A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe

     Edward I 1239-1307, king, eldest son of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence, was born at Westminster, 17-18 June 1239. His birth was hailed with special joy, for it was feared that the queen was barren (Paris, iii. 518). There was much rejoicing in London, and many presents were made to the king, who insisted that they should be of great value, so that it was said, God gave us this infant, but our lord the king sells him to us. Four days after his birth the child was baptised by the cardinal-legate, Otho, though he was not a priest, and was called Edward, after Edward the Confessor, whose memory was highly honoured by the king (Trivet, p. 225). Among his sponsors was Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester. His name points to a newly awakened pride that was now felt by the English people in their nationality, and men were pleased to trace the descent of their king's son from Alfred (Cont. Flor. Wig.). An oath of fealty to the child was taken in every part of the kingdom (Ann. Tewk. p. 114). He was brought up at Windsor, under the care of Hugh Giffard (Paris, iv. 553). His mother took him with her to Beaulieu in June 1246 to the dedication of the conventual church, and while he was there he fell sick, so the queen stayed for three weeks in a Cistercian house against the rules of the order, that she might nurse him (Ann. Wav. 337). The next year the king sent an embassy to Henry, duke of Brabant, to propose a marriage between Edward and one of the duke's daughters (Mary?), but the scheme was not successful. On 9 Aug. the lad was with his parents at Dunstable, and on 20 Sept. he lay very ill at London, and the king asked the prayers of all persons of religion in and around the city for his recovery (Ann. Dunst. p. 173; Paris, iv. 639). In 1252 Henry gave him Gascony, and in an assembly of Gascons in London declared him their new ruler, saving that he reserved the chief lordship. The Gascons, who received the announcement joyfully, did him homage, and Edward did homage to the king, and gave them rich gifts. A strong affection existed between Edward and his father, and when the king sailed for Gascony in August 1253, Edward who came to Portsmouth to see him off, stood upon the shore and watched the vessel depart with many sobs. He was left under the guardianship of his mother and his uncle Richard, earl of Cornwall. In order to prevent the rebellious Gascons from obtaining help from Castile, Henry proposed a marriage between Edward and Eleanor, the sister of Alfonso X, and sent for his son, for Alfonso desired to see him. He gave him the earldom of Chester, and promised to give him Ireland and other possessions. Edward sailed from Portsmouth 29 May 1254, accompanied by his mother, and under the care of the queen's uncle, Boniface of Savoy [qv.], archbishop of Canterbury, reached Bordeaux 12 June, and Burgos 5 Aug. He was married to Eleanor at the end of October in the monastery of Las Huelgas, received knighthood from King Alfonso, and then returned to Bordeaux. Henry gave the newly married pair Gascony, Ireland, Wales, Bristol, Stamford, and Grantham, so that he seemed nothing better than a mutilated king (Paris, v. 450), and entered into an agreement that if Edward's income from these sources did not amount to fifteen thousand marks he would make it up to that sum (Federa, i. 528). Edward remained in Gascony for about a year after his father had left it. His wife came to England 13 Oct. 1255, and he followed her on 29 Nov.; he was received by the Londoners with rejoicing; and conducted by them to the palace at Westminster (Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 23)
     Soon after his return to England the Gascon wine merchants appealed to him to protect them against the extortions of the king's officers. He declared that he would not suffer them to be oppressed. The king was much grieved when he heard of his words, saying that the times of Henry II had come over again, for his son had turned against him. Many expected that a serious quarrel would take place. Henry, however, gave way, and ordered that the grievances of the merchants should be redressed. Nevertheless Edward deemed it advisable to increase his household, and now rode with two hundred horses (Paris, v. 538). On 4 June 1256 he was at a tournament at Blythe, which he attended in light armour, for he went there to be further instructed in the laws of chivalry (ib. p. 557), and in August he was with the king at London, where great feasts were held in honour of the king and queen of the Scots. His devotion to the chivalrous exercises and pleasures that became his age and station led him to neglect the administration of the vast estates and jurisdictions placed under his control. He trusted too much to his officers, who were violent and exacting, and he was blamed for their evil doings. Nor was he by any means blameless even as regards his own acts. His followers were mostly foreigners, and he did not restrain them from acts of lawlessness and oppression. At Wallingford, for example, they made havoc of the goods of the priory, and illtreated the monks (ib. p. 593). And he set them a bad example, for Matthew Paris records as a specimen of his misdeeds how, apparently out of mere wanton cruelty, he horribly mutilated a young man whom he chanced to meet, an act which moved Englishmen greatly, and made them look forward with dread to the time when he should become king (ib. p. 598). With a father who was a Frenchman in tastes and habits, with a Provençal mother, and surrounded by foreign relations and followers, Edward in these his younger days is scarcely to be looked on as an Englishman, and his conduct is to be judged simply by the standard of what was held to become a young French noble. In one part of his possesions it was specially dangerous to excite discontent. Among the grants made him by his father in 1254 was the lordship of the Four Cantreds of Wales, the country that lay between the Conway and the Dee. Wales had long been a source of trouble to England, and her princes took advantage of every embarrassment that befell the English crown to add to its difficulties. As long as the country preserved its native laws and system of government it was impossible to reduce it to anything more than a state of nominal dependence, or to put an end to its power to do mischief. Moreover, as long as it remained virtually unconquered, the position of the lords marchers was almost that of petty sovereigns, and greatly weakened the authority of the crown. It is probable that Edward, young as he was, saw this, for he refused to recognise the native customs, and approved of an attempt made by one of his officers to enforce the introduction of English law. Unfortunately he did not see that this could only be carried out after a military conquest which the maladministration of Henry rendered impossible, and he chose as his lieutenant Geoffrey Langley, a greedy and violent man, who believed that he could treat the Welsh as a thoroughly conquered people, imposed a poll-tax of 15d. a head upon them, and tried to divide the land into counties and hundreds, or, in other words, to force the English system of administration upon them (Ann. Tewk. p. 158; Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 29). Llewelyn, the son of Gruffydd, took advantage of the discontent occasioned by these proceedings, and on 1 Nov. invaded the marches, and especially the lands of Edward's men. Edward borrowed four thousand marks of his uncle Richard to enable him to meet the Welsh, though as the winter was wet he was not able to do anything against them. The next year the Welsh invaded the marches with two large armies, and Edward applied to his father for help. What have I to do with it? the king answered; I have given you the land, and he told him to exert himself and strike terror into his enemies, for he was busy about other matters (Paris, v. 614). He made an expedition in company with his son, and stayed a while at Gannoch Castle, but no good was done. Edward, in spite of his large income, was pressed for money to carry on the war, and in 1258 pledged some of his estates to William de Valence, his uncle, a step which was held to promise badly for his future reign, for William was the richest of the host of foreigners who preyed on the country. He also endeavoured to alienate the Isle of Oléron to Guy of Lusignan, but this was forbidden by the king, and he was forced a few days later to revoke his deed (Federa, i. 663, 670). The Welsh made an alliance with the Scottish barons, and the war, which was shamefully mismanaged, assumed serious proportions, and added to the general discontent excited by the extravagance of the court and the general maladministration of the government
     This discontent was forcibly expressed in the demand made by the parliament which met at Westminster in April, that the work of reform should be committed to twenty-four barons, and on the 30th Edward joined his father in swearing to submit to their decisions (Ann. Tewk. p. 164). A scheme of reform, which virtually put the government of the kingdom into the hands of a baronial council, was drawn up by the parliament of Oxford. Edward upheld his uncles in their refusal to surrender their castles; he appears to have been constrained to accompany the barons to Winchester, where his uncles were besieged in the castle, and did not swear to observe the provisions of Oxford until after they and the other aliens who held it had been forced to surrender. Four counsellors were appointed for him who were to carry out a reform of his household (Ann. Burt. p. 445). Some disagreement arose between Edward and his father at Winchester, and a reconciliation was effected in the chapter-house of St. Swithun's (Ann. Winton. p. 97). During 1259 a reaction took place; men found that the provisional government did not bring them all they hoped for, and a split arose in the baronial party between Simon, earl of Leicester, who was believed to be in favour of popular reforms, and the Earl of Gloucester, the head of the oligarchical section. Edward appears to have acted with Earl Simon at this period, for on 13 Oct., while the parliament was sitting at Westminster, a petition was presented to him by the community of the bachelorhood of England, that is by the knights, or the class of landholders immediately below the baronage, pointing out that the barons had done nothing of all they had promised, and had merely worked for their own good and the hurt of the king. Edward replied that, though he had taken the oath unwillingly, he would abide by it, and that he was ready to die for the commonalty and the common weal, and he warned the barons that if they did not fulfil their oaths he would take part against them (Ann. Burt. p. 471). The result of this movement was the publication of the provisions of Westminster. One of these renews a clause in the provisions of Oxford, in virtue of which four knights were to be appointed in each shire to remedy any injustice committed by the sheriff (ib. p. 477; Const. Hist. ii. 81). Thus Edward skilfully used the lesser tenants in chief to check the baronage in their attempt to control the executive, and began a policy founded on the mutual jealousy of his opponents, which he was afterwards able to pursue with great effect. In return for the check he had received Gloucester appears to have persuaded Henry, who was in France early in 1260, that his son was plotting with Earl Simon to dethrone him. The king of the Romans (Richard of Cornwall) held a meeting of barons in London, and a letter was sent to the king denying the rumour, and urging his return (Wikes, p. 124; Ann. Dunst. p. 214). He came back on 23 April, and shut himself up in London, refusing to see his son, who lodged in company with Simon between the city and Westminster (Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 45). At the same time his love for him was unabated. Do not let my son Edward appear before me, he said, for if I see him I shall not be able to refrain myself from kissing him (Ann. Dunst. p. 215). At the end of a fortnight they were reconciled, and the queen was generally held to have caused their disagreement. The foremost part that Edward was thus taking put him, we are told, to vast expense. He now went off to France to a great tournament, where he met with ill success (ib. p. 217). Although from this time he seems to have ceased to act in concert with Earl Simon, he kept up his quarrel with Gloucester until the earl's death in 1262. In that year he was again in France and Burgundy, in company with two of Leicester's sons, his cousins, was victorious in several tournaments, and badly beaten and wounded in one (ib. p. 219).
     Early in February 1263 Edward, who was then in Paris, received a letter from his father urging him to return to England, for Llewelyn had taken advantage of the unsettled state of the country to renew his ravages. Edward hired a fine body of troops in France, and brought them over with him. Stopping only to put a garrison into Windsor, he advanced to Oxford, where the gates were shut against him (cf. Song of Lewes, ed. Kingsford, 1890). (The order of events from this point almost down to the battle of Lewes is uncertain, and that adopted here must only be taken as an attempt to form a consecutive narrative.) Hoping to use Bristol as a basis of operations against the Welsh, and as a means of checking the new Earl of Gloucester, Gilbert of Clare, who was wholly on Leicester's side, he marched thither, and began to victual the castle. The townsmen came to blows with his foreign soldiers; he was forced to retreat into the castle, and was in some danger. Accordingly at the end of March he called Walter of Cantelupe [q.v.], bishop of Worcester, one of the baronial party, to help him, and the bishop undertook to bring him safely to London. On the way Edward, without giving him any warning, entered Windsor Castle on the plea of providing for the safety of his wife. He came up to London to the parliament held on 20 May. There Leicester and his party declared that he would be perjured if he did not abide by the provisions of Oxford, for they were indignant at his having brought a foreign force into the kingdom. He took up his quarters at the hospital at Clerkenwell, and, as he and his party were sorely in need of money, broke into the treasury of the Temple on 29 June, and took thence 1,000l. He made an attempt to relieve Windsor, which was threatened by Leicester, but the earl met him and, though he offered terms, detained him for a while by the advice of the Bishop of Worcester, who remembered the trick that had been played upon him. Windsor surrendered on 26 July, and on 18 Aug. Edward agreed to terms that had been arranged by the king of the Romans. From 19 Sept. to 7 Oct. he was with his father at Boulogne. On the failure of the attempt at arbitration that was made there he returned to England, and at the parliament held on 14 Oct. he refused to agree to the barons' terms, complained that Earl Ferrers had seized three of his castles, and again took up his quarters at Windsor. He succeeded in winning over several barons to the royal side; he was now fully recognised as head of the party, and he made a strict alliance with the lords marchers (Wikes). In company with several of his new allies he joined the king in summoning the surrender of Dover Castle on 4 Dec. The castellan refused, and the royal forces retired. On the 16th he was party to the agreement to refer the question of the validity of the provisions to Lewis IX. Immediately after Christmas he set sail for France with his father. They had a stormy passage, and Edward made many vows for his safety. On 23 Jan. 1264 Lewis pronounced against the provisions.
