254 to 1255. In the early 1260s, he visited Gascony at least twice, perhaps even three times, and after returning from the Crusade, he first traveled to Gascony rather than England. There he had to subdue the powerful Baron Gaston de Béarn. Gaston”s daughter had married Henry of Almain, thus cementing his ties to the English kings. However, with the murder of Henry of Almain in 1271, the marriage alliance had lapsed, and Gaston now refused to appear before the court of the English seneschal of Gascony. Even when Edward I himself came to Gascony after his crusade in the autumn of 1273, Gaston refused to pay homage to him. Edward I now took restrained action against Gaston, strictly in accordance with current law, so as not to give the latter any justification to turn to the French king as overlord of Gascony. Eventually, he was able to subdue Gaston militarily, but still the legal battle continued. In fact, Gaston took advantage of Gascony”s position as a French fief and appealed to the Parlement in Paris. It was not until 1278 that an agreement was reached, and thereafter Gaston remained an obedient vassal.

During his stay in Gascony in 1274, Edward I commissioned a survey of the feudal duties of the nobility to the king as Duke of Aquitaine. This had not been completed when he traveled on to England, but it illustrates Edward”s desire to reorganize and consolidate his rule. The importance he attached to Gascony is again evident in 1278, when he sent two of his most important advisors and confidants, Chancellor Robert Burnell and Otton de Grandson, a native of Savoy, to Gascony. There they were to investigate allegations against the seneschal Luke de Tany. Tany was replaced by Jean de Grailly, a native of Savoy. In the fall of 1286, Edward again traveled to Gascony himself, where he vigorously attempted to resolve problems in the administration of the region. He had feudal duties in the Agenais investigated and granted charters to several new towns, called bastides. The Jewish population was expelled as well as land was acquired for the king. In March 1289, shortly before his return to England, Edward I issued a series of orders at Condom governing the duchy. These specified the duties and rights of the seneschal and the constable of Bordeaux, and regulated the salaries of officials. Specific regulations were issued for the individual provinces, the Saintonge, the Périgord, the Limousin, the Quercy and the Agenais, which took regional concerns into account. Due to Gascony”s position as a fief of the French king, however, Edward”s options were limited, so he did not attempt to adapt the administration of Gascony to that of his other lands. However, he was determined to improve the conditions and order of Gascony through clear rules.

Not only did the king have to mourn the death of his beloved wife Eleanor on November 28, 1290, but in 1290 the treasurer John Kirkby also died. Two years later, the longtime chancellor Robert Burnell died. As a result, the king had to appoint new members to his government, whose character changed significantly as a result.

Financial problems and controversial taxes 1290 to 1307

When Edward returned to England in August 1289 after almost three years in Gascony, he faced new financial problems. He had had to take on new debts for his stay in southwestern France, so in April 1290 he first wanted to ask Parliament to allow him to levy a feudal tax on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Joan to the Earl of Gloucester. This levy on the occasion of the marriage of the king”s eldest daughter was an old custom, but only relatively small revenues were expected. Therefore, the plan was dropped again. Instead, he summoned Parliament, including the Knights of the Shire, to Westminster for July 15 to give their consent to a tax on the fifteenth. In return, he had the Jewish population expelled from England that same year, which met with widespread approval. The tax on the fifteenth raised a handsome £116,000, plus the clergy of both ecclesiastical provinces also gave their consent to a tithe of church revenues. This gave Edward I sufficient financial leeway at first, but the costs of the war with France from 1294, of suppressing the Welsh rebellion from 1294 to 1295, and of the war with Scotland from 1296 soon exceeded the revenues again. To make matters worse, the Riccardi banking house, to whom the king owed over £392,000, was effectively bankrupt. In order to meet the costs of the wars, the parliaments approved new taxes in 1294, 1295, and 1296, but their revenues declined rapidly. When the king asked for the granting of a tax of the eighth in 1297, he met fierce resistance until he was granted the levy of a ninth in the fall. The clergy were even less accommodating. In 1294 the king squeezed half of their income from them under threat of ostracism, and in 1295 a tithe. When the king demanded a new tax from the clergy in 1296, Archbishop Robert Winchelsey refused his consent at a council in Bury St Edmunds, citing the papal bull Clericis laicos. With this bull Pope Boniface VIII had forbidden the taxation of the clergy by secular rulers, intending to hit the kings of France and England so that they would have to end the war between the two empires. Edward I, in the face of opposition, outlawed the clergy in early 1297 and collected from them fines equal to the tax he expected.

