Irene Preston's Historical Writing
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - PART FOUR
Edward I
Edward, the first son of Henry III, was born at
Westminster in 1239. He took an early interest in politics, war and
government due to his father's weakness and love of a quiet life. Henry
arranged a good marriage for his son, aged 15, to Eleanor of Castile, a
beautiful dark-haired Spanish princess aged 9 and in1254 they were
married at a monastery in Spain. Eleanor arrived in England with an
enormous retinue of flamboyant and extravagant Spanish relatives, who
were probably expecting to be given important positions at Court. Edward
was to prove he was not as easy to manipulate as his father had been
with his relatives from Savoy. He only gave offices to professionals and
technicians for their ability and not social standing.
Eleanor accompanied Edward on his campaigns as they travelled through
England, France and Spain. They were to have 16 children, several born
in other countries, but they were not robust children and were mostly
ignored by their parents. Many died at birth or at an early age. Their
son Alfonso died at the age of 12, others survived to middle age and
their daughter Mary became a nun at Amesbury in 1285 and lived to the
age of 50. The most robust of the children was the future Edward II who
years later resisted the many attempts to end his life by being badly
treated during his imprisonment.
In 1265 Simon de Montfort returned to England to lead the baron's
rebellion against King Henry but was defeated by Edward and his army at
Evesham and Montfort was captured and mutilated. His men were massacred
and the barons accepted that Edward was a powerful leader and would
support him. In 1270 he went on a crusade to the Holy Land with Eleanor
and was away for 4 years. He had received a wound and was recuperating
in Sicily as the guest of the King when he received the news of his
father's death in 1272. His young son John had died in 1271, aged 5, and
his daughter Joan was born in Acre in 1272. Edward's other young son
Henry died in 1274 aged 6. The same year Edward, now 34, and Eleanor
returned to England and were crowned in a dual ceremony in Westminster
Abbey.
He was the opposite of his father in conducting his affairs of state and
very much the warrior, described as tall with long legs and often called
‘Longshanks’. Edward at times could be faithless and as untrustworthy as
his grandfather, King John, but more successful. He knew his own power,
was decisive and formidable in battle. He did show his pious nature and
endowed an abbey at Vale Royal in Cheshire which he supported until
1290. Sadly there is very little to be seen today. Shortly after Edward
I was crowned he ordered a review of the realm known as ‘The Hundred
Rolls’ after the term used for local districts known as the ‘Hundreds’.
It was the most comprehensive summary of English life produced since the
Domesday Book and meant to ascertain the true ownership and possession
of land and property. Many could not provide documents of rightful
holding so eventually the government had to accept those with claims
dating from the accession of Richard I.
He also introduced more statutes in parliament and a Conservator of the
Peace and a Chancery Court for ordinary people to lay claims for justice
and legal advice. In 1304 commissions of Justices were appointed to deal
with offenders who terrorized the population in gangs. Many were
ex-soldiers of the king and had to shelter in the forests causing
disruption and danger to travellers. Edward I was known as the castle
builder and started to build an iron ring of castles around Snowdon to
contain the Welsh after the death of Llewelyn, Prince of Wales, in 1282.
He built 17 castles and 3 Welsh ones were remodelled. His 4 best castles
were Conway, Caernarvon, Harlech, begun in 1283, and Beaumaris in 1295.
Most were built near the sea for supplies to be received by ship and
easily manned by 30 men. Some were attached to the new fortified towns
and settled by the English. As a young man Edward visited his maternal
relations in Savoy and admired their castles and towns built alongside
the walls known in France as bastides. His right-hand man was a master
mason from Savoy called Master James of St. George and several thousand
men were drawn from all over England to work for 7 months under the
king's master mason. He was given the appointment of Constable of
Harlech Castle, after it was built, from where he directed the ongoing
work and maintenance of all the king's castles. Master James retired
with a pension and a manor in north-east Wales he died about 1307/9.
Edward's son, the future Edward II, was born at Caernarvon Castle in
1284 and was created the first English Prince of Wales in 1301. Eleanor
of Castile, Queen of England died in 1290 of malarial complications 2
years after returning from spending 3 years in Gascony with the king.
She was not a much loved queen in her lifetime and had a reputation for
grasping, overtaxing her tenants and joining forces with the Jewish
usurers to gain possession of estates belonging to Christians. Her
effigies in Lincoln and Westminster reflect a beautiful pious woman.
Edward ordered an elaborate cross to be erected at the 12 places where
her cortege had rested during its journey to Westminster. They were not
just monumental as the king had his stonemasons create beautiful crosses
in the latest Decorative Gothic style. Three crosses can still be seen
at Northampton, Waltham and Geddington but several have been reproduced.
The idea of a procession may have been taken from that of King Louis of
France when his bones were carried from Paris to St. Denis 20 years
earlier. Was Edward's act one of love for his wife or a wish to impress
the French? His mother Eleanor of Provence died in 1291 at the convent
of Amesbury where his daughter was a nun. In 1299 the king remarried to
Margaret, the daughter of Phillip III of France, and she bore him 3 more
children, Thomas of Brotherton in 1300, Edmond of Woodstock in 1301 and
Eleanor in 1306.
Wool was as important to England as wine was to Gascony and accounted
for half the wealth of England during the 13th century, as it had done 2
centuries earlier. About 6 million sheep grazed the English countryside
producing up to 50,000 sacks of wool a year. A quarter of this was
exported every year to Flanders and woven into cloth by Flemish weavers
and re-exported.