     The barons were dissatisfied with the result of the appeal, and Edward again made war in the marches; he joined his father at Oxford. He then marched to Gloucester, and attacked the town, but though aided by a force from the castle was beaten off; he made his way into the castle by the river, using a ship belonging to the abbot of Tewkesbury. Some fighting took place, and on the approach of Earl Ferrers, Edward, finding himself overmatched, offered terms, and agreed to the barons' demands. On the retirement of their army he pillaged the town. On 5 April, with the king and his uncle Richard, Edward attacked Northampton. Simon de Montfort the younger, who defended the town, was captured, and had been slain had not Edward forbidden it. After wasting the lands of Earl Ferrers and levelling his castle of Tutbury, Edward marched towards London, for some of the citizens offered to deliver the city to him. Leicester prevented this, and the king's army encamped in great force before Lewes. On 13 May Edward joined with the king of the Romans in sending a defiance to Leicester and Gloucester, who had now advanced with the baronial army to within a few miles of the town. In the battle of the next day, Wednesday, 14th, Edward occupied the right of the army, and early in the morning charged the Londoners, who, under the command of Hastings, were passing by the castle where he was quartered, in order to gain the town. They fled in confusion, and Edward, who was determined to take vengeance on them for the insults they had put on his mother the year before, pursued them, it is said, for four miles, and cut down a large number of them (Rishanger, p. 32; Wikes, p. 151). As he returned from the pursuit he fell upon the enemy's baggage, and spent much time in taking it. When, as late, it is said, as 2 p.m. (‘usque ad octavam horam,’ Chron. Mailros, p. 195), he brought his men back to Lewes, he found that the battle was lost, that his father had taken refuge in the priory, and that his uncle was a prisoner. His men fled, and he and those who still followed him forced their way into the church of the Franciscans (Ann. Wav. p. 357). By the capitulation that followed, he and his cousin, Henry of Almaine, were made hostages for their fathers' conduct. They were taken to Dover and were put under the care of Henry de Montfort, who treated them as captives, and ‘less honourably than was fitting’ (Wikes, p. 153). Before long they were moved to Wallingford for greater safety. While Edward was there an unsuccessful attempt was made to rescue him (Rob. of Gloucester). He was afterwards lodged in Leicester's castle at Kenilworth, where he was during the following Christmas. While there he appears to have been treated honourably, for the countess was his aunt, and he was allowed to receive visitors, though he was closely watched. The subject of his release was debated in the parliament held in London in January 1265, and on 8 March terms were finally agreed upon which, while putting an end to his period of confinement, still left him helpless in Leicester's hands, and handed over to the earl the county of Chester and several of his most important possessions to be exchanged for other lands. A quarrel broke out between Leicester and Gilbert of Gloucester, and on 25 April Leicester made Edward march along with him to the town of Gloucester, for he thought it necessary to take some measures to check Earl Gilbert, who was now in alliance with the Mortimers and other marchers. Edward was next taken to Hereford. He kept up an understanding with the marchers through his chamberlain, Thomas of Clare, the earl's younger brother, and on 28 May effected his escape. He rode the horses of several of his attendants, one after another, as though to try their speed, and when he had tired them, mounted his own and rode away with Thomas, another knight, and four squires to the spot where Roger Mortimer was waiting for him, and was conducted in safety to Mortimer's castle at Wigmore. He entered into an alliance with Gloucester at Ludlow, swearing that if he was victorious he would cause ‘the ancient, good, and approved laws to be obeyed,’ that he would put away the evil customs that had of late obtained in the kingdom, and would persuade his father to remove aliens both from his realm and council, and not allow them to have the custody of castles or any part in the government. In other words, the direct control that had been exercised over the king by the Earl of Leicester was to be done away with, the ancient powers of the crown were to be restored, and the king was on his side to govern England by Englishmen. Besides the marchers, several great nobles, Earl Warenne, William of Valence, Hugh Bigod, and others, now joined Edward, and his army was recruited from every quarter. Meanwhile, on 8 June, the bishops were ordered to excommunicate him and his adherents. Worcester was surrendered to him, he was master of the neighbouring towns and castles, and on 29 June he took Gloucester, after a stout resistance, allowing the garrison to depart with their arms and horses, and merely exacting a promise that they would not serve against him for a month. He broke down the bridges across the Severn and took away the boats, hemming Leicester in behind the line of the river, and cutting him off from his son, the younger Simon, who was raising troops in and about London. Hearing that the earl had sent to Bristol for transports to convey him from Newport to that town, he went on board three galleys belonging to the Earl of Gloucester, and in his company dispersed the Bristol ships, taking and sinking several of them, and then landed and drove Leicester's force across the Usk into Newport, where they saved themselves by breaking down the bridge (Wikes, p. 167; Rishanger, p. 43). Towards the end of July the younger Simon arrived at Kenilworth, and Leicester now hoped that he would be able to shut Edward and Gloucester in between his own force and that of his son (Ann. Wav. p. 364). Edward, who was stationed at Worcester, sent the young lord notice that ‘he would visit him,’ and being informed by spies (Wikes, p. 170; one of these spies, according to Hemingburgh, i. 322, was a woman named Margot, who dressed in man's clothes) that the troops at Kenilworth kept no strict watch, set out on the night of the 31st, and at dawn the next day surprised them in their quarters round the castle before they were out of their beds, and made so many prisoners that ‘the larger half of the baronial army was annihilated’ (Prothero, p. 356). On 3 Aug., hearing that the earl was making for Kenilworth, he left Worcester, and after advancing about three miles northwards, in order to deceive the enemy, turned to the east, crossed the Avon at Cleeve, and pressed on towards Evesham to intercept Leicester's army (ib. pp. 358-40). Mindful of the mistake he had made at Lewes, he now ordered his army with prudence (Wikes, p. 172), and detached a force under Gloucester to act in conjunction with that which he himself commanded, and with which early on the 4th he began the battle. His victory was complete, and the Earl of Leicester, his eldest son, Henry, and many nobles of their party were slain.
     The sweeping sentence of forfeiture pronounced against the rebels drove them to further resistance. Edward, who received the goods of the rebel citizens of London, captured Dover Castle probably in October, and in November marched with a considerable force against the younger Simon, who with other disinherited lords had occupied the island of Axholme in Lincolnshire, and was ravaging the surrounding country. The position of the rebels was strong, and the attacking force had to make wooden bridges to enable them to reach the island, which was not surrendered until 28 Dec. Edward brought Simon to the council which his father was holding at Northampton, where he was sentenced to banishment. He then took him with him to London, and kept him at his court until he escaped, on 10 Feb. 1266, and went to Winchelsea, where the men of the Cinque ports who adhered to his family were expecting him. The king sent Edward to compel the submission of the ports. He defeated the Winchelsea men in a battle fought in their town on 7 March, and was persuaded to spare the life of their leader in the hope that he would persuade his fellow-rebels to return to their allegiance. This merciful policy was successful, and he received the submission of the ports on the 25th (Ann. Wav. p. 369; Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 82). In the middle of May he was engaged in an expedition against a disinherited knight named Adam Gurdon, one of the most mischievous of the many freebooters who infested the country. He came upon him in Whitsun week near Alton in Hampshire. Gurdon, who was a man of great strength, had his band with him, and Edward at the moment that he lighted on him was alone; for he was separated from his men by a ditch. Nevertheless, he at once engaged him single-handed, wounded him severely, and afterwards took him off to Windsor (Wikes, p. 189; Trivet's story, p. 269, that Edward, delighted with Gurdon's valour, caused him to be reinstated in his lands and made him one of his friends and followers, seems mere romance). In the July of this year Eleanor, who had returned to England the previous October, bore Edward his first-born son, named John. All this time the disinherited lords in Kenilworth were still holding the castle against the king; for hitherto the royal forces had been so much employed elsewhere that no great effort had been made to take it. At midsummer, however, Edward joined his father in laying siege to the castle. It was defended with extraordinary courage. All efforts to take it proved vain, and the king and his son, who had already been learning a lesson of moderation from the difficulties they had had to encounter, offered terms embodied in the ‘Ban of Kenilworth,’ published on 31 Oct., which, though hard, were nevertheless a relaxation of the sentence of complete forfeiture. The castle was surrendered on 20 Dec. (Wikes, p. 195).
     Many of the baronial party were dissatisfied with the Kenilworth articles, and early in 1267 Edward was called on to put down a rising in the north. John de Vescy, one of the rebel lords, had expelled the garrison from Alnwick Castle, which had once belonged to him, and had now been taken from him, had occupied it and his other old possessions, and had gathered round him a considerable number of northern magnates, each bound to help the rest to regain their lands. Edward at once gathered a large force, marched against him, and pressed him so hard that he made an unconditional submission. Edward pardoned him, and the rest of the allied barons gave up their undertaking. It seems likely that he paid the visit to his sister Margaret, the queen of Scotland, spoken of in the ‘Chronicle of Lanercost’ under 1266, when he was in the north in the early part of this year. He met the queen at Haddington, the object of his visit being to bid her farewell; for he was then contemplating a crusade. But it seems difficult to assign the date of the visit with any certainty. He joined his father at Cambridge, and marched with him to London; for the Earl of Gloucester, who since the publication of the Kenilworth articles had taken the side of the rebel lords, had occupied the city, and was besieging the legate Ottoboni in the Tower. After some weeks the earl made his peace with the king. Meanwhile a strong body of the disinherited were occupying the Isle of Ely, and had done much damage in the eastern counties. Henry had been attempting to blockade them when he was called off to London, and the legate had exhorted them to return to obedience to the church by accepting the Kenilworth articles. All attempts to compel or persuade them to surrender had been made in vain, and they had beaten off the ships that had been sent up the Ouse to attack them. Edward now marched from London against them. Their position seemed almost impregnable; for it was impossible to lead an army through the marshes without a thorough knowledge of the country, and it was easy to hold the few approaches to the island. He made his headquarters at Ramsey Abbey, and by promises and rewards prevailed on the people of the neighbourhood to come to his aid and to act as guides. Moreover, he managed to establish an understanding with Nicolas Segrave, who allowed his men ‘to pass the outposts which he guarded’ (Prothero). He also made causeways of wattles, and as it was a dry summer he was able to bring both horse and foot over them in safety, and to take up a position close to the island. Then he made a proclamation that he would either behead or hang any one who attacked any of his men or hindered him in any way; for he made no doubt of his success. This proclamation dismayed the defenders of the island. They submitted on 11 July, and were allowed the terms drawn up at Kenilworth (Wikes, pp. 207-10; Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 95; Cont. Flor. Wig. pp. 199-201). Their surrender brought the struggle to a close. Never, probably, has so long and desperate a resistance to royal authority as that made by the disinherited been put down with the like moderation. And while the self-restraint of the victors must be attributed to some extent to the masterly policy pursued by the Earl of Gloucester in occupying London, it was also largely due to the wisdom and magnanimity of Edward. By the age of twenty-eight he had not only long outgrown the thoughtlessness of his early youth, but he had taken the chief part in breaking up the powerful combination that had usurped the executive functions of the crown, had saved the royal authority alike by his prudence and his valour, and had succeeded in putting an end to an obstinate rebellion by refraining from acts that would have driven the vanquished to desperation, and by readily admitting them to the terms that had been established by law, no less than by the skill and energy which he displayed as a military leader.
     Later in the same year Edward visited Winchester, and went thence to the Isle of Wight, received its submission, and put it in charge of his own officers (Ann. Winton. p. 106). During the autumn, in conjunction with his brother and his cousin, Henry of Almaine, he arranged and engaged in a large number of tournaments, so that though these sports had been forbidden by royal decree (by Henry II, see William of Newburgh, v. c. 4) and by papal edict, there had not been so many held in England as there were that autumn for ten years and more (Wikes, p. 212). At the parliament held at Northampton on 24 June 1268 Edward, in pursuance of a vow he and his father had made, received the cross, together with his brothers and many nobles, from the hands of the legate Ottoboni. In the November parliament he was made steward of England. He had already been appointed warden of the city and Tower of London in the spring, and in the autumn of this year he received the custody of all the royal castles (Ann. Winton. p. 107; Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 108). He held a grant from the king of the customs on all exports and imports, which he let to certain Italians for six thousand marks a year. These Italians levied the customs from the citizens of London, contrary to the privileges of the city. A petition was therefore presented to Edward by the Londoners complaining of these exactions, and in April 1269 he promised that they should cease, and received two hundred marks from the citizens as an acknowledgment. He further gained popularity by strenuously urging a statute, published in the Easter parliament, held at London, that the Jews should be forbidden to acquire the lands of christians by means of pledges, and that they should deliver up the deeds that they then held. The late war had greatly impoverished the landholding classes, and their Jewish creditors were pressing them severely. The measure was a wise one, because it helped to restore prosperity, and so strengthened the probability of a continuance of peace; and as the property of the Jews belonged to the king, it was a concession made to some extent at the expense of the crown (Wikes, p. 221). During this year Edward was busy in preparing for his crusade, and a large part of the subsidy of a twentieth lately imposed was voted to him for this purpose by the magnates and bishops. Some uneasiness was caused by the conduct of the Earl of Gloucester, who refused to attend parliament, alleging that Edward was plotting to seize his person. He is said to have looked with suspicion on the intimacy between Edward and his countess, from whom he was afterwards divorced (Oxenedes, p. 236). Gloucester's grievances were referred to the arbitration of the king of the Romans, and the earl then appears to have come up to the parliament, and to have opposed some proposals that were made as to the expenses of the crusade, probably with reference to the appropriation of the twentieth (Wikes, p. 208; Ann. Winton. p. 108). Meanwhile Edward was invited by Lewis IX of France to attend his parliament, in order to make arrangements for the crusade, which they purposed to make together. He went to Gravesend on 9 Aug., and the next day had a long interview with the king of the Romans, who had just landed, on the subject of the crusade. He then went to Dover, where he embarked (Liber de Ant. Leg. p. 110). When Lewis urged him to go with him he replied that England was wasted with war, and that he had but a small revenue. Lewis, it is said, offered him thirty-two thousand livres if he would consent (Opus Chron. p. 26). An agreement was made that the king should lend him seventy thousand livres, to be secured on Edward's continental possessions, twenty-five thousand of that sum being appropriated to the Viscount of Bearn for his expenses in accompanying him, and that Edward should follow and obey the king during the ‘pilgrimage’ as one of the barons of his realm, and send one of his sons to Paris as a hostage (Liber de Ant. Leg. pp. 111-14). He accordingly sent his son Henry to Lewis, who courteously sent him back at once (Cont. Flor. Wig. p. 204; Flores, ii. 348). He landed at Dover on his return on 8 Sept., and was present at the magnificent ceremony of the translation of King Edward the Confessor at Westminster on 13 Oct. In July 1270, in conjunction with the Archbishop of York and other lords, and at the head of an armed force, he arrested John, earl Warenne, for the murder of Alan la Zouche. On 5 Aug. he went to Winchester, obtained the king's license to depart and took leave of him, and then came into the chapter-house of St. Swithun's and humbly asked the prayers of the convent. He set out thence, intending to embark at Portsmouth; but hearing that the monks of Christ Church had refused to elect his friend and chaplain, Robert Burnell, to the archbishopric, he hastened to Canterbury in the hope that his presence would induce them to give way, but was unsuccessful in his attempt. He then went to Dover, where he embarked on 11 Aug., and sailed to Gascony, whither he had sent his wife on before him. His two sons he left in charge of his uncle, King Richard. Passing through Gascony and some of the mountainous districts of Spain, he arrived at Aigues-Mortes at Michaelmas, and found that Lewis had already sailed for Tunis.