To cover further war costs, the king planned to seize English wool in 1294 and then sell it abroad himself at a profit. This led to the protest of the merchants, who feared for their income and proposed instead a duty of 40 shillings per sack, the so-called maltote. This proposal was implemented. Nevertheless, at Easter 1297, the king again ordered the seizure of wool, which, however, brought little revenue. In August, the king ordered 8000 more sacks of wool to be confiscated. Due to the strong protests, the king renounced further seizures and higher tariffs in the fall of 1297. In the last years of his reign, Edward I was forced to forgo further additional revenues. In 1301 the tax of a fifteenth and in 1306 the tax of a thirtieth and a twentieth were granted. After negotiations, in 1303 he was able to impose an additional duty of three shillings and four pence on each sack of wool exported by foreign merchants. Taxes were levied on the clergy for alleged crusades, the revenue from which the king shared with the pope. However, these revenues were not enough for the king”s increased expenses, which were mainly due to the war in Scotland. Therefore, he had to continue to borrow from Italian merchants, especially from the Frescobaldi family. Eventually, the king could no longer pay the debts he owed to numerous creditors. At his death, his debts amounted to about £200,000.

During Edward”s reign, Parliament continued to form not only as a council of the Crown Vassals, but also as a representation of the individual counties. These were summoned to the parliaments as Knights of the Shire. As a rule, these were respected landowners from the knighthood, who were nevertheless informed about local problems. In Magna Carta, kings had had to accept that they could not levy taxes without general consent. The increasing financial demands of Edward I meant that the representatives of the counties, and no longer just the crown vassals, now had to give their consent to new taxes. Although the representatives of the counties were not summoned to all parliaments, they managed to ensure that no parliament could pass new taxes to which they had not been summoned.

King”s policy towards the nobility

The king had not allowed the Quo Warranto inquiries to be held in the Welsh Marches, where he needed the support of the Marcher lords for his wars against the Welsh. However, when a conflict arose between the Earl of Gloucester and the Earl of Hereford in south Wales in early 1290, the king intervened vigorously in the jurisdiction of the Welsh Marches. The Earl of Hereford accused the Earl of Gloucester of building Morlais Castle on Hereford land. Hereford, however, did not want to resolve the conflict by negotiation or by feud, as had hitherto been the custom in the Welsh Marches, but first turned to the king. However, when Gloucester did not stop raiding Hereford”s possessions, the latter carried out retaliatory raids. The king first heard the complaints at Abergavenny in 1291 before passing judgment at Westminster in 1292. Both magnates had to submit to the king, who imposed humiliating punishments on them. He confiscated their properties and imposed heavy fines. Although their lands were soon returned to them and they did not have to pay the fines, the king clearly showed that he could prevail even against high noble magnates with old rights and privileges. The king also took action against other Marcher lords, for example against Edmund Mortimer of Wigmore in 1290, when he arbitrarily sentenced and executed a criminal instead of handing him over to the royal judges. In return, the king seized Wigmore Castle, but it was eventually returned to Mortimer. Theobald de Verdon was also deprived of his lordship of Ewyas Lacy in the same year after he defied the royal sheriff. However, his possessions were later returned to him as well. With these actions against the self-confident and also militarily influential Marcher lords, the king demonstrated strength and determination to his nobility.

