English King Edward I (Longshanks)
Gathered by D. A. Sharpe
Edward I was born June 17, 1239 at
the Palace of Westminster in London, England.
His death was July 7, 1307 (age 68) at Burgh by Sands, Cumberland,
England. His burial was October
27, 1307 in Westminster Abbey, London, England.
Edward I became
king of England in 1272. As
king, he conquered Wales and tried to gain control of Scotland. Edward belonged to the Plantagenet family
of English rulers. He's my 13th
cousin, 20 times removed through my Mother's family line. He also is, in my father's family line,
the 11th great
grandfather of the 1st husband of Alice Carpenter, my seven times great
grandmother.
In addition, King Edward I is the
24th great grandfather of our son-in-law, Steven O. Westmoreland, meaning that our daughter married well
into Royalty! Steve and Tiffany
are thirty-fourth cousins, four times removed. King Edward I also had a relationship
with the first elected President of the United States, George Washington!
Edward I was born in Westminster
(now part of London). He
succeeded his father, Henry III, as king.
Edward fought two wars against the Welsh, one in 1277 and another in
1282 and 1283. He conquered
Wales in the second war. In
1301, Edward gave the title Prince of Wales to his son, who later became Edward
II. Since then, it has become
customary for English monarchs to give the title to their oldest son.
Edward was called "Longshanks"
due to his great height. He was
perhaps the most successful of the medieval monarchs. The first twenty years of
his reign marked a high point of cooperation between crown and community. In these years, Edward made great
strides in reforming government, consolidating territory, and defining foreign
policy. He possessed the strength his father lacked and reasserted royal
prerogative.
Edward fathered many children as
well: sixteen by Eleanor of Castille
before her death in 1290, and three more by Margaret. In addition, there supposedly is an
illegitimate child as well.
Edward held to the concept of
community, and although at time was scrupulously aggressive, ruled with the
general welfare of his subjects in mind.
He perceived the crown as judge of the proper course of action for the
realm and its chief legislator; royal authority was granted by law and should
be fully utilized for the public good, but that same law also granted
protection to the king's subjects. A
king should rule with the advice and consent of those whose rights were in
question. The level of
interaction between king and subject allowed Edward considerable leeway in
achieving his goals.
Edward I added to the bureaucracy
initiated by Henry II to increase his effectiveness as sovereign. He expanded the administration into
four principal parts: the Chancery, the Exchequer, the
Household, and the Council. The
Chancery researched and created legal documents while the Exchequer received and
issued money, scrutinized the accounts of local officials, and kept financial
records. These two departments
operated within the king's authority, but independently from his personal rule,
prompting Edward to follow the practice of earlier kings in developing the
Household, a mobile court of clerks and advisers that traveled with the king. The King's Council was the most vital
segment of the four. It consisted of his principal ministers, trusted judges
and clerks, a select group of magnates, who also followed the king. The Council dealt with matters of
great importance to the realm and acted as a court for cases of national
importance.
Edward's forays into the refinement
of law and justice had important consequences in decreasing feudal practice. The Statute of Gloucester (1278)
curbed expansion of large private holdings and established the principle that
all private franchises were delegated by, and subordinate to, the crown. Royal jurisdiction became supreme: the Exchequer developed a court to hear financial disputes,
the Court of Common Pleas arose to hear property disputes, and the Court of the
King's Bench addressed criminal cases in which the king had a vested interest. Other statutes prohibited vassals
from giving their lands to the church, encouraged primogeniture, and
established the king as the sole person who could make a man his feudal vassal.
Essentially, Edward set the stage for land to become an article of commerce.
Edward concentrated on an aggressive
foreign policy. A major campaign
to control Llywelyn
Gruff of Wales began in 1277 and lasted until Llywelyn's death in 1282. Wales was divided into shires,
English civil law was introduced, and the region was administered by appointed
justices. In the manner of
earlier monarchs, Edward constructed many new castles to ensure his conquest.