     When Edward landed on the African coast he found that Lewis was dead, and that his son Philip and the other chiefs of the crusade had made peace with the unbelievers. He was indignant at their conduct, and refused to be a party to it. ‘By the blood of God,’ he said, ‘though all my fellow-soldiers and countrymen desert me, I will enter Acre with Fowin, the groom of my palfrey, and I will keep my word and my oath to the death’ (Opus Chron. p. 29). He and the whole force sailed from Africa on 21 Oct., and on the 28th anchored about a mile outside Trapani, the kings and other chiefs of the expedition being taken ashore in small boats. The next morning a violent storm arose, which did much damage to the fleet. Edward's ships, however, thirteen in number, were none of them injured, and their escape was put down to a miraculous interposition of Providence to reward him for refusing to agree to the proposal of the other kings, that he should, like them, desist from his undertaking (Hemingburgh, i. 331-83; Wikes, p. 329). He spent the winter in Sicily, and in the early spring of 1271 sailed for Syria, parting with his cousin Henry, whom he appointed seneschal of Gascony, and who was shortly afterwards slain at Viterbo by Simon and Guy de Montfort. After touching at Cyprus to take in provisions, he arrived at Acre, which was now closely besieged, in May. His army was small, consisting of not more than about one thousand men. He relieved the town, and about a month later made an expedition to Nazareth, which he took, slew all he found there, and routed a force which tried to cut him off as he returned. At midsummer he won another victory at Haifa, and advanced as far as Castle Pilgrim. These successes brought him considerable reinforcements. He sent to Cyprus for recruits, and a large body came over declaring, it is said, that they were bound to obey his orders, because his ancestors had ruled over them, and that they would ever be faithful to the kings of England (Hemingburgh). A third expedition was made 1-27 Aug. Still his troops were too few to enable him to gain any material success, and these expeditions were little better than raids. In 1272 he received several messages from the emir of Jaffa, proposing terms of peace: they were brought by the same messenger, one of the sect, it is said, of the Assassins, who thus became intimate with Edward's household. In the evening of 17 June, his birthday, Edward was sitting alone upon his bed bareheaded and in his tunic, for the weather was hot, when this messenger, who had now come to the camp for the fifth time, was admitted into his presence. The door of the room was shut, and the messenger, having delivered his master's letters, stood bending low as he answered the question that Edward asked him. Suddenly he put his hand in his belt, as though to produce other letters, pulled out a knife, which was believed to have been poisoned, and hit violently at Edward with it. Edward used his arm to shield his body from the blow, and received a deep wound in it; then, as the man tried to strike him again, he gave him a kick that felled him to the ground. He seized the man's hand, wrenched the knife from him with so much force that it wounded him in the forehead, plunged it into the assassin's body, and so slew him. When his attendants, who had withdrawn to some distance, came running in, on hearing the noise of the scuffle, they found the man dead, and Edward's minstrel seized a stool and dashed out his brains with it. Edward reproved him for striking the dead. The master of the Temple at once gave him some precious drugs to drink to counteract the effects of the poison, and the next day he made his will (Royal Wills, p. 18). After a few days the wound in his arm began to grow dark, and his surgeons became uneasy. ‘What are you whispering about?’ he asked; ‘can I not be cured?’ One of them, an Englishman, said that he could if he would undergo great suffering, and declared that he would stake his life on it. The king then said that he put himself in his hands, and the surgeon having caused the queen, who was crying loudly, to be removed from the room, the next morning cut away the whole of the darkened flesh, telling his lord that within fifteen days he would be able to mount his horse; and his word came true. The story that Eleanor sucked the poison from the wound seems to lack foundation [see under Eleanor of Castile]. When the sultan Bibars, who was suspected of being concerned in this attempt, heard of its miscarriage, he sent three ambassadors to declare that he had no hand in it. As they made repeated salaams to Edward, he said in English, ‘You pay me worship, but you have no love for me.’ The incident proves that in spite of his French taste and feelings, shown, for example, in his delight in tournaments, Edward constantly spoke English. He found that he could not achieve any material success in Palestine, his men were suffering from sickness, and he knew that his father's health was failing. Accordingly he made a truce for ten years with the sultan, and on 15 Aug. set sail for Sicily. He landed at Trapani after, it is said, a voyage of seven weeks. He was entertained by King Charles, and while he was in Sicily heard of the deaths of his father on 16 Nov., of his uncle Richard, and of his first-born son, John. On the day of Henry's funeral, 20 Nov., the Earl of Gloucester, in accordance with a promise he had made to the late king, and the barons and bishops of the realm, swore fealty to Edward as their king. The magnates of the kingdom recognised and declared his right to succeed his father, and thus for the first time the reign of a sovereign of England began from the death of his predecessor, though the doctrine that the ‘king never dies’ was not propounded until a later age (Stubbs, Constitutional Hist. ii. 103).
     Edward was tall and well made, broad-chested, with the long and nervous arms of a swordsman, and with long thighs that gripped the saddle firmly. His forehead was ample, and his face shapely, and he inherited from his father a peculiar droop of the left eyelid. In youth his hair was so light that it had only a shade of yellow, in manhood it was dark, and in age of snowy whiteness. Although his voice was indistinct, he spoke with fluency and persuasiveness. He excelled in all knightly exercises, and was much given to hunting, especially to stag-hunting, and hawking (Trivet, p. 281 sq.; Hemingburgh, ii. 1). Brave, and indeed rash as regards his own safety, he was now an experienced leader; he was prudent in counsel, ready in devising, and prompt in carrying out whatever measures the exigencies of the moment seemed to demand. His word was always sacred to him, and he was ever faithful to the motto, ‘Pactum serva,’ that appears upon his tomb. At the same time he did not scruple when in difficulties to make subtle distinctions, and while keeping to the letter he certainly sometimes neglected the spirit of his promises. He was hasty, quick to take offence, and towards the end of his life hard and stern, though he was not wantonly cruel. No one probably ever learnt more from adversity. By his absence from England he enabled men to forget old feelings of bitterness against him; he returned when the country was prepared for the restoration of orderly administration, fully determined to supply its needs. And he did not simply restore, he reorganised. He was ‘by instinct a lawgiver.’ The age was strongly affected by the study of civil law, and he kept Francesco Accursi, the son of the famous legist of Bologna, in his service. He was skilful in arrangement, in definition, and in finding remedies and expedients in materials already at hand. His laws were for the most part founded on principles previously laid down, which he worked out and applied to the present wants of the nation. It was the same with all his constitutional and administrative reforms. He carried on the work that had been taken in hand by Henry II, developed its character, and organised its methods. Everywhere he freed the state from the action of feudal principles, and encouraged, and may almost be said to have created, national political life. He was the founder of our parliamentary system, yet in this as in most else his work was the completion of a process that had long been going forward. In his hands the assembly of the nation ceased to have a feudal character; the lords are no longer a loose gathering of the greater tenants in chief, but a definite body of hereditary peers summoned by writ, and the clergy and the commons appear by their representatives. Rights and duties were clearly laid down, and in all his reforms there is conspicuous an extraordinary power of adapting ‘means to ends.’ Yet great as the benefits are which he conferred on the nation, he loved power and struggled for it, generally unsuccessfully, for the means of self-government that he organised and placed in the hands of the nation were turned against him, and were more than once sufficient to thwart his will. These struggles led him to take advantage of quibbles that naturally suggested themselves to his legal mind. At the same time if he had not striven for power he would not have been a strong man, or done so great a work. (On Edward's legislative and constitutional work see Bishop Stubbs's Constitutional History, vol. ii. c. 14, 15; and Early Plantagenets, p. 202 sq.).
     The kingdom was in good hands, and Edward did not hasten home. After all that had happened he probably judged wisely in prolonging his absence. From Sicily he passed through Apulia, and went to Rome to visit Gregory X, who before his elevation had been with him on the crusade. He was received by the pope at Orvieto on 14 Feb. 1273, obtained a grant of the tenths of the clergy for three years to reimburse him for his crusading expenses, which pressed heavily on him, and stirred up Gregory to proceed against Guy de Montfort for the murder of his cousin. As he passed through Tuscany and Lombardy he was received with much honour by the cities to which he came, and saluted with cries of ‘Long live the Emperor Edward!’ (Flores, ii. 353). He crossed Mont Cenis 7 June, and forced a robber knight of Burgundy, who owned no lord, to become a vassal of the Count of Savoy. On the 18th he came to S. Georges les Reneins, near Lyons, and about this time engaged in a mêlée with the Count of Chalons. He received the count's challenge in Italy, and sent for divers earls and barons from England to come to him, so that he was at the head of a thousand picked men. The count singled him out, and strove to drag him from his horse, but was himself unhorsed. Then the fighting became serious, and the Burgundians, though superior in numbers, were defeated. Something more than a mere chivalrous encounter was evidently intended from the first, and the affair was called the ‘little battle of Chalons’ (Hemingburgh, i. 337-40). Edward reached Paris on the 26th, and did homage to Philip III for the lands he held of him. On 8 Aug. he left Paris for Gascony, where Gaston of Bearn was in revolt, and stayed there nearly a year. During a good part of this time he was engaged in an unsuccessful war with Gaston, losing both men and horses from want of food and other privations in the difficult country in which his enemy sheltered himself. Once he made Gaston prisoner, but he escaped again, and he finally referred the quarrel to his lord the king of France. Gaston was afterwards sent over to England by Philip, made submission, and was for about four years kept in honourable confinement. In July 1274 Edward met the Count of Flanders at Montreuil, and arranged a dispute which had put a stop to the exportation of English wool to Flanders (Federa, ii. 24-32). He landed at Dover 2 Aug., was entertained by Gilbert of Gloucester and John of Warenne in their castles of Tonbridge and Reigate (Flores, ii. 363), reached London on the 18th, and on the next day, Sunday, was crowned with Eleanor at Westminster by Archbishop Robert Kilwardby. At the coronation he received the homage of Alexander of Scotland, but Llewelyn of Wales neglected the summons to attend. As many irregularities had been occasioned by the civil war, Edward on 11 Oct. appointed commissioners, with Burnell, bishop of Bath and Wells, whom he made his chancellor, at their head, to inquire into the state of the royal demesne, the rights of the crown, and the conduct of the lords of private franchises. The result of their inquiries is presented in the Hundred Rolls (pref. to Rot. Hundred. i.). At the beginning of November he proceeded to Shrewsbury, where he had summoned Llewelyn to meet him, but the prince did not attend (Federa, ii. 41). In a great parliament, held at Westminster on 22 April 1275, the king ‘by his council,’ and by the assent of his lords and ‘of all the commonalty of the land,’ promulgated the ‘Statute of Westminster the First,’ a body of fifty-one chapters or laws, many of which were founded on the Great Charter (Statutes at Large, i. 74; Select Charters, p. 438). In return he received a grant of the customs on wool, woolfels, and leather, now for the first time made the subject of constitutional legislation, and in the parliament of 18 Nov. demanded a fifteenth from the laity, and asked for a subsidy from the clergy as a matter of grace, for they were already charged with the papal grant of a tenth. He further forbade the Jews to practise usury, and commanded that they should live by merchandise. On 17 April he and the queen went on pilgrimage to Bury St. Edmunds in pursuance of a vow made in Palestine. During the summer he suffered much from the effects of the wounds he had received from the assassin at Acre, and these probably had caused a serious abscess with which he was troubled in the November previous. He was received at Oxford on 28 July with great pomp by the few clerks that were then there and by the citizens, but would not enter the city for fear of incurring the wrath of St. Frideswide (Wikes, p. 264). He went to Chester on 8 Sept. in order to meet Llewelyn, who refused to attend, was summoned to the forthcoming parliament, and again made default (Federa, ii. 57; Ann. Wigorn. p. 468).