When a group of magnates, led by the Earl of Arundel, refused to participate in the campaign to Gascony in 1295 because it would not be part of their duties as English vassals, the king did not try to persuade them but intimidated them. He threatened them that the treasury would collect their outstanding debts to the crown, whereupon the magnates relented. Nevertheless, the chronicler Peter Langtoft noted that Edward received little support from his magnates in some of his campaigns, especially the suppression of the uprising in Wales from 1294 to 1295 and the campaign to Flanders in 1297. Langtoft attributed this to the king”s lack of generosity. However, Edward did patronize some magnates, including his friend Thomas de Clare, to whom he generously gave Thomond in Ireland in 1276. Otton de Grandson was rewarded for his services with possessions in Ireland and the Channel Islands. After the conquest of Wales, the king gave several magnates significant estates in the conquered territories, and after the campaign against Scotland in 1298, the king granted lands in Scotland at Carlisle. In subsequent years, the king granted major Scottish possessions before they had been conquered. Bothwell he promised to Aymer de Valence in 1301, before the castle was conquered. In this way, he granted lands in Scotland to about 50 English barons by 1302.

The heavy burdens placed on the population by the wars in Wales, Scotland and against France from 1296 onward generated great opposition among the subjects. Edward attempted to gain support for his policies through parliamentary approval. In 1294, a parliament was convened, to which authorized Knights of the Shire were also summoned. In 1295, knights and burgesses were summoned to a parliament later called the Model Parliament. Here, the form of the summonses later served as a template for other summonses. In the invitations for the representatives of the clergy, the phrase What concerns all, let all agree to (Latin quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur) was used. Nevertheless, there was increasing resistance to the king”s financial demands. During the Parliament that met in Salisbury on February 24, 1297, Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk strongly criticized the king”s campaign plans to Flanders, while he was to be sent to Gascony with other magnates. The legality of military service became a major issue in the emerging crisis. With a new form of conscription of the feudal army summoned to London on May 7, 1297, military service was extended to all residents who had land holdings worth at least £20. When the muster of the troops that appeared took place, the King requested Bigod as Marshal and Humphrey de Bohun, 3rd Earl of Hereford as Constable to draw up registers of the soldiers who appeared, as if it were a normal case of feudal service. When the earls refused to do so, they were dismissed from their posts. When the king offered pay for the soldiers at the end of July, few volunteers continued to come forward. Except through the knights of the royal household, Edward found little support among the nobility for his military plans.

Complaints about military service were compounded by complaints about high taxes and the confiscation of wool and other goods by royal officials. The government requisitioned food for the army, and the king liberally interpreted the traditional right to requisition food for his household as well. This inevitably led to mismanagement and corruption, which embittered many inhabitants. In July 1297, the Monstraunces (also known as Remonstrances) were published, a letter of complaint in which the king was even suspected of enslaving the population through the high demands. At that time, the complaints were still directed against the amount of the burdens, not against their partly unlawful levying. However, when the king wanted to levy a tax of the eighth and again confiscate wool in August, a new dispute arose. The clergy, led by Archbishop Winchelsey, strongly opposed the new tax, after the king had previously threatened them with ostracism and imposed penalties equal to the taxes demanded. Nevertheless, the king managed to reconcile with Winchelsey on July 11. However, on August 20, 1297, the treasury demanded a new tax from the church. At this time, both parties tried to influence public opinion through publications. In a long letter to the archbishop dated August 12, the king defended his actions. He apologized for the heavy charges, but they were necessary to end the war quickly and successfully. After the end of the war, he promised to respond to the complaints of the population. However, he achieved little with this and had to leave for Flanders with only a small army. With civil war looming, the king”s decision to leave England was foolhardy. When the king left for his campaign on August 22, Bigod and Bohun appeared at the Treasury to prevent the collection of the Eighth”s tax and the seizure of the wool.

