EDWARD I., King of England, surnamed Long-Slinnke, from the excessive length of his legs, was the eldest son of King Henry III., by his wife Eleanor, second daughter of Raymond, count of Provence. Ile was born at Westminster, Juno 16, 1239. In 1252 he was invested by his father with the duchy of Guienne ; but a claim being set up to this territory by Alphonse K., king of Castile, who pretended that it had been made over to his ancestor Alphonse VIII. by his father In-law, Henry 11., it was arranged the following year that the dispute ehonld bo settled by the marriage of Prince Edward with Eleanor, the sister of Alphonse, who thereupon resigned whatever right he had to the duchy to his brother-in-law. After this, by letters patent, dated February 14, 1254, we find the lordship of Ireland, and by others dated February 18, in the same year, all the provinces which had been seized from his father, John, by the King of France, granted by Henry Iii. to his son Prince Edward. (Rymer L) Edward early manifested a character very unlike that of his weak and imprudent father. While yet only entering upon manhood, wo find him taking part in important afreirs of state. Thus the agree meet which Henry made in 1256 with Popo Alexander IV. in relation to the kingdom of Sicily, which the pope granted to Henry's second sou Edmund, was ratified by Prince Edward in a letter to his Holiness, still preserved. In 1255 ho signed, along with his father, the agree ment called the Provisions or Statutes of Oxford, by which it was arranged that the government of the country should be put into the hands of twenty-fonr commissioners, appointed by the barons; and two years after, when Henry violently broke through this engage ment, Edward came over from Guienne, wheri he was resident, and publicly expressed his disapprobation of the king's conduct. For the next two or three years Edward may be regarded as placed in oppo sition to his father's government. In 1262 however Henry, in a visit which ha paid him in Guienne, succeeded in gaining him over to his side, and from this timo the prince became the king's most efficient supporter. In the summer of 1263, the quarrel between Henry and his barons came to a contest of arms, which lasted, with some brief intermissions, for four years. Duriog this period the military opera tions on the king's side were principally conducted by Prince Edward. In the beginning he was unfortunate, having been driven first from Bristol and then from Windsor, and having been finally defeated and taken prisoner with his father at the battle of Lewes, fought May 14, 1264. After being detained however about n twelvemonth, he made
his escape out of the bands of the Earl of Leicester; and ou the 4th of August, 1265, his forces having enoonntered those of that noble man at Evesham, the result was that Leicester was defeated and lost his life, and the king was restored to liberty. From this time Edward and his father carried everything before them till the war was con cluded, in July 1267, by the surrender of the last of the insurgents, who had taken up their position in the Isle of Ely.
Soon after this, at a parliament held at Northampton, Priuco Edward, together with several noblemen and a great number of knights, pledged themselves to proceed to join the crusaders in the Holy Land. The prince, accordingly, having first, in a visit to Paris, in August, 1269, made his arrangements with St. Louis, set sail from England to join that king in May, the year following. St. Louis died on his way to Palestine ; and Edward, having spent the winter in Sicily waiting for him, did not arrive at the scene of action till the end of May, 1271. Hero he performed eoveral valorous exploits, which however were attended with no important result. His most memorable adventure was an encounter with a Saracen, who attempted to assassinate him, and whom he slow on the spot, but not before ho had received n wound in the arm from a poisoned dagger, from the effects of which he is said to have been delivered by the princess, his wife, who sucked the poison from the wound. At lest, having con cluded a ten years' truce with the Saracens, he left Palestine in August 1272, and set out on his return to England. He was at Messina, on his way home, in January 1273, when he heard of the death of his father on the 16th of November preceding. He pro ccoded on hie journey, and landed with his queen in England 25th , July 1274. They were both solemnly crowned at Westminster on the 19th of August following. The reign of Edward I. however appears to have been reckoned not from the day of his coronation, according to the practice observed in the cases of all the preceding kings since the Conquest, but according to the modern practice, from the day on which the throne became vaoant, or rather from the 20th of November, the day of his father's funeral, immediately after which the clerical and lay nobility who were present in Westminster Abbey on the occasion had sworn fealty to the new king at the high altar of that church.