     In the Easter parliament of 1276 Edward ordered that the charters should be observed, and fully pardoned the ‘disinherited.’ With this policy of pacification is to be connected his presence at the translation of Richard of Chichester on 16 June and his gifts at the shrine, for the bishop had been wronged by his father. He received a message from Llewelyn offering to ransom his affianced bride, Eleanor de Montfort, who had fallen into the king's hand. As, however, he refused to restore the lands he had taken, and to repair the castles he had destroyed, his offer was refused. During the autumn the Welsh were troublesome, and Edward was at Gloucester on 28 Sept. and Evesham on 1 Oct. to take measures against them. On 1 Nov. he sent a body of knights to keep order in the marches, and on the 12th it was agreed by common consent of the bishops, barons, and others ‘that the king should make war on the Welsh with the force of the kingdom,’ which was ordered to meet him the following midsummer (Federa, ii. 68). In the October parliament the statutes ‘de Bigamis’ and of ‘Rageman’ were passed (Statutes, i. 115; Constitutional History, ii. 110). The king conducted the Welsh war in person, and moved the exchequer and king's bench to Shrewsbury. About 24 June he proceeded to Chester, had the woods cut down between Chester and the Snowdon country, and built the castles of Flint and Rhuddlan. Although many Welsh submitted to him, Llewelyn believed his position to be impregnable. Edward marched from Chester 31 July; Anglesey was taken by the fleet of the Cinque ports, and on 11 Nov. Llewelyn made his submission at Rhuddlan; he ceded the Four Cantreds, received Anglesey back at a rent of one thousand marks, promised to pay fifty thousand marks for peace, and to do homage in England, gave hostages, and was allowed to retain the homages of Snowdonia for his life. The payments were remitted, and the hostages restored (Federa, ii. 88-92). His brother David, who had fought for Edward, was rewarded with lands and castles, was knighted, and received the daughter of the Earl of Derby in marriage. Llewelyn did homage and spent Christmas with the king at London; and the troubles with Wales, which had lasted more or less from Edward's youth, appeared settled at last. Edward's Welsh castles belong to the class named after him ‘Edwardian castles,’ for, though he was not the inventor of the style of fortification that marks them, he used it largely. They are built on the concentric principle, having two or three lines of defence, with towers at the angles and on the walls, and so arranged that ‘no part is left to its own defences’ (Mediæval Military Architecture, i. 157). With this war in Wales must probably be connected the visit paid by Edward and his queen to Glastonbury on 13 April 1278. The tomb of Arthur was opened on the 19th, and the relics were translated, Edward carrying the bones of Arthur, and Eleanor the bones of Guinevere (Adam of Domerham, p. 588). The war had been expensive, and on 26 June Edward issued a writ compelling all who had a freehold estate of 20l. to take up knighthood or pay a fine, a measure that did much to blend the lesser tenants-in-chief with the main body of freeholders. A few days later the parliament at Gloucester assented to the Statute of Gloucester, founded on the report in the Hundred Rolls, to amend the working of territorial jurisdictions; and proceeding on this statute and the report, Edward in August issued writs of ‘Quo warranto,’ which called on the lords to show by what warrant they held their jurisdictions, a measure that occasioned some discontent among them (Statutes, i. 117; Hemingburgh, ii. 5). Llewelyn did not attend the Gloucester parliament, and Edward went to the marches on 1 Aug. and received his homage. On 29 Sept. he received the homage of Alexander of Scotland at Westminster (Federa, ii. 126; Ann. Wav. p. 370), and with him and the queen and many nobles attended the marriage of Llewelyn and Eleanor de Montfort at Worcester on 13 Oct. In November the king caused all the Jews throughout the kingdom to be arrested, and on 7 Dec. extended this order to the goldsmiths, on the charge of coining and clipping the coin. In April 1279 he had 267 Jews hanged in London, and gave notice of the forthcoming issue of round coins, appointing places where the old coins might be exchanged at a settled rate.
On the resignation of Archbishop Kilwardby in 1278, Edward procured the election of his friend and minister, Robert Burnell, and sent envoys to Rome to beg the pope to confirm the election. His request was refused, and Nicolas III gave the see to John Peckham. The death of the queen's mother, to whom the county of Ponthieu belonged, obliged Edward and the queen to visit Paris on 11 May 1279. Edward did homage to Philip for Ponthieu, and definitely surrendered all claim to Normandy (Ann. Wigorn. p. 477; Federa, ii. 135). While at Amiens he met Peckham on his way to England, and received him graciously (Peckham, Reg. i. 5); he returned on 19 June. Peckham soon offended the king, for in his provincial council at Reading he ordered the clergy to post copies of the Great Charter on the doors of cathedral and collegiate churches, and to excommunicate all who obtained writs from the king to hinder ecclesiastical suits or neglected to carry out ecclesiastical sentences. Edward naturally took these decrees as an insult, and in the Michaelmas parliament forced Peckham to renounce them. He further replied to the archbishop's challenge by the statute ‘De Religiosis’ or of ‘Mortmain,’ passed on 15 Nov. by the parliament at Westminster, a measure which preserved the rights of the superior lords and of the crown, as lord-paramount, against the church, and which was a development of one of the provisions of 1259 (Statutes, i. 133; Ann. Wav. p. 392; Cotton, p. 158; Select Charters, p. 448; Const. Hist. ii. 112). And he also demanded a fifteenth from the spiritualities. In these measures Edward was not acting in a spirit of revenge, for the next year, when he remonstrated with Peckham for holding a visitation of the royal chapel, he accepted the archbishop's assertion of his right. Finding, however, that Peckham was about to issue canons in a council held at Lambeth in September 1281 that would have removed causes touching the right of patronage and other spiritual matters from the courts of the crown, he peremptorily interfered, and the archbishop was compelled to give way (Wikes, p. 285; Wilkins, ii. 50). On 9 June 1280 he attended a general chapter of the Dominicans held at Oxford. In the course of the last year he had issued a decree pronouncing that all Jews guilty of irreverence and all apostates to Judaism should be punished with death, and now, at the persuasion of the Dominicans, he ordered that the Jews should be forced to listen reverently to certain sermons that were to be preached for their edification. In September of this year he was at Lanercost, and held a great hunting in Inglewood Forest (Chron. Lanercost, p. 106).
     While Edward was keeping Easter at Devizes in 1282, news was brought him that Llewelyn and David, whom he had loaded with favours, had rebelled against him, had taken his castles, slain a multitude of people, and carried off Roger Clifford, the constable of Hawarden, as a prisoner. At first he could not believe what he heard, but he soon found that it was true (Tywysogion, p. 373; Ann. Wav. p. 398; Wikes, p. 288). He summoned the barons to meet him at Worcester at Whitsuntide, 6 April, and the bishops and knights to assemble at Rhuddlan on 2 Aug., and again moved the exchequer to Shrewsbury. Moreover he sent to Gascony for help from his subjects there. He made his headquarters at Rhuddlan, and ravaged Llewelyn's lands during August. Roads were made through the woods, the fleet of the Cinque ports again attacked Anglesey, and a bridge was begun across the straits. Edward's army met with some severe reverses, and on 6 Nov., when an attack was treacherously made by some nobles during the progress of negotiations, the Welsh routed the attacking force, and many were drowned in the Menai (Ann. Osen. p. 289). Encouraged by his success Llewelyn left Snowdonia, and was slain in a skirmish on 10 Dec. in Radnor; his head was brought to Edward, who had it sent to London and exposed on the Tower. He spent Christmas at Rhuddlan, and finished his bridge. The war taxed Edward's resources severely, and in March he caused to be seized the money that, in accordance with a decree of the council of Lyons, had been collected for a crusade and stored in the cathedral churches. This provoked an indignant letter from Martin IV. Before its arrival, however, the king had promised that the money should be refunded, and Peckham went off to meet him at Acton Burnell, and prevailed on him to make immediate restitution (Registrum Peckham, ii. 635 sq.). At Easter he was at Aberconway, where he built one of his famous castles. Wales was now thoroughly subdued, and the two most precious treasures of the Welsh, the crown of Arthur and a piece of the true cross, were brought to the conqueror. David was delivered up by the Welsh on 22 June, and taken to Edward at Rhuddlan, but the king would not see him. He determined ‘that he should be tried before a full representation of the laity’ (Const. Hist. ii. 116), and accordingly summoned a parliament to meet at Shrewsbury at Michaelmas, consisting of the baronage, two knights from each county, and representatives from certain cities and boroughs; the clerical estate was not represented, as the business concerned a capital offence. David was tried by a judicial commission before his peers, condemned, and sentenced to be drawn, hanged, beheaded, disembowelled, and quartered, a hitherto unheard-of sentence (Ann. Osen. p. 294). A few days later, at Acton Burnell, Edward put forth an ordinance, called the ‘Statute of Acton Burnell,’ which had been drawn up by him and his council for securing the debts of traders by rendering the profits of land liable for the same. He spent Christmas at Rhuddlan, on 9 Jan. 1284 was at York at the consecration of his clerk, Antony Bek, to the see of Durham, then held a parliament at Lincoln, and was again at Rhuddlan at mid-Lent, when he put forth the laws which are called the ‘Statute of Wales,’ though they were not the result of parliamentary deliberation (Const. Hist. ii. 117). By this statute the administration of the country was to some extent assimilated to the English pattern; in certain districts sheriffs, coroners, and bailiffs were appointed, though the jurisdiction of the marchers was still preserved in other parts, the English criminal law was to be in force, while in most civil matters the Welsh were allowed to retain their old customs. In the summer Edward celebrated his conquest by holding a ‘round table’ at Nevin in Carnarvonshire, near the sea; the festivities cost a large sum, and were attended by a crowd of knights, both from England and from abroad (Ann. Wav. p. 402; Ann. Dunst. p. 313). He spent Christmas at Bristol, where he held a ‘singular, not a general, parliament,’ consisting simply of certain specially summoned nobles (Ann. Osen. p. 300). Thence he went to London, where he was received with great rejoicing, for he had not been there for nearly three years (Ann. Wav. p. 402).
     A summons from Philip III to render him such assistance in his war with Peter III of Aragon as was due by reason of his tenure of Gascony put Edward in some difficulty, for he was by no means anxious for the aggrandisement of France. However, he went to Dover as though to embark. While there the illness of his mother gave him an excuse for remaining at home, and he passed Lent in Norfolk and Suffolk (Ann. Osen. p. 300; Trivet, p. 310). This year is marked by the ‘culminating point in Edward's legislative activity’ (Const. Hist. ii. 118). In the midsummer parliament, held at Westminster, he published the collection of laws known as the ‘Statute of Westminster the Second’ (Statutes, i. 163), the first chapter of which, called ‘De Donis Conditionalibus,’ the foundation of estates tail, restricting the alienation of lands, probably shows the influence of the nobles. Other chapters deal with amendments of the law relating to dower, advowsons, and other matters. The whole forms a code, the importance of which did not escape the notice of contemporary chroniclers (Ann. Osen. p. 304; Statutes, i. 164). It was probably during this parliament, which lasted for the unusually long period of seven weeks, that Edward dealt decisively with the question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction that had been in dispute ever since the reign of Henry II, and his action in this matter should be compared with the policy of that king as expressed in the Constitutions of Clarendon. Undaunted by previous defeats Peckham evidently instigated the bishops of his province to present a petition to the crown against the summary conclusion of ecclesiastical suits by royal prohibition. Edward, however, limited the sphere of clerical jurisdiction to matrimonial and testamentary cases, and afterwards relaxed this by issuing the writ ‘Circumspecte agatis,’ which clearly defines the cases which were to be entertained by ecclesiastical courts (Statutes, i. 242; Ann. Dunst. p. 317; Cotton, p. 166; Const. Hist. ii. 119). In the Statute of Winchester, published in the October parliament, the king revived and developed the ancient laws relating to police organisation, and to the obligation of keeping arms for the public service, and applied them to the needs of the time by converting them into a complete system for the protection of persons and property, for the capture of offenders, and for the establishment of the liability of districts for losses sustained through the failure of their police arrangements (Select Charters, p. 459).
