51 Facts About King Edward I

1.

King Edward I was on his way home in 1272 when he was informed that his father had died.

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2.

King Edward I spent much of his reign reforming royal administration and common law.

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3.

King Edward I was temperamental, and this, along with his height, made him an intimidating man, and he often instilled fear in his contemporaries.

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4.

Edward is an Anglo-Saxon name, and was not commonly given among the aristocracy of England after the Norman conquest, but Henry was devoted to the veneration of Edward the Confessor, and decided to name his firstborn son after the saint.

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5.

King Edward I had already received Gascony as early as 1249, but Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, had been appointed as royal lieutenant the year before and, consequently, drew its income, so in practice Edward derived neither authority nor revenue from this province.

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6.

The grant he received in 1254 included most of Ireland, and much land in Wales and England, including the earldom of Chester, but King Henry retained much control over the land in question, particularly in Ireland, so Edward's power was limited there as well, and the King derived most of the income from those lands.

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7.

From 1254 to 1257, King Edward I was under the influence of his mother's relatives, known as the Savoyards, the most notable of whom was Peter II of Savoy, the Queen's uncle.

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8.

King Edward I had shown independence in political matters as early as 1255, when he sided with the Soler family in Gascony, in the ongoing conflict between the Soler and Colomb families.

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9.

King Edward I stood by his political allies and strongly opposed the Provisions.

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10.

King Edward I made several appointments to advance the cause of the reformers, causing his father to believe that Edward was considering a coup d'etat.

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11.

Back in England, early in 1262, King Edward I fell out with some of his former Lusignan allies over financial matters.

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12.

The next year, King Edward I Henry sent him on a campaign in Wales against Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, with only limited results.

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13.

When Robert de Ferrers, 6th Earl of Derby, came to the assistance of the rebels, King Edward I negotiated a truce with the Earl, the terms of which King Edward I later broke.

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14.

King Edward I then captured Northampton from Simon de Montfort the Younger before embarking on a retaliatory campaign against Derby's lands.

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15.

King Edward I, commanding the right wing, performed well, and soon defeated the London contingent of Montfort's forces.

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16.

Montfort's support was now dwindling, and King Edward I retook Worcester and Gloucester with relatively little effort.

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17.

King Edward I managed to make a surprise attack at Kenilworth Castle, where the younger Montfort was quartered, before moving on to cut off the earl of Leicester.

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18.

King Edward I was little involved in the settlement negotiations following the wars; at this point his main focus was on planning his forthcoming crusade.

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19.

King Edward I was deeply saddened by this news, but rather than hurrying home at once, he made a leisurely journey northwards.

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20.

The political situation in England was stable after the mid-century upheavals, and Edward was proclaimed king after his father's death, rather than at his own coronation, as had until then been customary.

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21.

For King Edward I, it became a war of conquest rather than simply a punitive expedition, like the former campaign.

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22.

In 1284, King Edward had his son Edward born at Caernarfon Castle, probably to make a deliberate statement about the new political order in Wales.

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23.

In 1301 at Lincoln, the young Edward became the first English prince to be invested with the title of Prince of Wales, when the King granted him the Earldom of Chester and lands across North Wales.

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24.

The King Edward I seems to have hoped that this would help in the pacification of the region, and that it would give his son more financial independence.

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25.

King Edward I had long been deeply involved in the affairs of his own Duchy of Gascony.

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26.

In 1286, King Edward I visited the region himself and stayed for almost three years.

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27.

On his diplomatic mission in 1286, Edward had paid homage to the new king, Philip IV, but in 1294 Philip declared Gascony forfeit when Edward refused to appear before him in Paris to discuss the recent conflict between English, Gascon, and French sailors that had resulted in several French ships being captured, along with the sacking of the French port of La Rochelle.

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28.

The couple loved each other and like his father, King Edward I was very devoted to his wife and was faithful to her throughout their married lives.

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29.

King Edward I displayed his grief by erecting twelve so-called Eleanor crosses, one at each place where her funeral cortege stopped for the night.

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30.

However, the alliances proved volatile and King Edward I was facing trouble at home at the time, both in Wales and Scotland.

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31.

When Edward of Caernarfon demanded an earldom for his favourite Gaveston, the King erupted in anger and supposedly tore out handfuls of his son's hair.

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32.

King Edward I met contemporary expectations of kingship in his role as an able, determined soldier and in his embodiment of shared chivalric ideals.

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33.

King Edward I held "Round Table" events in 1284 and 1302, involving tournaments and feasting, and chroniclers compared him and the events at his court to Arthur.

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34.

In some cases King Edward I appears to have used his interest in the Arthurian myths to serve his own political interests, including legitimising his rule in Wales and discrediting the Welsh belief that Arthur might return as their political savior.

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35.

King Edward I then replaced most local officials, such as the escheators and sheriffs.

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36.

King Edward I had nevertheless won a significant victory, in clearly establishing the principle that all liberties essentially emanated from the Crown.

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37.

In 1275, King Edward I had issued the Statute of the Jewry, which outlawed loan with interest and encouraged the Jews to take up other professions; in 1279, in the context of a crack-down on coin-clippers, he arrested all the heads of Jewish households in England and had around 300 of them executed.

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38.

King Edward I held Parliament on a reasonably regular basis throughout his reign.

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39.

The King Edward I now had full backing for collecting lay subsidies – taxes collected at a certain fraction of the moveable property of all laymen – from the entire population.

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40.

The fiscal demands on the King Edward I's subjects caused resentment, and this resentment eventually led to serious political opposition.

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41.

In 1294, King Edward I made a demand of a grant of one half of all clerical revenues.

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42.

Winchelsey was presented with a dilemma between loyalty to the King Edward I and upholding the papal bull, and he responded by leaving it to every individual clergyman to pay as he saw fit.

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43.

In 1302 Bigod arrived at an agreement with the King that was beneficial for both: Bigod, who had no children, made Edward his heir, in return for a generous annual grant.

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44.

King Edward I finally got his revenge on Winchelsey in 1305, when Clement V was elected pope.

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45.

King Edward I had reason to believe that he had completed the conquest of Scotland when he left the country in 1296, but resistance soon emerged under the leadership of Andrew de Moray in the north and William Wallace in the south.

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46.

King Edward I was not able to take advantage of the momentum, and the next year the Scots managed to recapture Stirling Castle.

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47.

King Edward I was suffering ill health by this time, and instead of leading an expedition himself, he gave different military commands to Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, and Henry Percy, 1st Baron Percy, while the main royal army was led by the Prince of Wales.

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48.

King Edward I acted with unusual brutality against Bruce's family, allies, and supporters.

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49.

Influential Victorian historian William Stubbs instead suggested that King Edward I had actively shaped national history, forming English laws and institutions, and helping England to develop a parliamentary and constitutional monarchy.

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50.

In 1988, Michael Prestwich produced an authoritative biography of the King Edward I, focusing on his political career, still portraying him in sympathetic terms, but highlighting some of the consequences of his failed policies.

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51.

King Edward I was reportedly concerned with his son's failure to live up to the expectations of an heir to the crown, and at one point decided to exile the prince's favourite Piers Gaveston.

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