In 1301, the king's eldest son was
named Prince of Wales, a title still granted to all first-born male heirs to
the crown. Edward found limited
success in extending English influence into Ireland: he introduced a Parliament in Dublin
and increased commerce in a few coastal towns, but most of the country was
controlled by independent barons or Celtic tribal chieftains. He retained English holdings in
France through diplomacy, but was drawn into war by the incursions of Philip IV
in Gascony. He negotiated a
peace with France in 1303 and retained those areas England held before the war.
In 1292, Edward chose John de Balliol as
ruler of Scotland from among several men who claimed the Scottish throne. Edward demanded that Balliol pay
homage to him. But this demand
humiliated the Scottish people, causing them to revolt. In 1296, Balliol joined the rebel
forces, but Edward forced him to surrender.
Edward then took to England the Stone of Scone, the stone upon which
Scottish kings had been given royal power for hundreds of years. He placed the stone in Westminster Abbey,
where English monarchs were crowned.
But the Scots continued to fight
England. They were led first by William Wallace and
then by Robert Bruce. Bruce was crowned king of Scotland in
1306. Edward died while on his
way to subdue the new king. This
story was made known in the public's mind with the 1995 Mel Gibson theater
movie, "Braveheart." This movie decidedly put Edward in a bad
light, as it's intent was to glorify the cause of the Scotts and their hero,
William Wallace.
Edward's Scottish policy resulted in
hostile relations between the English and the Scots for the next 250 years. It also led to an alliance between
Scotland and France. As a
result, England had to fight both countries at the same time. Edward's need for money to supply his
army and government led him to call Parliaments more often than had any
previous king. These Parliaments
consisted of representatives of the nobility, the church, and common people. In return for grants of money from
Parliament, Edward agreed that taxes could be levied only with Parliament's
consent. He also sponsored laws
on more topics than any previous king.
Magna Carta of 1215 issued
by Edward's grandfather, King John, did not end the struggle between British
Kings and the barons. Neither
side intended to abide by the charter completely. Pope Innocent III canceled the
charter after King John requested it, and war broke out immediately. After John's death in 1216, however,
his son Henry III and later English kings promised to abide by the charter. The most famous of these promises was
that of Edward I in 1297. Through
these promises, the charter came to be recognized as part of the fundamental
law of England. King Edward's
edition was 37 sections or paragraphs, all of which became what is called
codified law. Amazingly, ten of
those paragraphs remain today in English legislation.
Edward I was not the first English
king named Edward. People in
England give numbers to their kings and queens with the same name only if the
monarchs ruled after the Norman Conquest of 1066. There were three Anglo-Saxon kings
named Edward who ruled England before 1066:
Edward the Elder (870?-924),
Edward the Martyr (963?-978?), and Edward the Confessor
(1002?-1066).
Source
Contributor: John Gillingham, Senior Lecturer, London School of Economics and
Political Science, University. of London, as published in the World Book
Encyclopedia, 1996. Additional
source: Encyclopedia Britannica, web sitehttp://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs/mon30.html
The only copy of the Magna Carta
issued by Edward that was allowed out of England belonged to H. Ross Perot,
Sr., a Dallas, Texas resident and friend of this writer. It belonged to the Perot Foundation, a
non-profit educational organization which he created. Ross generously made a reproduction
for my own records. Today, I
have handed it down to my son, Taylor Marcus Sharpe.
There are 17 copies of the various
issues of the Magna Carta which survive today. Four from the rein of King John I,
eight from that of Henry III, and five from Edward I. Fifteen remain securely in England,
one is in Australia and one is the in
America. Mr. Perot purchased the
1297 edition of King Edward in 1984 for a reported $1.5 million. It was loaned virtually all the time
of his Foundation's ownership to the United States Archives. It was displayed occasionally in
Independence Hall, Philadelphia. The
rest of the time mostly was on display in the National Archives Building in
Washington DC, alongside of the Declaration of Independence.
However, in 2008, the Perot
Foundation auctioned the Magna Carta for $21.5 million to an anonymous buyer. The Perot Foundation is the extensive
source of philanthropy directed by Mr. Perot, benefiting scores of causes. This sale funded support for more
good causes. Later, it was
reported that the purchase was by Mr. David Rubenstein, the managing director
of the Carlyle Group. The
document has been kept on display at the National Archives.
Compilation
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