     In a parliament consisting of ecclesiastical and civil magnates, held on 23 April 1286, Edward announced his intention of going to France. His presence was required in Gascony, though the immediate cause of his departure was to act as mediator in the long quarrel between the French and the Aragonese for the possession of Sicily. Edward had now for some years been looked on as the most fitting arbitrator in this matter. When, in 1282, Charles of Anjou and Peter of Aragon agreed to decide their dispute by a combat, in which each was to be supported by one hundred knights, they fixed the place of meeting at Bordeaux, and selected Edward as judge. On 5 April 1283 Martin IV wrote, forbidding him to allow the encounter, and Edward sent ambassadors with letters to Charles and Peter, declaring that ‘if he could gain Aragon and Sicily’ by it he would not allow it (Federa, ii. 226, 240, 241). Finally, while refusing to have anything to do with the matter, he ordered the seneschal of Bordeaux to put the city at the disposal of the Angevin prince. He mediated unsuccessfully in 1284 between Philip III and Peter, and the king of Aragon hoped to engage him on his side. Edward, however, while anxious to prevent the increase of the power of France at the expense of Aragon, which would have endangered his possession of Gascony, would not be drawn into war beyond the sea. The captivity of Charles the Lame and the deaths of Peter and Philip III opened the way for fresh negotiations, and Philip IV, the sons of Charles, and the nobles of Provence all invoked the interference of the king of England (ib. ii. 317, 318). Edward sailed on 23 May, leaving the kingdom in charge of his cousin Edmund, and taking with him the chancellor and many nobles (Ann. Osen. p. 306). He was honourably received by Philip, did homage to him at Amiens, and then went with him to Paris. After obtaining the settlement of several questions connected with his foreign possessions and rights, he left Paris at Whitsuntide and proceeded to Bordeaux, where he repressed some disaffection among the citizens with considerable sharpness (Hemingburgh, ii. 16). He then held a congress at Bordeaux, which was attended by representatives of the kings of Aragon, France, Castile and Majorca, and two legates, and on 25 July arranged a truce between France and Aragon (Federa, ii. 330). Finding, however, that it was impossible to make terms which would be acceptable both to Honorius IV and to James of Sicily, he persuaded Alfonso of Aragon to treat apart from his brother James, and on 15 July 1287 met Alfonso at Oléron, and made a treaty for the liberation of Charles and for a future peace. At the same time the project of a marriage between Alfonso and Edward's daughter Eleanor, which had for some years been hindered by papal interference, exercised on behalf of the Angevin interest, was confirmed by the kings. When Edward re-entered Gascony he suffered from a short though severe illness at Blanquefort, and on his recovery returned to Bordeaux, where he again took the cross, was appointed by the legate the captain of the christian army (Ann. Wav. p. 404), and expelled the Jews from Gascony and his other continental dominions. The treaty of Oléron was pronounced unsatisfactory by Nicolas IV (Federa, ii. 358), and in 1288 Edward agreed to a treaty at Campofranco, which secured the liberation of Charles on the payment of twenty thousand marks, of which ten thousand were lent him by Edward, along with his bond for seven thousand more, on the delivery of English hostages and on other conditions (ib. p. 368 sq.). The war, however, was renewed, and in 1289 Edward sent Odo Grandison with a sharp reproof to Nicolas for encouraging warfare among christian kings when the infidels were triumphing over the cause of the cross in Syria (Amari). Meanwhile in a parliament held on 2 Feb. the lords refused a grant, and the Earl of Gloucester, speaking for the rest, declared that they would grant no more money ‘until they saw the king's face in England again’ (Wikes, p. 316). It was evidently high time that Edward returned, and he landed at Dover on 12 Aug.
     On his return he received many bitter complaints of the ill-doings of the judges in his absence, and on 13 Oct. appointed a commission to inquire into their conduct. Weyland, one of the chief justices, fled to the Franciscan priory at Bury St. Edmunds, and assumed the monastic dress. Edward ordered that he should be starved into submission, and allowed him to escape trial by going into perpetual banishment. All the judges save two were found guilty of various misdemeanors, were fined, and dismissed from office (Ann. Dunst. p. 355 sq.). Before the end of the year Edward visited his mother, who had during his absence taken the veil at Amesbury, and also made visits of devotion to the shrines of St. Thomas the Martyr, St. Edmund, and many other saints. He was a man of strong religious feelings: in times of difficulty he made vows, and on his return from any long journey or after any deliverance from danger he never failed to offer thanks publicly in one or more of the great churches of the kingdom. He appears to have usually passed Lent in more or less retirement in some of the great monasteries, and he certainly took pleasure in attending religious ceremonies, such as the consecration of bishops. At the same time his love of truth and his manliness of character kept him from giving countenance to superstition or imposture. On one of his visits to his mother at Amesbury, he found her in a state of high excitement over a man who pretended that he had been cured of blindness at the tomb of her late husband, King Henry. Edward knew that the man was lying, and told his mother so, which angered her so much that she bade him leave her room. King as he was, he obeyed her without a word, and as he went out met the provincial of the Dominicans, a man of much theological learning and one of his intimate friends. ‘I know enough of my father's justice,’ he said to him, ‘to be sure that he would rather have torn out the eyes of this rascal when they were sound than have given sight to such a scoundrel’ (Trivet). He spent Christmas at Westminster, held a parliament there early the next year, and on 23 April married his daughter Joan to his old enemy, Gilbert, earl of Gloucester. This marriage suggested to him a means of raising money, of which he was in constant need, though the heavy fines he had laid on the judges had lately swelled his treasury (Ann. Osen. p. 321). In a parliament held on 29 May, which consisted only of bishops and lay lords, he obtained leave to levy an aid pur fille marier of 40s. on the knight's fee. This tax fell only on the tenants in chief who were held to be represented by the magnates (Select Charters, p. 466). A second parliament was held in July, to which the king summoned two knights from each shire. A week before the day on which the knights were to come to Westminster, and while the parliament therefore consisted only of the magnates of the kingdom, Edward, at the request of the lords, published the statute ‘Quia emptores,’ forbidding subinfeudation; land alienated by a tenant, either in chivalry or socage, was to be held by feoffee not of the alienor but of the capital lord, and by the same services as it had been held by the feoffor. This act, while protecting the rights of the lords, strengthened the position of the crown towards its tenants. Its remoter consequences have been a vast increase in the alienation of lands and in the number of landholders, the termination of the power of creating new manors, and an advance in the gradual obliteration of all distinctions of tenure (ib. p. 468). In the same month the king and his privy council ordered that all Jews should be banished from the kingdom. In making this decree Edward was influenced by ‘economical as well as religious’ motives (Const. Hist. ii. 123); it was highly popular, and in return he received grants from the clergy and laity (Hemingburgh, ii. 22). Earlier in the month he celebrated the marriage of his daughter Margaret to John of Brabant with great magnificence. While he was holding his autumn parliament at Clipstone in Sherwood Forest, the queen lay sick at Hardeby, or Harby, in Nottinghamshire (English Historical Review, 1888, x. 315). He remained in the immediate neighbourhood until 20 Nov., and then went to her, and was present at her death on the 28th (Archæologia, xxix. 169). He felt her death very deeply, and is said to have mourned for her all the rest of his life (Opus Chron. p. 50). The funeral procession was stately, and the king accompanied it all the way; the funeral itself took place at Westminster on 17 Dec. [For further particulars see under Eleanor of Castile.] Edward spent Christmas at Ashridge in Buckinghamshire, where his cousin Edmund, earl of Cornwall, had founded a house of Bons Hommes, and remained there five weeks until 26 Jan. 1291, evidently to some extent in retirement. Early in May he proceeded to Norham to settle the dispute between the competitors for the throne of Scotland.
     On the death of Alexander III of Scotland, in 1286, his granddaughter Margaret, the Maid of Norway, who was also great-niece to Edward, was left heir to the crown, and certain Scottish lords sent messengers to the English king on 29 March, to consult him on the affairs of the kingdom (Stevenson, Documents, i. 4). During 1288 Edward was in treaty with Eric of Norway to procure a marriage between his son Edward and Eric's daughter Margaret, and the following year a bull was obtained from Rome sanctioning the marriage, which was approved of and settled by a meeting of commissioners of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Norway, held at Salisbury on 6 Nov. The treaty of Salisbury gratified the Scots, and a letter expressing their pleasure was sent to Edward by the estates assembled at Brigham, near Roxburgh, on 10 March 1290. The estates also entered into a treaty in July concerning the preservation of the rights and laws of the kingdom. Edward then appointed Antony Bek, bishop of Durham, governor of Scotland, in the name of Margaret and of his son Edward, that he might act with the regents and magnates in administering the kingdom according to its ancient laws; and further demanded that the castles should be put at his disposal, for he had heard of certain dangers that threatened the country. This demand, however, was refused, and was not insisted on. Margaret set sail from Norway and died before reaching Orkney (Stevenson). There were thirteen competitors for the crown, and the kingdom was in imminent danger of disturbance. Even before the death of Margaret, when the report of her illness had reached Scotland, the bishop of St. Andrews, the chief of the guardians of the kingdom, wrote to Edward urging his interference, and entreating him, should the queen be dead, to come to the border in order to prevent bloodshed, and to enable the faithful men of the realm to ‘choose for their king him who ought to be so’ (Federa, ii. 1090). Edward is said to have told his lords that he hoped to bring the king and kingdom of Scotland as much under his authority as he had brought Wales (Ann. Wav. p. 409). This reads like an afterthought. At all events he did nothing which tended to reduce Scotland to the same condition as Wales, for he took steps towards providing her with a king by summoning the lords of the kingdom to meet him at Norham on 10 May 1291, while certain of his own military tenants were also ordered to be there at the beginning of June. On opening the proceedings the chief justice demanded whether the Scottish barons would recognise Edward as their superior lord, and various passages were read from ancient chronicles showing how the Scottish kings had in time past done homage to the kings of England. When the barons were evidently unwilling to assent to this demand the king swore ‘by St. Edward that he would either have the due right of his kingdom and of the crown of St. Edward of which he was the guardian, or would die in that place in the prosecution of it’ (Hemingburgh, ii. 34). He gave them three weeks to consider their answer. When they came before him again on 2 June, the lords and clergy acknowledged his superiority, and each one of the eight competitors that were present afterwards did so singly for himself, promising to abide by his decision as that of the ‘sovreign lord of the land’ (Federa, ii. 529). Edward received seisin of the land and castles, and immediately restored the guardianship of the land to the regents, adding a lord to their number and appointing a chancellor and chamberlain. He received oaths of fealty from several lords, his peace was proclaimed, he appointed a commission consisting partly of Englishmen and partly of Scotchmen, chosen by Bruce and Baliol to decide on the claims of the competitors, adjourned the court until 2 Aug., and then proceeded to Edinburgh, Stirling, and Perth, receiving the homage of the people at each place to which he came. The court was again opened at Berwick on 2 Aug., the proceedings were adjourned, and the king returned to the south. The proofs of the recognition of his superiority over Scotland were by his command entered in the chronicles of divers English monasteries. In the March of this year Nicolas IV granted him a tenth of ecclesiastical revenue for six years for the crusade he was contemplating (ib. ii. 509). Acre had fallen, and the christians of the East were looking to Edward to defend their cause. He was never able to undertake this crusade, and he applied the money which is said to have been collected with much strictness to other purposes (Cotton, p. 198). On 8 Sept. he buried his mother with considerable state at Amesbury. A private war that had been carried on between the Earls of Gloucester and Hereford took him to Abergavenny to hold an inquisition concerning a castle that Gloucester had built there without license. Thence he went to Hereford, and on 9 Nov. to Worcester. On the 25th he solemnly kept the anniversary of the queen's funeral at London, with a large number of bishops who came thither for the purpose (Ann. Wigorn. p. 506). After keeping St. Edmund's day, 28 April 1292, with his son and daughters at Bury St. Edmund's, and visiting Walsingham Abbey (Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 264), Edward again proceeded to Berwick. While he was at York he caused Rhys, son of Meredydd, who had risen against him and had been defeated and captured, to be tried and executed for treason. On 2 June the court was again opened at Berwick. The hearing of the case lasted until 17 Nov. [for particulars see Baliol, John, 1249-1315], when Edward delivered his judgment, declaring that John Baliol ought to have seisin of the kingdom, saving the right of the king of England and his heirs. On the 20th Baliol swore fealty to Edward at Norham, and on 26 Dec., after his coronation, he did homage to him at Newcastle (Federa, ii. 593).