When news of the Scottish victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge reached London a little later, the king”s policy regained support. The demands of the king”s opponents were almost exactly the same as those that had been published in De tallagio, a series of articles that supplemented Magna Carta. In it, consent was demanded for the levying of taxes and for confiscations. Maltote was to be abolished, and those who had refused to participate in the campaign to Flanders were to be pardoned. In the absence of the king, on October 10 the Crown Council approved the Confirmatio cartarum, which was virtually a supplement to the Magna Carta of 1215. In it was assured that taxes and duties could only be levied with general consent. There were to be no exceptions even in the event of war. The Maltote was abolished. On October 12, a promise was made to persuade the king to restore the earls to their dignities. The king, who was in Flanders, must have been annoyed by the concessions, which went further than he wished, but in view of his weak military position he had no choice but to confirm the confirmatio on November 5 and pardon Bigod, Bohun and their supporters.

When the king returned from his campaign in Flanders in 1298, he ordered a nationwide investigation into corruption and abuse of office by his officials. These abuses were certainly partly responsible for the resistance to his policies, but the real cause had been the king”s insistence on his military plans against all opposition. The relationship with his magnates was henceforth strained, and the magnates feared that the king would now retract the concessions he had made. The question of investigating the boundaries of the royal forests now became a test of whether he still trusted his magnates. It was generally believed that the boundaries of the royal forests, and thus the royal forest sovereignty, had been illegally extended. The 1299 statute De finibus levatis declared that the investigation of forest boundaries would not permit any curtailment of royal rights. Reaffirmation of the forest charter would omit important rules. In 1300 the king agreed to the Articuli super Cartas, which limited royal jurisdiction, the powers of the treasury, and the use of the Privy Seal. Sheriffs were to be elected in the counties, and enforcement of Magna Carta was to be sought. However, the king made no concessions on military service, as was also requested.

During the 1301 Parliament, the dispute continued when Henry of Keighley, a Knight of the Shire from Lancashire, introduced a bill sharply criticizing the government. The king was forced to make concessions on the boundaries of the royal forests, and although he continued to make no concessions on military service, he refrained from new forms of recruitment. The last years of his reign were relatively quiet politically, although the problems of the 1290s had not yet been resolved. In 1305 he even had the Pope issue a bull declaring his concessions null and void. In 1306 he reversed the change in forest boundaries of 1301. Nevertheless, no new opposition arose, and during his last parliament at Carlisle in January 1307, the main dispute was over the implementation of a papal tax and other papal demands. However, there were other domestic problems at this time. In Durham, Bishop Antony Bek, the king”s old friend, and the monks of the cathedral priory were in a fierce dispute, whereupon the diocese was twice placed under royal administration. With Thomas of Corbridge, the archbishop of York, the king got into a violent quarrel when he wanted to fill a benefice with a royal official. The archbishop protested against this, whereupon he was rebuked by the king himself so violently that he suffered a shock and died a little later, in September 1304.

Also read, biographies – Leonardo da Vinci

The foreign policy of Edward I from 1290 onwards

In 1294 there was a war with France. This war came as a surprise to Edward I, because his relationship with the French kings had been good until then. In 1279 he had visited Paris, with Queen Eleanor paying homage to the French king for Ponthieu, which she had inherited. An agreement was reached at Amiens that settled outstanding points of contention, especially over the Agenais. When the French king Philip III called upon Edward I to serve as duke of Aquitaine in the feudal military in the Aragonese Crusade in 1285, Edward”s position became problematic. Since the campaign ultimately did not take place and the French king died shortly thereafter, Edward”s non-appearance was without consequence. In 1286, Edward paid homage to the new king, Philip IV, in Paris, so good relations were restored. The French king, however, viewed Edward as Duke of Aquitaine as an overbearing vassal who did not recognize French rule and jurisdiction. When conflicts arose between sailors from France and Gascony in 1293, Edward was to answer to the Parlement in Paris. He sent his brother Edmund of Lancaster to Paris to reach an agreement. According to a secret agreement agreed upon in 1294, Edward was to marry Margaret, a sister of the French king. Almost all of Gascony, including castles and towns, was to be given to the French, but returned a little later. In exchange, Edward”s summons to appear before the Parlement was to be revoked. However, the English negotiators were deceived. The English kept to the agreements made, but the French did not revoke the summons to appear before the Parlement, and when Edward refused to appear, Philip IV declared the fief of Gascony forfeited.

