Born in June 1239 at Westminster,
Edward 'the Long Shanks' was named by his father
Henry III after the last Anglo Saxon king (and his father's favorite saint), Edward
the Confessor. Edward's parents were renowned for their patronage of the
arts (his mother, Eleanor of Provence, encouraged Henry III to spend money
on the arts, which included the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey and a
still-extant magnificent shrine to house the body of Edward the Confessor),
and Edward received a disciplined education - reading and writing in Latin
and French, with training in the arts, sciences and music.
In 1254, Edward traveled to Spain for an arranged marriage at the age of 15
to 9-year-old Eleanor of Castile. Just before Edward's marriage, Henry III
gave him the duchy of Gascony, one of the few remnants of the once vast
French possessions of the English Angevin kings. Gascony was part of a
package which included parts of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the King's
lands in Wales to provide an income for Edward. Edward then spent a year in
Gascony, studying its administration.
Edward spent his young adulthood learning harsh lessons from Henry III's
failures as a king, culminating in a civil war in which he fought to defend
his father. Henry's ill-judged and expensive intervention in Sicilian
affairs (lured by the Pope's offer of the Sicilian crown to Henry's younger
son) failed, and aroused the anger of powerful barons including Henry's
brother-in-law Simon de Montfort. Bankrupt and threatened with
excommunication, Henry was forced to agree to the Provisions of Oxford in
1258, under which his debts were paid in exchange for substantial reforms; a
Great Council of 24, partly nominated by the barons, assumed the functions
of the King's Council.
Henry repudiated the Provisions in 1261 and sought the help of the French
king Louis IX (later known as St Louis for his piety and other qualities).
This was the only time Edward was tempted to side with his charismatic and
politically ruthless godfather Simon de Montfort - he supported holding a
Parliament in his father's absence.
However, by the time Louis IX decided to side with Henry in the dispute and
civil war broke out in England in 1263, Edward had returned to his father's
side and became de Montfort's greatest enemy. After winning the battle of
Lewes in 1264 (after which Edward became a hostage to ensure his father
abided by the terms of the peace), de Montfort summoned the Great Parliament
in 1265 - this was the first time cities and burghs sent representatives to
the parliament. (Historians differ as to whether de Montfort was an
enlightened liberal reformer or an unscrupulous opportunist using any means
to advance himself.)
In May 1265, Edward escaped from tight supervision whilst hunting. On 4
August, Edward and his allies outmanoeuvred de Montfort in a savage battle
at Evesham; de Montfort predicted his own defeat and death 'let us commend
our souls to God, because our bodies are theirs ... they are approaching
wisely, they learned this from me.' With the ending of the civil war, Edward
worked hard at social and political reconciliation between his father and
the rebels, and by 1267 the realm had been pacified.
In April 1270 Parliament agreed an unprecedented levy of one-twentieth of
every citizen's goods and possessions to finance Edward's Crusade to the
Holy Lands. Edward left England in August 1270 to join the highly respected
French king Louis IX on Crusade. At a time when popes were using the
crusading ideal to further their own political ends in Italy and elsewhere,
Edward and King Louis were the last crusaders in the medieval tradition of
aiming to recover the Holy Lands. Louis died of the plague in Tunis before
Edward's arrival, and the French forces were bought off from pursuing their
campaign. Edward decided to continue regardless: 'by the blood of God,
though all my fellow soldiers and countrymen desert me, I will enter Acre
... and I will keep my word and my oath to the death'.
Edward arrived in Acre in May 1271 with 1,000 knights; his crusade was to
prove an anticlimax. Edward's small force limited him to the relief of Acre
and a handful of raids, and divisions amongst the international force of
Christian Crusaders led to Edward's compromise truce with the Baibars. In
June 1272, Edward survived a murder attempt by an Assassin (an order of
Shiite Muslims) and left for Sicily later in the year. He was never to
return on crusade.
Meanwhile, Henry III died on 16 November 1272. Edward succeeded to the
throne without opposition - given his track record in military ability and
his proven determination to give peace to the country, enhanced by his
magnified exploits on crusade. In Edward's absence, a proclamation in his
name declared that he had succeeded by hereditary right, and the barons
swore allegiance to him. Edward finally arrived in London in August 1274
and was crowned at Westminster Abbey. Aged 35, he was a veteran warrior
('the best lance in all the world', according to contemporaries), a leader
with energy and vision, and with a formidable temper.