     A petty war between the seamen of the Cinque ports and of Normandy, which began in 1293, gradually assumed serious proportions, and our seamen beat the French fleet in a pitched battle in the Channel. Some hostilities took place between the French and the Gascons, and Philip IV, who was bent on gaining Gascony, summoned Edward to appear before him in his parliament (ib. ii. 617). Edward made every effort to avoid war. A marriage was proposed between him and Blanche, a sister of the French king, with whom Edward was, it is said, greatly in love (Ann. Wigorn. p. 515), and he consented to give Philip seisin of Gascony, which was to be restored to him as Blanche's dower. Philip dealt dishonestly; he hoped to persuade Edward to come over to France with the intention, it is said, of entrapping him at Amiens (Cotton, p. 233); he broke off the negotiation for the marriage in 1294, and, having got Gascony into his possession, refused to deliver it up again, and declared that the promise was forfeited by Edward's non-attendance. War was now inevitable. The king seized all the merchants' wool, and with their consent levied an impost on it; he obtained a promise of liberal help from the lords ‘in a court or parliament’ held on 5 June, summoned his military tenants to assemble at Portsmouth on 1 Sept., and organised his fleet, dividing it into three large squadrons (Const. Hist. ii. 125, 126; Nicholas, Hist. of the Navy, i. 270). On 4 July he seized all the coined money in the cathedrals, monasteries, and hospitals (Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 271). He did not himself go to Gascony, for his presence was required in Wales, where Llewelyn's son Madoc, in North Wales, and other chiefs in Cardiganshire and Glamorganshire, were in insurrection. The proposed expedition came to nothing, though a force under Sir John St. John and other leaders made a short campaign. He sent an embassy to Adolf of Nassau, the king of the Romans, and bought an alliance with him. The Count of Bar he had already secured, for he had given him his daughter Eleanor to wife the previous Michaelmas at Bristol; he took several princes of the Low Countries into his pay, and sent to ask Spanish help. On 21 Sept. he met the clergy of both provinces at Westminster, and, having explained his necessities and apologised for his violent measures, demanded their help. They asked for a day's grace, which was accorded them. They offered two tenths for a year. Edward sent a messenger to them, who told them that the king would have half their revenues, and that if they refused he would put them out of his peace, adding: ‘Whoever of ye will say him nay, let him rise and stand up that his person may be known.’ The dean of St. Paul's tried to pacify the king, and fell dead with fright in his presence. The clergy had no head, for the archbishopric of Canterbury had fallen vacant in 1292, and Robert Winchelsey, who had been consecrated a few days before this, had not returned from Rome; they offered to obey the king's will if he would withdraw the statute of mortmain. This he refused to do, and they were forced to promise the half demanded of them (Hemingburgh, ii. 54; Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 274; Ann. Wigorn. p. 517; Flores, p. 394). In October the laity made grants for the Welsh war in a parliament in which the cities and towns were not represented, and their contribution was collected from them ‘by separate negotiation conducted by the king's officers’ (Const. Hist. ii. 127). Edward marched to Worcester and thence to Chester towards the end of November. He ravaged parts of Wales, but was shut up in Aberconway by Madoc, and reduced to some straits. During this war he built the castle of Beaumaris; he spent Christmas at Aberconway, and was detained by the war until May 1295. Two legates, who were sent over to endeavour to make peace, awaited his arrival at London on 1 Aug. A great council was held and the legates were authorised to conclude a truce with Philip, but Edward refused to make peace because his ally Adolf was not willing to do so. The treacherous designs of a certain knight named Turberville, who promised Philip that he would obtain the custody of the Cinque ports and deliver them to him on the appearance of a French fleet, were foiled by the refusal of Edward to grant him the command he desired. Nevertheless, an attack was made on Hythe, part of Dover was burnt by the French, and it was evidently thought that the king ran some risk in attending the enthronement of Archbishop Winchelsey at Canterbury on 2 Oct. (Cont. Flor. Wig. ii. 278; Ann. Dunst. p. 400). The king stood in great need of supplies; the repeated descents of the French were intolerable, and no progress was made with the war; the campaign in Wales had been protracted; more serious trouble seemed likely to arise with Scotland; and the council held in August had not dealt with the subject of money, for it was from its composition incapable of taxing the nation. This was to be done, by a parliament which the king summoned to meet in November. Writs were addressed to both the archbishops and to the several bishops containing a clause (Præmunientes) commanding the attendance of the clergy of each diocese by their representatives, to the baronage, and to the sheriffs ordering each of them to return two knights elected to serve for his shire, and two citizens or burgesses elected for each city or borough within it. Thus, this parliament of 1295 was an assembly in which the three estates of the realm were perfectly represented, and from that time every assembly to which the name of parliament can properly be applied was constituted on the same model, though the desire of the spiritual estate to tax itself separately in its own assembly, and its neglect to appear in the council of the nation by its proctors, have in fact changed the composition of parliament (Const. Hist. ii. c. xv.; Select Charters, p. 472 sq.). Edward received grants from each estate separately, but was not able to prosecute the war with France in person, for his presence and all the money he could get were needed for an expedition against the Scots.
     From the time that Baliol received the kingdom Edward had abstained from all direct interference with the affairs of Scotland. In consequence, however, of the acknowledgment of the feudal superiority of the English king he had a right, and was bound as lord paramount, to entertain and adjudicate upon appeals made to his court, and, in spite of Baliol's remonstrances, he had asserted and maintained this right in the case of an appeal made by a burgess of Berwick, which lay within the Scottish border, a few months after the settlement of the crown, and Baliol had implicitly allowed the validity of his assertion. Before long an appeal was lodged against Baliol by Macduff, earl of Fife. After some delay he appeared at a parliament held at Westminster in May 1294, and there seems to have promised an aid for the French war (Hemingburgh, ii. 45). The Scottish nobles were dissatisfied with his conduct, and, anxious to take advantage of the embarrassment of England, opened negotiations with Philip of France. When Edward heard of this he demanded that the border fortresses of Scotland should be placed in his hands until his war with France was concluded. This was refused, and in March 1296 an army led by seven Scottish earls ravaged Cumberland, and made an unsuccessful attack on Carlisle (Chron. Lanercost). Edward was not taken unprepared, for he had already summoned Baliol and the Scottish lords to meet him at Newcastle on 1 March to answer for certain injuries done to his subjects, and had gone thither with a large army. He was joined by the Bishop of Durham with the forces of the north, and on the 28th the English army of five thousand horse and thirty thousand foot entered Scotland, Edward crossing the Tweed near Coldstream, and the bishop near Norham. Berwick was summoned to surrender; Edward's terms were refused; and on the 30th he prepared to assault it. The English ships which were to act with the army attacked too soon, and three of them were burnt by the enemy. Edward led the assault in person, the town was quickly taken, and, as was the custom of war, very many Scots, more it is said than eight thousand, were put to the sword; the garrison of the castle surrendered on terms; and the women of Berwick were also after some days sent off to their own people (Hemingburgh, ii. 99; Knighton, col. 2480, puts the number of the slain at 17,400; and Fordun, xi. 54, 55, dwells on the barbarities of the English). While Edward remained at Berwick making new fortifications, a messenger from Baliol brought him the Scottish king's answer to his summons, the renunciation of his fealty and homage. ‘Ha! the false fool,’ Edward is said to have exclaimed, ‘what folly his is! If he will not come to us, we will come to him’ (Fordun). He detached part of his army to attack the castle of Dunbar, arrived there himself on 28 April, the day after Surrey had defeated the Scots, and received the surrender of the place. During May Haddington, Roxburgh, Jedburgh, and other towns were surrendered to him. He was now joined by some Welsh troops, and about this time sent back part of his English army. On 6 June he appeared before Edinburgh; the garrison began to treat on the fifth day, and the castle surrendered on the eighth day of the siege. At Stirling, where the only man left of the garrison was the porter to open the gates of the castle, he was joined by a large body of Irish troops. He kept the festival of St. John the Baptist (24 June) with much state at Perth, creating several knights, and while he was there received messengers from Baliol, who brought him the king's surrender. On 10 July he formally accepted Baliol's surrender of the kingdom at Montrose. He then marched northwards to Aberdeen, Banff, and Elgin, receiving everywhere the submission of the nobles and people, and returned to Berwick on 22 Aug., bringing with him the famous coronation stone from the abbey of Scone, and having achieved the conquest of Scotland in less than twenty-one weeks (Stevenson, Documents, ii. 37). On the 28th he held a parliament at Berwick, where he received the fealty of the clergy, barons, and gentry, the names filling the thirty-five skins of parchment known as Ragman Roll. All the lands of the clergy were restored, very few lords were dispossessed, the ancient jurisdictions were not interfered with, ‘no wanton or unnecessary act of rigour was committed, no capricious changes were introduced’ (Tytler), and the king, having appointed a guardian, treasurer, and other officers for Scotland, returned to England, and held a parliament at Bury St. Edmunds on 3 Nov.
     At this parliament, while the laity made their grants, the clergy, after thoroughly discussing the matter, authorised Archbishop Winchelsey to inform the king that it was impossible for them to grant him anything (Ann. Dunst. p. 405; Cotton, p. 314). The cause of this refusal was that in the previous February Boniface VIII had issued the bull ‘Clericis laicos,’ forbidding on pain of excommunication the clergy to grant, or the secular power to take, any taxes from the revenues of churches or the goods of clerks. Edward would not accept this answer, and bade the clergy let him know their final decision on the following 14 Jan. Meanwhile he ordered the lay subsidy to be collected, and, after staying some time at St. Edmund's, went to Ipswich and kept Christmas there. While he was there he married his daughter Elizabeth to John, count of Holland, and then made a pilgrimage to Walsingham. On 14 Jan. 1297 he sent proctors to the clergy, who were met in council at St. Paul's to decide the question of the subsidy. After setting forth the dangers that were threatening the kingdom, these proctors declared that unless the clergy granted a sufficient sum for the defence of the country the king and the lords of the realm would treat their revenues as might seem good to them. The king, who was then at Castle Acre in Norfolk, received a deputation sent by the synod on the 20th, who declared that the clergy found themselves unable to make any grant. Edward merely answered the Bishop of Hereford, the spokesman of the deputation: ‘As you are not bound by the homage and fealty you have done me for your baronies, I am not bound in any way to you.’ He was exceedingly wroth, for he was in great need of money for the defence of the kingdom, and on the 30th he declared he would outlaw the whole body of the clergy, and take their lay fees into his own hand (ib. p. 318). The clergy of the province of York submitted, made a grant, and received letters of protection, and the writ was issued against the clergy of the southern province on 12 Feb. (Ann. Wigorn. p. 530). Two days before this the archbishop excommunicated all who should act contrary to the papal decree.
     Meanwhile the king's army was defeated in Gascony, and Edward, who had on 7 Jan. made alliance with Guy, count of Flanders, determined to send a fresh force to Gascony, while he made an expedition in person to Flanders, in order to act against Philip in the north. With this view he held a parliament at Salisbury on 25 Feb., to which only the baronage of the kingdom was summoned, without the clergy or the commons. He asked the lords, one after another, to go to the war in Gascony. Every one of them refused, and he declared that those who would not go should give up their lands to those who would. Then he appealed to Humphrey Bohun, third earl of Hereford [q.v.], the constable, and Roger Bigod, fifth earl of Norfolk [q.v.], the marshal; both excused themselves, not, as they might have done, on the ground that the king ‘had strained his rights every possible way’ (Const. Hist. ii. 131-3, which should be consulted for a full account of the crisis of this year), but simply because they were only bound to serve with the king. They persisted in their refusal [for Bigod's well-known altercation with the king see Bigod, Roger]. The council broke up, and the two earls forthwith gathered a force, which was joined by several lords, and numbered fifteen hundred men. Edward was uneasy, though he kept his feelings to himself (Hemingburgh, ii. 121). He was obliged to carry out his plans and engagements, and as his lords refused to help him he seized the wool of all those who had more than five sacks, obliged the other merchants to redeem theirs by paying a heavy toll or ‘maletote,’ and ordered the sheriffs to furnish supplies of provisions from their several counties. The lords who held with the two earls would not allow the royal officers to take anything from their lands. Meanwhile Edward had an interview with the archbishop at Salisbury on 7 March, and pointed out that he was acting from necessity, and that it was useless to attempt to resist. At a synod held on the 26th the archbishop, while refusing himself to yield, allowed the clergy to follow their own consciences, and almost all of them purchased their peace of the king by the grant of a fifth (Cotton, p. 323). Edward then issued writs for a ‘military levy of the whole kingdom’ to meet at London, though constitutionally the national force could not be compelled to serve out of the kingdom (Const. Hist. ii. 135). When 7 July, the day appointed for the meeting of the force, arrived, the constable and marshal sent to Edward, stating that they attended not in virtue of a summons, but at his special request; for so the message to the sheriffs was worded (Federa, ii. 767), and they begged to be excused from performing their duties in marshalling the host, and Edward, who was now at Portsmouth making preparations for his expedition, appointed others to execute their offices. They then proceeded to draw up a list of grievances (Hemingburgh, ii. 124). Edward evidently thought it well to take some measures to gain the goodwill of the nation; for he promised that all his military tenants who served in Flanders should receive pay, and he was reconciled to the archbishop. On the 14th he appeared before the people on a platform in front of Westminster Hall, in company with the archbishop, his son Edward, and the Earl of Warwick, and with many tears asked them to pardon him for what he had done amiss, saying that he knew that he had not reigned as well as he ought, but that whatever they had given him, or whatever had without his knowledge been taken from them by his officers, had been spent in their defence. ‘And now,’ he added, ‘I am going to meet danger on your behalf, and I pray you, should I return, receive me as you do now, and I will give you back all that has been taken from you. And if I do not return, crown my son as your king.’ Winchelsey wept, and promised that he would do so, and all the people held up their hands in token of their fidelity (Flores, p. 409).