In October 1294, a first small English army set out for Gascony. They were able to occupy Bayonne, but not Bordeaux. However, Edward did not want to wage war only in southwestern France, but allied himself with the Roman-German King Adolf of Nassau and numerous West German princes in order to be able to attack France from the Netherlands. However, the uprising in Wales and the incipient Scottish War of Independence prevented Edward from quickly leading an army into the Netherlands, and without his military support, his allies were unwilling to begin the fight. After Edward subdued the Scottish king John Balliol in 1296, his negotiators managed to include the Count of Flanders in the anti-French alliance, and Edward prepared for campaign in 1297. The French king responded to this threat. In a swift campaign, he occupied almost all of Flanders, and when Edward I landed there in August 1297, the war was almost decided militarily. Given the long absence of military support from the English king, most of his allies had hesitated to go into the field against the French king, and alone with his rather small army, the English king could not hope to defeat the French army. Since the war in Gascony was also militarily undecided, England and France concluded an armistice on October 9, 1297, in which the Count of Flanders was included. Eduard was not able to leave Flanders until March 1298, after he had paid part of the promised aid to his allies and after the first revolt of the burghers had occurred in Ghent. In 1299 Edward married Margaret of France, but it was not until 1303 that the Peace of Paris was concluded, restoring the pre-war state of affairs in Gascony. For both France and England, the war was a costly failure. For Edward I, the fighting in Gascony alone had cost £360,000, and the failed campaign into Flanders had cost over £50,000. To his allies, Edward had promised about £250,000, of which about £165,000 was paid.

Probably in the autumn of 1266 Edward I had visited Scotland for the first time, when he visited his sister Margaret in Haddington. Edward had a good relationship with his brother-in-law King Alexander III of Scotland, and even the homage Alexander had to pay for his English possessions in 1278 passed without dispute. However, when Alexander III died in 1286 without surviving male descendants, Edward tried to take advantage of this opportunity. He obtained in 1290 that Alexander”s heiress and young granddaughter Margaret of Norway should be married to his own son and heir Edward. Although it was agreed in the Treaty of Northampton that Scotland should remain an independent kingdom, it appears that Edward wanted to take over actual rule in Scotland after the treaty was concluded. This plan failed in the fall of 1290 when Margaret died while crossing from Norway to Scotland. Thereupon, in addition to Robert de Brus and John Balliol, a total of eleven other claimants laid claim to the Scottish throne as descendants of Scottish kings. Edward now claimed to settle the succession as feudal overlord of Scotland. The Scottish magnates were initially unwilling to accept this, but through negotiations in May and June 1291 at Norham, Edward obtained agreement that he was entitled to do so. In November 1292, it was finally determined that John Balliol had the most legitimate claim to the Scottish throne, so he was crowned king.

After this resolution of the Great Cause, Edward made various attempts to assert his claim to suzerainty over Scotland. Finally, at Michaelmas 1293, he summoned the Scottish king, John Balliol, over a dispute with Macduff, a younger son of the 6th Earl of Fife, to appear before the English Parliament, which was to decide the case as a court of appeal. Had the Scottish king appeared, he would have recognized English suzerainty. However, Balliol sent only the Abbot of Arbroath Abbey as a representative. In 1294 Edward demanded feudal military service in the war against France from the Scottish king and eighteen other Scottish magnates in vain, but the latter did not perform it. John Balliol, however, proved to be a weak king more than anything else, so that in 1295 a twelve-member Council of State effectively took over the government of Scotland. The French, with whom England had been at war since 1294, now attempted to form an alliance with Scotland directed against England, which was finally concluded in early 1296. Edward then took the dispute with Macduff and the Scottish king”s refusal to answer to English courts as an opportunity to invade Scotland militarily.