The king put a tax of 7/6 (seven shillings and six pennies), on each
sack of wool and tried to raise it to 40 shillings on every sack
exported between 1294 and 1297 to finance his war with France, almost
causing a civil war. The Flemish trade died and the trade went to
Holland, some Flemish weavers came to England producing a cheaper cloth,
making England important in the cloth-making industry.
The export duties on wool were payable at London and 13 other ports and
the Crown received good revenue from tax on wool.
The medieval Jews in England needed to look to the king for protection
in a Christian world. Most had come from France and Germany but some had
come from Spain, Italy, Russia and Muslim countries. They were put at
risk by the rising tide of the crusading enthusiasm across Europe.
During the coronation celebrations of Richard I in 1189 the Jewish
Quarter of York was sacked and its inhabitants massacred.
In 1253 Henry III had declared that no Jew shall remain in England
unless he perform the service of the king, thus defining the function of
the 13th century that the Jews should provide him with cash in the form
of taxes and compulsory gifts. They would meet his needs from the
proceeds of lending money to his subjects at an interest. Usury was
strictly forbidden to Christians by the laws of the Church and State but
the kings did not have any scruples to profit from it second hand. A
department of government ‘The Exchequer of the Jews’ existed to keep a
record of their transactions so the king would know exactly how much he
could extort from them. Even a dead Jew's properly was confiscated on a
trumped up charge of sinful activities. They could apply to court for
the recovery of debts and were protected against attacks by Christians.
The 13th century Jew was owned completely by the king and by the end of
the century he had reduced them to such impoverishment they were
relegated to the status of pawnbrokers. They could only accept movable
personal property and not land to use as security for loans. After
taking all he could from the Jews, Henry III mortgaged them to his
brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, and many were killed during the
baron's war. Edward had replaced the Jews as financiers with Italian
bankers and merchants hoping to encourage them to work in commerce,
trade, farming or handicrafts; and make them more acceptable to the rest
of the community. This, however, made them more noticeable as he ordered
that every Jew over the age of 7 must wear 2 small yellow strips of
cloth on their clothing that depicted the stone tablets upon which the
Ten Commandments had been written. In 1278 Edward realized his coinage
was being rendered worthless by excessive clipping on the part of the
Jews in England, to such an extent that it was not reaching half its
weight. Foreign merchants were not visiting England with their goods as
often as they had in the past on account of this debasement of the coin
and thus goods were more expensive. The Jews doing this were to be
arrested in all the cities, together with the goldsmiths who assisted
them, and imprisoned many being hung. The king acquired all the wealth
they had accumulated illegally and he eventually expelled all the Jews
from England and seized the property they had left behind, and took over
the debts owing to them.
The papacy received vast revenues from Western Europe by way of
taxation, judicial fees and income from benefices. The merchants of
Florence transmitted these revenues often in the form of wool or cloth
and credited the values to the papacy. In 1252 Florence started to mint
the gold florin which soon became the standard currency in the west and
the easiest way to make large payments in cash. The Florentines
controlled the money market and Edward had desperate need of the Italian
bankers. It was partly to please his wife and mother and his own
subjects that he expelled the Jews and of course the many Italian
bankers who came to England to take advantage of the wool trade and
Edward’s need for money to finance his wars. In 1286 King Alexander III
of Scotland died in a riding accident, his heir was his granddaughter
Margaret known as The Maid of Norway. She was 7 years old and had been
betrothed to young Edward in 1290. Sadly, she died before reaching
Scotland the same year. The marriage would have united England and
Scotland and all the bitter warfare avoided. The claimants to the throne
were John Balliol and Robert Bruce. Edward I was chosen to arbitrate
between them and he ruled in favour of Balliol who became king in 1292.
He was the weaker of the two and lacked character, unlike Bruce whom the
people supported and they allied themselves with France. This alliance
with his bitter enemy infuriated Edward and he sacked Berwick with great
savagery killing thousands of innocent civilians. Balliol surrendered
his realm to Edward and went to live with his son in England. Many
Scottish lords had held land in both countries since the Norman
Conquest. In 1297 William Wallace, a rebel leader, fought the English on
behalf of Balliol who was put in the Tower with his son for several
years. Wallace fought on for 9 years until he was eventually caught in
1305 and was hung drawn and quartered. Robert Bruce rebelled in 1306 and
was crowned Robert I but he was again driven into exile by Edward. In
1307 the King of England who was 68 and failing in health went north
carried on a stretcher to make a final assault on the Scottish king but
Edward died on his way to battle. His heir Edward, now king, abandoned
the war with Scotland and speedily had his father buried in a plain
chest of Purbeck marble, without any inscription or adornment, at
Westminster Abbey. Many years later it was inscribed ‘Scottorum
Malleus’, Hammer of the Scots.
Purbeck marble is in reality Jurassic limestone that has been polished.
It was laid down in a shallow sea 208 to 146 million years ago and is
found on the Dorset coast.
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - William I to Henry II click
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - Richard I and King John click
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - Henry III click
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - Edward I click
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - Edward II click
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - Edward III
click
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - Richard II
click
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - Henry IV click
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND - Henry V click
THE PLANTAGENET KINGS OF ENGLAND -
Henry VI
click