     The barons, however, represented that it was unadvisable that the king should depart; that a rebellion had broken out in Scotland, that the country was exhausted, that no more tallages ought to be levied, and that the Great Charter and the Forest Charter should be confirmed (ib.). Edward promised to confirm the charters if the clergy and laity would make him grants. The grants of the laity were promised by certain of those who had come up to the army levied from the various shires, and the king tried in vain to induce the earls to hold a conference with him. They sent envoys to him at St. Albans on the 28th, but declined to come in person. He ordered the subsidies to be collected from the laity, and on 7 Aug. published a letter which the sheriffs were bidden make known to the people at large. In this letter he said that he had heard that a list of grievances was drawn up; he had not refused to receive it, he had not as yet seen it; his people should remember that whatever money he had taken from them he had used in their defence. If he should return he would amend all things, if not he would have his heir do so; he was bound to go to the help of his ally, the Count of Flanders, and his going was necessary for the safety of the nation. The lords had promised him a grant on condition that he confirmed the charters, and he prayed the people to give him all the help they could, and bade them keep the peace (Cotton, pp. 330-4). After the publication of this letter the list of grievances was presented; it purports to be the work of the estates, and after objecting to the king's expedition sets forth the poverty of the realm, the extent to which it was burdened by taxation, the disregard of the Great Charter and of the Forest Charter, and the unjust seizure of wool, and finally declares that the king ought not to leave the kingdom in the face of the Scottish rebellion, and for other causes (Hemingburgh, ii. 361). Edward, who was then at Odemer, near Winchelsea, answered that he could make no reply to these matters without his council, and that some members of it had already crossed to Flanders, and others were in London, and he requested the earls that if they would not go with him, they would at least abstain from doing mischief in his absence. While he was at Winchelsea he met with an accident that might have proved fatal. As he was riding on the mound that defended the town on the seaward side, watching his fleet, his horse shied at a windmill, and refused to advance; he urged it with whip and spur, and the animal suddenly leaped from the mound on to the road which lay far below, winding up the steep ascent of the hill. Luckily it alighted on its legs; the road was muddy from recent rain, and though the horse slipped some feet, the king was able to bring it up again, and entered the gate of the town unhurt (Trivet, p. 359). On 10 Aug. the clergy who had been received into the king's protection met in convocation to decide the matter of the grant that had been demanded of them; they returned answer that they would apply to the pope for permission; and as the king was dissatisfied with this reply he ordered certain not immoderate taxes to be collected off them.
      Edward set sail from Winchelsea on the 23rd, landed at Sluys, and proceeded to Bruges. There he offered to bear half the expense of fortifying the town, but found that the townsmen were hostile to the count; they refused to become parties to the alliance he had made with Guy, and were inclined to surrender the town to the French. It was not safe for him to remain there, and he marched to Ghent, where the burghers had made terms with the French. Edward's soldiers treated the Flemish with much violence, plundered the neighbourhood, and especially the town of Damme, where they slew two hundred men, for which the king had some of them hanged (Hemingburgh, ii. 159; Rishanger, p. 413). While he was in Flanders his son Edward was forced to confirm the charters, and to add certain clauses that met the grievances stated in the remonstrance drawn up by the earls. The charters thus confirmed and enlarged were sent over to Edward, who confirmed them at Ghent on 5 Nov. (Statutes, i. 273). The additional articles are directed against taxation without the common consent of the realm, and against the arbitrary imposition of the maletote of 40s. on wool, the right of the crown to the ancient aids, taxes, and prises being reserved. The special importance of this enactment lies in the fact that chiefly owing to the work of Edward the consent of the nation now meant the concurrence of the estates of the realm assembled in parliament, without which taxation was now generally illegal. When the Great Charter was granted, no such machinery for the expression of the popular will was in existence. The articles are extant in two forms: in French, the version which holds a permanent place in the statute book, and by which Edward considered that he was bound; and in Latin, under the title ‘De Tallagio non concedendo,’ and in this form they are considerably more stringent. Although the Latin version was not a statute, and is either an inaccurate version of the French articles, or may represent the demands on which they were founded, it has obtained the force of a statute because it is referred to as such in the preamble to the Petition of Right of 1628 (Const. Hist. ii. 141 sq.). Shortly after this an invasion of the Scots gave Winchelsey an opportunity for bringing the dispute between the crown and the clergy to an end by recommending a grant. Edward did not accomplish anything against the French; the Flemish towns were not inclined to support him, and his allies gave him no help. Still his presence in Flanders checked Philip, and inclined him to accept the mediation of Boniface VIII, who interfered in the cause of peace in August (Federa, ii. 791). After some delay terms were arranged for two years. While negotiations were in progress a serious commotion was raised in Ghent against the English on 3 Feb. 1298, and Edward's foot soldiers burnt and sacked part of the city. The Flemings excused their rising by declaring that the English had done them much injury, and Edward, who knew that he was in their power, was forced to give them a large sum as a recompense (Hemingburgh, ii. 170 sq.). On 14 March he returned to England. Later in the year the terms with France were renewed through the pope's mediation, and it was arranged that Edward should marry Margaret, the French king's sister, and that his heir Edward should be contracted to Isabella, Philip's daughter. Edward's marriage took place at Canterbury on 10 Sept. 1299. The truce of 1298 was renewed the next year, and finally was converted into a lasting peace, which was concluded on 20 May 1303. Gascony was restored to him, but he sacrificed the interests of his ally, the Count of Flanders, whom he left exposed to the vengeance of the French king. The French war ended opportunely for Edward, for the Scottish rebellion demanded his immediate attention. Wallace had inflicted a disastrous defeat upon the English at the bridge of Stirling on 11 Sept. 1297, and had laid waste Cumberland and Westmoreland.
     Immediately on his return Edward ordered commissioners to make inquiry into grievances in every county, and summoned a lay parliament to meet at York on 25 May. The army was commanded to assemble at Roxburgh on 23 June, and the Earls of Norfolk and Hereford declared that they would not attend unless the king again confirmed the charters and the new articles. In order to meet their demand certain nobles swore, on behalf of the king, that if he was victorious he would do what they required. After visiting the shrine of St. John of Beverley and other holy places, Edward met his army at Roxburgh, and found himself at the head of seven thousand horse and eighty thousand foot nearly all Welsh and Irish, and was soon joined by a force from Gascony. He marched through Berwickshire without meeting the enemy, for the Scots kept out of his way and wasted the country. At Kirkliston he waited for news of the ships he had ordered to sail into the Forth with supplies. Provisions grew scarce, his Welsh infantry became mutinous, and he had determined to fall back on Edinburgh and there wait for his ships, when part of his fleet at last appeared with the supplies he needed, and on the third day afterwards, 21 July, a messenger from two Scottish lords informed him that the enemy was at Falkirk. His army camped that night in the open on Linlithgow heath, and the next morning, when the trumpet sounded at daybreak, the king's horse, excited by the general bustle, threw him as he was in the act of mounting, and broke two of his ribs with a kick (Trivet, p. 372). Edward, nevertheless, mounted and rode throughout the day as though he had received no injury. The Scottish cavalry fled without striking a blow (Fordun); the archers gave way after their leader was slain, but the infantry, which Wallace had arranged in four compact masses, stood firm, and the English horse charged in vain against their spears. At last they were broken by the English archers and by volleys of stones from the other foot soldiers, and were then helpless. Edward's victory was complete; twenty thousand Scots are said to have perished, while only two men of rank fell on the English side (Trivet). On advancing to Stirling, Edward found that the Scots had burnt the town; he lay there fifteen days to recover from his hurt, sending out expeditions to ravage the country, and putting the castle in a state of defence. He then marched to Abercorn, and thence through Clydesdale to Ayr, intending to advance into Galloway, but provisions failed, and he returned through Annandale and received the surrender of Bruce's castle of Lochmaben. On 9 Sept. he was at Carlisle, and there held a council, at which he granted the estates of the Scottish nobles to his own lords. The Earls of Norfolk and Hereford now requested that they might return home, declaring that their horses and men were worn out, though they let it be known that they were offended because the king had granted the Isle of Arran to Thomas Bisset, a Scottish lord who had seized it, whereas they said that he had promised to do nothing without their counsel. Edward's army, which had already suffered much from fatigue and privations, was greatly weakened by their departure, and no further operations of any importance were attempted. After staying for a while at Jedburgh, Newcastle, Durham, and Tynemouth, he spent Christmas at Cottingham, and marched southwards early in 1299, having utterly crushed the rising under Wallace, but leaving the land beyond the Forth virtually unsubdued, and the whole country ready to break into revolt. In spite of his magnificent army, his success was limited by want of provisions, and by the discontent and suspicion of the constable and marshal.
     The promise Edward had made before his expedition that he would confirm the charters was claimed in a great council he held at London on 8 March. He was displeased, and, though he declared that he would give his answer the next day, removed from the city during the night. Suspecting that he meant to evade his promise, the lords came after him and blamed him for his removal. He declared that he had moved for the sake of better air, and told them to go to his council for his answer. The Great Charter was confirmed, but to the confirmation of the Forest Charter was added, ‘saving the right of our crown,’ and when the people, who were assembled in St. Paul's churchyard to hear the charters and the king's confirmation, heard this salvo, their blessings were turned into curses (Hemingburgh, ii. 183). Another council was held in May, and the king then confirmed both the charters without any salvo, and promised to issue a commission for a perambulation of the forests, in order to settle disputes and declare the reformation of abuses. At the request of the pope, Edward liberated Baliol in July and delivered him to the legate, for he was anxious to meet the wishes of Boniface, in the hope that he would speedily regain Gascony, and was disappointed at not receiving it at his marriage in September. Soon after his marriage he began to make arrangements for another expedition to Scotland, for the regents chosen by the Scottish lords, who were upheld by Philip, were threatening his garrison in Stirling. On 11 Nov. he held a council at York, and advanced thence with his army as far as Berwick. There, however, the barons declared that it was too late in the year to make a campaign, and that they would go no further, for the king, they said, was not carrying out the confirmation of the charters. He was therefore obliged to return, and to authorise the surrender of Stirling. After spending Christmas at Berwick, he returned to the south, and held a parliament at London on 6 March 1300, which ‘contained both commons and clergy’ (Const. Hist. ii. 149). The question of the charters was again renewed. Again the king confirmed them, and gave his consent to a series of articles supplementary to the Great Charter (‘articuli super cartas’), enacting chiefly sundry reforms in the system of administering justice. In this parliament the king yielded to the will of the nation in the matter of the forests, and ordered the perambulations. At midsummer he again met a force composed of those who owed military service at Carlisle, and marched into Scotland with three thousand men at arms, his banner displaying ‘three leopards courant of fine gold, set on red, fierce, haughty, and cruel’ (Siege of Carlaverock, p. 23). He took Lochmaben, and, about 10 July, the castle of Carlaverock, which was for some time held against his army by a garrison of only sixty men. As a reward for their valour Edward granted them life and limb, and ordered that each of them should receive a new garment (ib. p. 87). He entered Galloway, and there had an interview with certain Scottish lords, who demanded that Baliol should be allowed to reign over them; he refused their demands and marched to Irvine, remaining in Galloway until the end of October. While he was at Sweetheart Abbey Archbishop Winchelsey came to him on 27 Aug., in company with a papal envoy, bringing him a bull from Boniface commanding him to abstain from further hostilities, denying his right to the lordship of Scotland, and declaring that it belonged to the holy see. Winchelsey, it is said, added an exhortation of his own, and spoke of the safety of the citizens of Jerusalem, and how those who trusted in God were as Mount Zion (Ps. cxxv. 1). ‘By God's blood,’ the king shouted, ‘I will not hold my peace for Zion, nor keep silence for Jerusalem’ (Is. lxii. 1), ‘but I will defend my right that is known to all the world with all my might’ (Walsingham). The story may not be true, but so devout a king as Edward may well have capped texts with the archbishop to good purpose. A letter was given to Winchelsey promising that the king would send the pope an answer after he had consulted with the council of his lords, for it was ‘the custom of the kingdom of England that in matters touching the state of the realm their advice should be asked who were affected by the business’ (Matt. Westmon. p. 426). On 30 Oct. he yielded to Philip's mediation, and granted the Scots a truce until the following Whitsuntide.
     In January 1301 Edward held a parliament at Lincoln, at which the report of the perambulations of the forests was received. The forest question was still productive of suspicion and annoyance; it touched the rights and property of the king, and it deeply affected the well being of many of his subjects. Edward would not consent to the disafforestments which were contemplated unless the prelates and lords could assure him that he might do so without breaking his oath¾probably some oath not to alienate the property of the crown, and without stripping the crown of its rights. On the other hand, the lords complained of Walter Langton, bishop of Lichfield, the treasurer, and presented a series of articles by Henry Keighley, one of the members for Lancashire, demanding a fresh confirmation of the charters, the execution of the disafforestments, and various other concessions, while the bishops declared that they must obtain the pope's consent before they could make a grant. The conduct of the barons appears to have been unreasonable. Edward scarcely deserved to be treated with so much distrust, though he had to some extent brought it on himself by the tenacity with which he had clung to what seemed to him to be the rights of the crown in the matter of the forests. He upheld his minister, but was forced to assent to most of the barons' articles. Nevertheless he was deeply angered, and imprisoned Keighley, though only for a short time. An article declaring that the goods of the clergy should not be taxed without the consent of the pope he rejected; it was a sign that Winchelsey was acting in conjunction with the barons. The archbishop had already shown by his conduct with regard to the papal pretensions over Scotland that he was not unwilling to use his office to embarrass the king, and Edward did not forget to requite him for the part he now took in forwarding his abasement (Const. Hist. ii. 150 sq.). Edward skilfully broke the alliance between the archbishop and the barons. After the commons had been dismissed, he laid the pope's bull before the barons, and requested them to send their own answer. On 12 Feb. they wrote a letter to the pope on behalf of the whole community of the realm, and addressed to him by seven earls and ninety-seven barons, declaring that the kings of England ought not to answer concerning their rights before any judge, ecclesiastical or civil, together with more of a like kind (Federa, ii. 860; Hemingburgh, ii. 211). In this letter the bishops had no part. On 7 May the king also sent the pope a long statement of the historical grounds on which he based his claim (Federa, ii. 863). His troubles with the baronage now ceased. His old opponent, Humphrey Bohun, was dead, and his son Humphrey, fourth earl of Hereford [q.v.], married the king's daughter Elizabeth in 1302, and surrendered his estates, receiving them back in tail, and the childless Earl of Norfolk made the king his heir, and entered into a similar arrangement (see under Bigod, Roger, fifth earl of Norfolk, and Const. Hist. ii. 154).