The campaign of 1296 became a triumphant victory for the English king. At the end of March 1296, he occupied the border town of Berwick. A Scottish army was defeated at the Battle of Dunbar, after which the English met little military resistance. After 21 weeks, Scotland was seemingly conquered, and John Balliol was deposed as king under ignominious circumstances. Edward then had the Scottish coronation stone moved from Scone to Westminster and handed over the administration of the conquered country to English officials. As early as 1297, however, there was a full-scale Scottish rebellion, one of whose leaders was Robert Bruce, a grandson of one of the earlier claimants to the throne. Among the most successful opponents of the English, however, were William Wallace, who came from a family of knights, and the nobleman Andrew Murray. The rebellion was in fact a popular uprising against the English, and in September 1297 an English army under Earl Warenne was defeated at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

After Edward I returned from his campaign in Flanders, he gathered an English army of about 30,000 men for a new campaign in Scotland. On July 22, 1298, he won a clear victory against a Scottish army at the Battle of Falkirk. Despite this success, the English could not bring Scotland under their complete control. Only in southern Scotland were they able to dominate the region around the castles they occupied. For political reasons, Edward could not undertake a new campaign in 1299, so after a long siege the Scots were able to force the starved English garrison of Stirling Castle to surrender. In 1300, 1301, and 1303, however, Edward led large armies into Scotland in each case without a new battle. In the winter of 1301 to 1302, Robert Bruce submitted to the English, but it was not until 1304 that the majority of the Scottish leaders surrendered. In 1303 France made peace with England, so the Scots received no further support from France. The recapture of Stirling Castle in 1304 ended the renewed conquest of Scotland. In 1305, William Wallace was finally taken prisoner. Edward had him tried and executed in London. During the Parliament of 1305, the new administration of Scotland was established. It was no longer considered a separate kingdom, but like Ireland, a subject country. John of Brittany, a nephew of the king, became deputy to the king as Royal Lieutenant, while the offices of Chancellor and Chamberlain were filled by Englishmen. New sheriffs were appointed for the counties, with the sheriffs of the southern Scottish counties in particular being English. The magistracies were filled with equal numbers of Scots and English, and preparations were made to bring Scottish law into line with English. The implementation of the rules encountered many problems in practice and led to new conflicts. After the long war of conquest, during which Edward had rewarded his magnates with Scottish possessions, many Scottish possessions were claimed by both English and Scots.

Peace in Scotland did not last long. On February 10, 1306, Robert Bruce murdered the Scottish Lord John Comyn. Like some Welsh princes after the conquest of Wales, Robert Bruce felt that he had not been adequately rewarded for the support he had given to the English king after the English conquest of Scotland. He probably hoped that he now had a real chance of becoming Scottish king himself. The rebellion that broke out again in Scotland surprised Edward, who was by now in poor health due to his age. Therefore, the first English troops were led by Aymer de Valence and by Henry Percy, who were followed by a larger army under the command of the Prince of Wales. Edward himself was ill in the summer of 1306 and therefore could only travel north slowly. Eventually he had to spend the winter at Lanercost Priory. He considered the rebellion a rebellion rather than a war between two countries, so he pursued a cruel policy toward the Scots. He had numerous Scots, including John of Strathbogie, 9th Earl of Atholl and the Scottish knight Simon Fraser, who had formerly been one of the knights of his household, cruelly executed in London. Mary, a sister of Robert Bruce, as well as his wife Elizabeth de Burgh fell into captivity after the conquest of Kildrummy Castle. While his opponent”s wife was imprisoned in a convent, Edward had Mary Bruce as well as the Countess of Buchan, who had crowned Bruce, locked in cages and put on public display in southern Scottish castles. During the winter of 1306 to 1307 the English were successful, but in May 1307 two English armies, under both Aymer de Valence and the Earl of Gloucester were defeated. The enraged king, though not yet recovered, now wanted to lead a campaign himself. At Whitsun he held a muster of his troops at Carlisle and then set out for Scotland. It became apparent that he was not yet physically able to lead a campaign. The army made slow progress, and eventually the king died at Burgh by Sands in July. To prevent the Scots from profiting from the news of the king”s death, his death was initially kept secret. Around October 18, Edward”s body was brought to London and buried in Westminster Abbey on October 27. The funeral service was conducted by his old friend and latterly temporary opponent Bishop Antony Bek of Durham.

