Edward I

EDWARD I. (1239-1307), king of England, born at West minster on June 17, 1239, was the eldest son of Henry III. and Eleanor of Provence. He was baptized Edward after Edward the Confessor, for whom Henry had special veneration, and among his godfathers was Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, his aunt Eleanor's husband. His political career begins when the conclusion of a treaty with Alphonso X. of Castile, by which he was to marry the Spanish king's half sister Eleanor, necessitated the conferring on him of an adequate establishment. His father granted him the duchy of Gascony, the earldom of Chester, the king's lands in Wales and much else. The provision made was so liberal that Henry's subjects declared he was left no better than a mutilated king.

The Prince.

In May 1254 Edward went to Gascony to take possession of his inheritance. He then crossed the Pyrenees, and in October was dubbed knight by Alphonso and married to Eleanor at the Cistercian convent of Las Huelgas, near Burgos. He re mained in Gascony till November 1255, but his father was too jealous to allow him a free hand in its administration. After his return, the attempts of his agents to establish English laws in his Welsh possessions brought Edward into hostile relations with the Welsh. Here also his father would give him no help, and his first campaign brought him little result. Edward became extremely unpopular through his association with his Lusignan kinsfolk, his pride and violence, and the disorders of his household. In 1258 his strenuous opposition to the Provisions of Oxford further weakened his position, but, after the banishment of the foreigners, he began to take up a wiser line.

In 1259 he led the young nobles who insisted that the triumph ant oligarchy should carry out the reforms to which it was pledged. For a moment it looked as if Edward and Leicester might make common cause, but Edward remained an enemy of Montfort, though he strove to infuse his father's party with a more liberal and national spirit. He was the soul of the recon stituted royalist party formed about 1263. In 1264 he took a prominent part in the fighting between the king and the barons. At the battle of Lewes his rash pursuit of the Londoners con tributed to his father's defeat. Two days later Edward surren dered to Leicester as a hostage for the good behaviour of his allies. He was forced to give up his earldom of Chester to Leicester, but at Whitsuntide 1265 he escaped from his custodians, and joined the lords of the Welsh march who were still in arms. With their aid he defeated and slew Leicester at Evesham on Aug. 4, 1265.

For the rest of Henry III.'s reign Edward controlled his father's policy and appropriated enough of Leicester's ideals to make the royalist restoration no mere reaction. So peaceful became the outlook of affairs that in 1268 Edward took the cross, hoping to join the new crusade of St. Louis. Want of money delayed his departure till 1270, by which time St. Louis was dead, and a truce concluded with the infidel. Refusing to be a party to such treason to Christendom, Edward went with his personal followers to Acre, where he abode from May 1271 to August 1272. Despite his energy and valour he could do little to prop up the decaying crusading kingdom and he narrowly escaped assassination. The declining health of his father induced him to return to the West.

He learned in Sicily the death of Henry III. on Nov. 16, 1272. On Nov. 20, the day of Henry's funeral, he was recognized as king by the English barons, and from that day his regnal years were subsequently computed. Affairs in England were so peaceful that Edward did not hurry home. After a slow journey through Italy and France he did homage to his cousin Philip III. at Paris, on July 26, 1273. He then went to Gascony, where he stayed nearly a year. He landed at Dover on Aug. 2, 1274, and was crowned at Westminster on Aug. 18th.

Character and Administration.

Edward was 35 years old when he became king, and the rude schooling of his youth had developed his character and suggested the main lines of the policy which he was to carry out as monarch. He was a tall, well-pro portioned and handsome man, extravagantly devoted to military exercises, tournaments and the rougher and more dangerous forms of hunting. He had learned to restrain the hot temper of his youth, and was proud of his love of justice and strict regard to his plighted word. His domestic life was unstained, he was de voted to his friends, and loyal to his subordinates. Without any great originality either as soldier or statesman, he was competent enough to appropriate the best ideas of the time and make them his own. His defects were a hardness of disposition which some times approached cruelty and a narrow and pedantic temper, which caused him to regard the letter rather than the spirit of his prom ises. His effectiveness and love of strong government stand in strong contrast to his father's weakness. Though he loved power, and never willingly surrendered it, he saw that to be successful he must make his policy popular. Thus he continued the system which Montfort had formed with the object of restraining the monarchy, because he saw in a close alliance with his people the best means of consolidating the power of the crown.

The first years of Edward's reign were mainly occupied by his efforts to establish a really effective administration. In carrying out this task he derived great help from his chancellor, Robert Burnell, bishop of Bath and Wells. Administrative reform soon involved legislation, and from 1275 to 1290 nearly every year was marked by an important law. Few of these contained anything that was very new or original. They rather illustrate that policy which caused Stubbs to describe his reign as a "period of defini tion." Yet the results of his conservative legislation were almost revolutionary. In particular he left the impress of his policy on the land laws of England, notably by the clause De Donis of the Westminster statute of 1285, and the statute Quid Emptores of 129o. The general effect of his work was to eliminate feudalism from political life. At first he aimed at abolishing all franchises whose holders could not produce written warranty for them. This was the policy of the statute of Gloucester of 1278, but the baro nial opposition was so resolute that Edward was forced to permit many immunities to remain. Though the most orthodox of church men, his dislike of authority not emanating from himself threat ened to involve him in constant conflict with the Church, and notably with John Peckham, the Franciscan friar, who was arch bishop of Canterbury from 1279 to 1292. The statute of Mortmain of 1279, which forbade the further grant of lands to ecclesiastical corporations without the royal consent, and the writ Circumspecte Agatis of 1285, which limited the church courts to strictly ecclesi astical business, both provoked strong clerical opposition. How ever, Peckham gave way to some extent, and Edward prudently acquiesced in many clerical assumptions which he disliked. He was strong enough to refuse to pay the tribute to Rome which John had promised, and his reign saw the end of that papal over lordship over England which had greatly complicated the situation under his father.