     At midsummer Edward again entered Scotland and took the castle of Bonkill in the Merse. No vigorous opposition was made to his authority south of the Forth, though the Scots lost no opportunity of secretly injuring the English, and pursued the wise policy of cutting off stragglers, and distressing the army by wasting the country so that no forage was to be had. Many horses died of hunger and cold before Edward went into winter quarters at Linlithgow, where he spent Christmas. His designs of conquest were checked by Philip, who again prevailed on him to grant a truce until November 1302. Soon after his return to England the difficulties that had restrained his action against Scotland began to clear away. Boniface found that he needed help against Philip, and, as he hoped to obtain it from Edward, he gave up the cause of the Scots; and Philip, who was anxious to devote all his strength to the war with Flanders, concluded the treaty of Amiens, which left the Scots to their fate. Edward, now that he had at last regained Gascony and was free from embarrassment at home and abroad, was able to carry on a more decided policy with respect to Scotland. Affairs had gone badly there, for on 24 Feb. 1303 Comyn had defeated an English army under Sir John Segrave at Roslin. On 26 May Edward met his army at Roxburgh; he marched by Edinburgh, Perth, Brechin, Aberdeen, and Banff without meeting any resistance save at Brechin, which stood a siege of about three weeks. Then he advanced into Moray, received the submission of the lords of the north at the castle of Lochindorb (Fordun, p. 989), and continued his ravages as far as Caithness. Stirling, the only place that still held out against him, he passed by. He marched south to Dunfermline, where he was joined by his queen, and passed the winter there, receiving the fealty of many Scottish nobles, and among them of Comyn. His expenses were heavy, and he was forced to find out some way of raising money. Accordingly, in February 1304, he issued writs for collecting tallage from his demesne. This was contrary to the spirit, though not to the letter, of the confirmation of the charters; it was an expedient that naturally commended itself to his legal mind as a means of obtaining his purpose without violating the exact terms of his pledge. In March he held a parliament at St. Andrews, and all the Scots who were summoned attended it save Wallace and Fraser; of Wallace he wrote on the 3rd that no terms were to be offered him save unconditional surrender. At St. Andrews he fixed the amounts which the barons were to pay as the price of obtaining his peace. When this business was concluded he laid siege to Stirling Castle; it was defended with great courage, and Edward, who was eager to take it, was more than once hit by missiles from the walls. The siege taxed his resources; he sent to England for materials for Greek fire, ordered the Prince of Wales to strip off the lead from the churches of Perth and Dunblane and send it to him, and employed Robert Bruce in conveying the framework for his engines (Documents, ii. 479, 481). The garrison surrendered at discretion on 24 July. Edward granted them their lives and merely punished them by imprisonment. He then made arrangements for the government of the country and the custody of the castles, and, accompanied by a number of Scottish nobles, marched southwards to Jedburgh, re-entered England, and spent Christmas at Lincoln. The court of king's bench and the exchequer, which had been at York ever since June 1297, now returned to Westminster. The following summer Wallace was delivered up to the English, was brought to London, was tried for treason, murders, robberies, and other felonies, and was put to death on 23 Aug.
     Edward returned to London on 30 Jan. 1305, and, finding that during his absence a number of crimes of violence had been committed by hired ruffians, he caused a statute to be made against such offences, and in April issued a writ founded upon it, called ‘of Trailbaston,’ for the arrest and punishment of the guilty (Rolls of Parliament, i. 178; Federa, ii. 11960). He had trouble in his own family, for in June the Prince of Wales, who was under the influence of Piers Gaveston, grievously insulted and wronged Bishop Langton, and was kept in disgrace for six months [see under Edward II]. In the course of the summer a Gascon noble, Bertrand de Goth, archbishop of Bordeaux, one of Edward's subjects, was raised to the papacy as Clement V. Political and personal reasons combined to render him anxious to oblige Edward, and he invited him to be present at his coronation (Federa, ii. 966). The king did not go, but sent ambassadors to treat of certain matters that ‘lay deep in his heart’ (ib. p. 971). These were the promises he had made concerning the charters, and the offence that Winchelsey had given him (Chronicles, Edward I, Introd. cv). He considered that he had been forced to diminish the just rights of the crown by yielding to the demands for a perambulation and disafforesting, and that his subjects had taken an unfair advantage of him; and it can scarcely be doubted that his love of hunting rendered the concessions he was forced to make peculiarly grievous to him. Accordingly, at his request, Clement absolved him from the pledges he had entered into in 1297 (ib. p. 978). In condemning his conduct, and it is certainly worthy of condemnation, it must be remembered that he took no advantage of this bull, and the religious and moral standard of the time should also be taken into account. Clement further ordered that no excommunication was to be pronounced against him without the sanction of the Roman see, and thus deprived Winchelsey of the means of defending himself against the king. Edward had already shown that he looked on the archbishop with disfavour, for he must have approved of the excommunication pronounced against Winchelsey in 1301 in the matter of a suit brought against him at Rome, and his anger was kept alive by a quarrel between Winchelsey and Bishop Langton. In 1306 the archbishop heard that the king and Langton had procured his suspension, and went to the king and asked him to stand his friend. Edward replied with great bitterness, reminding him of the trouble and humiliation he had brought upon him, and telling him plainly that he wished him out of the kingdom (Birchington, p. 16). The letter of suspension that the king had sought for arrived (Concilia, ii. 284, 286), and Winchelsey left England, not to return during the king's life. His absence enabled the king and the parliament to give a check to the aggressions of Rome, and led to the famous letter of remonstrance against papal oppressions drawn up by the parliament at Carlisle in the spring of 1307. Nevertheless Edward was forced to make some concessions to the pope, and to draw back in a measure from the position he had taken up in order to secure his triumph over the archbishop (Const. Hist. ii. 156).
     Meanwhile, in September 1305, Edward held a council at London, composed of certain bishops and nobles both of England and Scotland, who drew up a scheme for the administration of Scotland, dividing the country into judicial districts, and appointing justices and sheriffs as in England (Flores, p. 462). The scheme was approved by the king, and he fully believed that he had at last secured the submission of the country. In the following year, after taking his pleasure on the borders of Wiltshire and Hampshire, he went to Winchester to keep Lent, and while he was there received tidings of the rebellion of Robert Bruce and the murder of Comyn. He despatched a force to Scotland, under the Earl of Pembroke and two other lords, gave Gascony to his son Edward, and issued a proclamation that all who were bound to receive knighthood should come up to Westminster for that purpose. Then he journeyed to London in a horse-litter, for he was infirm and could not ride. On Whitsunday, 22 May, he held a magnificent festival, knighted his son, and invested him with the duchy of Aquitaine, and the prince knighted about three hundred of his companions in Westminster Abbey. Then, in the midst of the festival, the king vowed ‘before God and the swans’ that he would punish Bruce, and after that would no more bear arms against christian men, but would go to the Holy Land and die there (ib. p. 462; Trivet, p. 408). The prince at once marched to Scotland, and he followed by easy stages towards Carlisle, where he had summoned his army to assemble on 8 July. He was attacked by dysentery, and on 28 Sept. turned aside to Lanercost and joined the queen there (Chron. Lanercost, p. 206). The lenity he had hitherto shown in dealing with the Scottish nobles had failed of its purpose, and he now issued a decree that all concerned in the murder of Comyn, and all who sheltered them, should be put to death, and that all who belonged to the party of Bruce should, after conviction, be imprisoned during pleasure, a decree which, considering the habits of the time, certainly cannot be considered excessively rigorous. The English army was successful; Bruce's adherents were dispersed, and he fled for shelter to Ireland. The war was conducted, as all wars between the English and Scots were conducted, with considerable ferocity, and some Scottish prisoners of rank were tried, condemned, and executed with much barbarity. Edward can scarcely be held guiltless of cruelty in these cases, but his cruelty was not purposeless, and his temper, which had no doubt been soured by age, disappointment, and sickness, was severely tried; for these men had broken the oaths of fealty they had made to him, and their falseness threatened to ruin the work on which he had expended so much labour and treasure, and which he believed had been crowned with success. The Countess of Buchan and the sister of Bruce were subjected to an imprisonment of much severity, though they were not treated so harshly as is often stated [see under Comyn, John, third Earl of Buchan]. Edward appears to have remained at Lanercost until about 1 March 1307, suffering much from sickness (Chron. de Lanercost, p. 207), and before he left gave directions on 26 Feb. for the banishment of Gaveston, the evil counsellor of his son (Federa, ii. 1043). He then went to Carlisle to meet his parliament, and remained there. His army was summoned to meet at Carlisle soon after midsummer, and as Bruce had returned and had gained a transient success he determined to take the field in person, and hoping that his health was restored, offered in the cathedral his litter and the horses that drew it, and set out on horseback on Monday, 3 July. His malady returned with increased severity, and that day he only journeyed two miles. Still his spirit was undaunted; he again set out the next day, and again could not ride further than the same distance. On Wednesday he rested, and the next day arrived at Burgh-on-Sands (Trivet, p. 413, n. 3). There he took leave of the Prince of Wales; he bade him send his heart to the Holy Land with a hundred knights, who were to serve there for a year; not to bury his body until he had utterly subdued the Scots; and to carry his bones from place to place wherever he should march against them, that so he might still lead the army to victory, and never to recall Gaveston without the common consent of the nation. He died with, it is said, words of faith in God upon his lips, on Friday, 7 July, at the age of sixty-eight (Chron. de Lanercost, p. 108). His son disobeyed his dying commands, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey on 27 Oct. By his first wife, Eleanor of Castile, he had four sons: John and Henry, who died in infancy; Alfonso, who lived to the age of twelve; and Edward, who succeeded him; and nine daughters, four of whom died young. The others were: Eleanor, born in 1266, betrothed to Alfonso of Aragon (Federa, ii. 214), married Henry III, count of Bar, in 1293, and died in 1298; Joanna, born at Acre in 1272, betrothed in 1278 to Hartmann, son of the Emperor Rudolf (ib. 1067), who was drowned in 1281, married first, Gilbert, earl of Gloucester, in 1289, and secondly, in 1296, against the will of her father, a simple knight, Ralph of Monthermer, who thus obtained the earldom of Gloucester (Hemingburgh, ii. 70, records how she defended her conduct in making this marriage), she died in 1307; Margaret, born in 1275, married John, afterwards duke of Brabant, in 1290, and died in 1318; Mary, born in 1279, took the veil at Amesbury in 1284 somewhat against the wish of her father, who yielded in this matter to the urgent request of the queen-mother; she was alive in 1328 (Trivet, p. 310; Monasticon, ii. 237-40); Elizabeth, born at Rhuddlan in 1282, and so called the ‘Welshwoman’ (‘Walkiniana,’ Cotton, p. 163), married first, John, count of Holland, in 1296, and secondly, Humphrey Bohun, fourth earl of Hereford, in 1302, and died in 1316. By his second wife, Margaret, who survived him, Edward had two sons, Thomas [q.v.], earl of Norfolk, born at Brotherton in 1300, and Edmund [q.v.], earl of Kent, born in 1301, and a daughter who died in infancy.

Sources:
     Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj.; Royal Letters, Hen. III; Annals of Winchester, Waverley, Dunstaple, and Worcester, and T. Wikes ap. Ann. Monastici; Rishanger's Chron. et Annales; Opus Chronicorum, both ap. Chron. Monast. S. Albani; J. de Oxenedes; B. Cotton; T. Walsingham; Annales London., Chronicles, Edw. I and II; Brut y Tywysogion; Registrum, J. Peckham¾all these in Rolls Ser.; Liber de Ant. Legibus; Rishanger's De Bellis, both Camd. Soc.; W. Hemingburgh; N. Trivet; Cont. Florence of Worcester, these three Engl. Hist. Soc.; Adam of Domerham; Robert of Gloucester; P. Langtoft; Fordun's Scotichronicon, these four ed. Hearne; Chron. de Lanercost (Bannatyne Club); Birchington's Anglia Sacra, i.; M. Westminster, Flores Hist. ed. 1570; Rymer's Federa, ii. ed. 1705; Wilkins's Concilia, ii.; Stevenson's Documents illustrative of the Hist. of Scotland, Scotch Records; Statutes at Large, ed. Pickering; Stubbs's Const. Hist. ii., Select Charters, and Early Plantagenets; [Seeley's] Life and Reign of Edward I; Blaauw's Barons' War; Pauli's Simon de Montfort; Prothero's Simon de Montfort; Amari's Sicilian Vespers, trans. Earl of Ellesmere; Tytler's Scotland, i., 2nd edit.; Burton's Scotland, ii., 2nd edit.; Nicolas's Royal Navy, i., and Siege of Carlaverock; Tout's Edward I (Twelve English Statesmen), 1893.

Contributor: W. H. [William Hunt]

Published:     1888
 

© 2019:
Darryl Lundy
Wellington, New Zealand

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