Appearance and properties

Edward was physically impressive for his time. He was almost 1.88 m tall and according to his knightly upbringing he was strong. Because of his long legs, he is said to have received the nickname Longshanks. In his youth he had blond curly hair, which later turned dark and white in old age. He had a slight lisp, but is said to have spoken fluently and convincingly otherwise. As a young man, he participated in numerous tournaments not only in England but also in France, though he is said not to have distinguished himself by his successes. He is said to have lost many battles, so that he had to cede almost all his horses and armor to the victors. According to the report of the chronicler of Dunstable, Edward was seriously wounded in 1262 during a tournament in France. The knights of his retinue are said to have been compensated by Edward only in 1285 or 1286 for the armor they had lost in tournaments in his service. In addition, he was an avid hunter and also mastered falconry and hawk hunting. As a young heir to the throne, Edward was exposed to pressure from numerous groups defending their respective interests during a turbulent period. This led to his wavering political stance before the War of the Barons, because of which he was considered unreliable by his contemporaries. A contemporary referred to him on the one hand as Leo, a proud and brave lion, but also as Pard, an unreliable and contradictory leopard. This inconsistency in his character was less obvious later, when he was king, but nevertheless continued to exist. Yet, as king, Edward was aware of his special position. Involved in diplomacy and in his wars, however, he apparently had little knowledge of the concerns of ordinary people, of administrative details, and of the precise, extremely strained financial situation of his realm.

The king”s religiosity and his relationship to art

Edward was a devout Christian, as evidenced not only by his crusade but also by his founding of Vale Royal Abbey. He had this built in accordance with a vow made on the occasion of a shipwreck during a crossing of the English Channel during the 1260s. Evidence shows that he regularly attended church services and also gave alms generously.

Eduard did not promote art to the same extent as his father had. He was most likely a patron of architecture. In addition to the Eleanor crosses, he had St Stephen”s Chapel built in the Palace of Westminster from 1292. He further patronized Walter of Durham, the painter already promoted by his father, and probably had the painting of the Painted Chamber in the Palace of Westminster enlarged in the 1290s. The only book Edward can be shown to have read was an obscene parody of a chivalric romance. In the process, he became interested in stories about King Arthur and arranged for the alleged bones of Arthur and his wife Guinevere to be reburied in Glastonbury in 1278.

Eduard as military

Edward was a successful military man. During the Second War of the Barons he took part in several engagements, but especially in the battles of Lewes and Evesham. At Lewes, his impetuous attack was responsible for the defeat of the royal army, while his importance in the victory of the king”s supporters over the rebels at Evesham cannot be precisely determined. Edward himself led his crusade to the Holy Land and as king he led campaigns to Wales, to Flanders and to Scotland. It is especially significant how carefully he prepared the campaigns and also took care of sufficient supplies. To secure the conquest of Wales, he had the master builder James of St. George build a ring of castles and town fortifications in North Wales, which is considered a masterpiece of 13th century military architecture. The best preserved of these fortifications have been part of the World Heritage of Humanity since 1986.