Edward was determined to enforce English kings' claims to primacy in the
British Isles. The first part of his reign was dominated by Wales. At that
time, Wales consisted of a number of disunited small Welsh princedoms; the
South Welsh princes were in uneasy alliance with the Marcher lords (feudal
earldoms and baronies set up by the Norman kings to protect the English
border against Welsh raids) against the Northern Welsh based in the rocky
wilds of Gwynedd, under the strong leadership of Llywelyn ap Gruffyd, Prince
of Gwynedd. In 1247, under the Treaty of Woodstock, Llywelyn had agreed that
he held North Wales in fee to the English king. By 1272, Llywelyn had taken
advantage of the English civil wars to consolidate his position, and the
Peace of Montgomery (1267) had confirmed his title as Prince of Wales and
recognized his conquests.
However, Llywelyn maintained that the rights of his principality were
'entirely separate from the rights' of England; he did not attend Edward's
coronation and refused to do homage. Finally, in 1277 Edward decided to
fight Llywelyn 'as a rebel and disturber of the peace', and quickly defeated
him. War broke out again in 1282 when Llywelyn joined his brother David in
rebellion. Edward's determination, military experience and skilful use of
ships brought from England for deployment along the North Welsh coast, drove
Llywelyn back into the mountains of North Wales. The death of Llywelyn in a
chance battle in 1282 and the subsequent execution of his brother David
effectively ended attempts at Welsh independence.
Under the Statute of Wales of 1284, Wales was brought into the English legal
framework and the shire system was extended. In the same year, a son was
born in Wales to Edward and Queen Eleanor (also named Edward, this future
king was proclaimed the first English Prince of Wales in 1301). The Welsh
campaign had produced one of the largest armies ever assembled by an English
king - some 15,000 infantry (including 9,000 Welsh and a Gascon contingent);
the army was a formidable combination of heavy Anglo-Norman cavalry and
Welsh archers, whose longbow skills laid the foundations of later military
victories in France such as that at Agincourt. As symbols of his military
strength and political authority, Edward spent some £80,000 on a network of
castles and lesser strongholds in North Wales, employing a work-force of up
to 3,500 men drawn from all over England. (Some castles, such as Conway and
Caernarvon, remain in their ruined layouts today, as examples of fortresses
integrated with fortified towns.)
Edward's campaign in Wales was based on his determination to ensure peace
and extend royal authority, and it had broad support in England. Edward saw
the need to widen support among lesser landowners and the merchants and
traders of the towns. The campaigns in Wales, France and Scotland left
Edward deeply in debt, and the taxation required to meet those debts meant
enrolling national support for his policies.
To raise money, Edward summoned Parliament - up to 1286 he summoned
Parliaments twice a year. (The word 'Parliament' came from the 'parley' or
talks which the King had with larger groups of advisers.) In 1295, when
money was needed to wage war against Philip of France (who had confiscated
the duchy of Gascony), Edward summoned the most comprehensive assembly ever
summoned in England. This became known as the Model Parliament, for it
represented various estates: barons, clergy, and knights and townspeople. By
the end of Edward's reign, Parliament usually contained representatives of
all these estates.
Edward used his royal authority to establish the rights of the Crown at the
expense of traditional feudal privileges, to promote the uniform
administration of justice, to raise income to meet the costs of war and
government, and to codify the legal system. In doing so, his methods
emphasized the role of Parliament and the common law. With the able help of
his Chancellor, Robert Burnell, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Edward introduced
much new legislation. He began by commissioning a thorough survey of local
government (with the results entered into documents known as the Hundred
Rolls), which not only defined royal rights and possessions but also
revealed administrative abuses.
The First Statute of Westminster (1275) codified 51 existing laws - many
originating from Magna Carta - covering areas ranging from extortion by
royal officers, lawyers and bailiffs, methods of procedure in civil and
criminal cases to freedom of elections. Edward's first Parliament also
enacted legislation on wool, England's most important export at the time. At
the request of the merchants, Edward was given a customs grant on wool and
hides which amounted to nearly £10,000 a year. Edward also obtained income
from the license fees imposed by the Statute of Mortmain (1279), under which
gifts of land to the Church (often made to evade death duties) had to have a
royal license.
The Statutes of Gloucester (1278) and Quo Warranto (1290) attempted to
define and regulate feudal jurisdictions, which were an obstacle to royal
authority and to a uniform system of justice for all; the Statute of
Winchester (1285) codified the policing system for preserving public order.
Other statutes had a long-term effect on land law and on the feudal
framework in England. The Second Statute of Westminster (1285) restricted
the alienation of land and kept entailed estates within families: tenants
were only tenants for life and not able to sell the property to others. The
Third Statute of Westminster or Quia Emptores (1290) stopped subinfeudation
(in which tenants of land belonging to the King or to barons subcontracted
their properties and related feudal services).