Even though Edward”s armies had strong infantry contingents, the heavily armored knights fighting on horseback formed the backbone of his armies. Archers became increasingly important, even if they were not yet decisive for the battle like the English longbowmen during the Hundred Years” War. Edward himself took part in only one major battle as king, the Battle of Falkirk. While his campaign to Flanders in 1297 failed, mainly due to domestic political problems and ultimately insufficient diplomacy, Edward remained undefeated as a commander in Wales and Scotland. In Scotland, he was also successful in sieges, such as the protracted siege of Stirling Castle in 1304. However, while he was able to conquer Wales at great cost, in Scotland he failed to recognize the reasons for the failure of his attempted conquest. In the process, he had almost succeeded in conquering Scotland. But from 1304 it had become apparent that he was overstretched both politically and militarily. Despite his long reign, he had not learned how to win the support of the Scottish population, and Edward was unable to counter the new kind of small-scale warfare that Wallace and other Scots were waging.

Also read, history – First Great Awakening

Family and descendants

Apparently, Edward was a faithful and devoted husband to his two consorts. In particular, his first marriage, to Eleanor of Castile in 1254, is considered a happy one. His wife accompanied him on his travels whenever possible. She was one of the few women who took part in the Crusade to the Holy Land, and also accompanied her husband to France several times. When she died in 1290, the king mourned her sincerely. As a sign of his grief, he had the Eleanor crosses erected, which marked the route of the funeral procession from Harby in Nottinghamshire to Westminster. The exact number of Edward and Eleanor”s children is not known. They had at least fourteen children, several of whom died in infancy:

An unnamed child, probably fifteenth, died on May 29 and was buried in Bordeaux, although the year of death is unknown. Of these children, however, only the youngest son and five daughters survived childhood. Little is known about the childhoods of the king”s children; they were educated in the households of friendly nobles, as was customary among the high nobility in the 13th century. However, Edward then developed a good relationship with his surviving daughters, so that they remained at the royal court even several months after their weddings or, like Elizabeth and Mary, who was actually a nun at Amesbury Abbey, frequently returned there. To the messengers who brought him news of the birth of grandchildren, he had extraordinarily rich rewards presented, especially if the child was a boy.

Edward is also said to have loved his second wife, Margaret of France, who was about forty years younger. However, due to the age difference, she apparently had little influence on the king”s decisions, unlike Eleanor of Castile. He had three children with her:

Although Edward was buried in an impressive tomb in Westminster Abbey, the obviously planned statue that was to decorate the tomb similarly to that of Henry III and Eleanor of Castile was never made. The famous Latin epitaph Edwardus Primus Scotorum Malleus hic est, 1308 (German Hier liegt Edward I., Hammer der Schotten, 1308), however, probably dates only from the 16th century.

The time of Edward I was considered historically several times. Bishop William Stubbs considered mainly the observance of the Constitution and laws, and in the 19th century saw him as an English Justinian because of the laws he enacted. In the 20th century, F. M. Powicke viewed his reign positively. Other 20th century historians did not view the reign so kindly. T. F. Tout produced an extensive work on the royal administration and the tremendous achievement of its officials, while seeing the king as autocratic. G. O. Sayles described Edward, both as a young adult and as an older man, as arbitrary and untrustworthy, who as a ruler would not have acted on the advice of his counselors. Similarly, K. B. McFarlane was especially critical of the king”s unreasonable policies toward the high nobility. Michael Prestwich, on the other hand, again assessed Edward”s reign considerably more positively. He pointed out that Edward had succeeded in regaining royal authority after the War of the Barons, and the laws he enacted also had great significance. Until around 1290, his reign was amazingly productive. The rules of Parliament emerged, as a mechanism through which the Crown could achieve goals, but also as an opportunity to correct errors in administration and to make submissions. In Europe, the king tried his hand at peacemaking, while his military superiority allowed him to conquer Wales. The administration of Gascony was also more effective than in the past, helped by the king”s visits. His later reign was then marked by his wars with France and especially with Scotland. These wars led to the crisis of 1297, which was settled but continued to plague the reign. Edward had achieved much for his kingdom, but he left behind the unresolved conflict with Scotland, which continued for several centuries. Ultimately, Prestwich rates him as a great king.

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