Edward I of England

Edward I, nicknamed Longshanks for his unusual height, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. He conquered Wales, tried to bring Scotland under English rule, overhauled English law through a series of great statutes and made Parliament a regular part of government. He also expelled England's Jews in 1290, and historians judge him very differently in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Edward was born at the Palace of Westminster on the night of 17–18 June 1239, the eldest son of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence. In 1254, aged fifteen, he married Eleanor of Castile, half-sister of the king of Castile; he was granted Gascony and lands in Ireland and Wales. When barons led by Simon de Montfort demanded reform of royal government, the young Edward wavered, briefly backing the reformers in 1259, but he stood by his father in the Second Barons' War that began in 1264. Captured after the royalist defeat at Lewes in May 1264, he escaped in May 1265 and destroyed Montfort's army at Evesham on 4 August 1265; Montfort was killed on the field.

In 1270 Edward set out on crusade with probably fewer than 1,000 men. He reached Acre in May 1271 but could achieve little against the Mamluk sultan Baybars, and in June 1272 he survived an attack by an assassin, possibly sent by Baybars. He was in Sicily on the way home when he heard that his father had died in November 1272. Already proclaimed king, he travelled home slowly and was crowned at Westminster Abbey only on 19 August 1274.

Edward ordered a nationwide inquiry into abuses and lost royal rights, recorded in the Hundred Rolls. A stream of statutes followed, including Westminster I (1275), Westminster II (1285), Winchester (1285) and Quia Emptores (1290) on land law, debts and policing. His wars needed money, and the Parliament of 1295, to which two knights from each county and two townsmen from each borough were summoned with full power to consent for their communities, later became known as the Model Parliament.

His policy towards the Jews of England grew harsher. In 1275 he banned them from lending at interest, and in 1279 around 300 Jews were executed after mass arrests on charges of coin-clipping. In 1290 his Edict of Expulsion drove all Jews from England, apparently as part of a deal for a very large tax grant from Parliament. The expulsion lasted until the 1650s.

After the Welsh prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd refused him homage, Edward invaded in 1277 and forced him to give up most of his lands. A second war in 1282 became one of conquest. Llywelyn was killed in December 1282, and his brother Dafydd was captured in 1283 and executed. The Statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 placed Wales under an English-style administration, and Edward ringed the north with castles such as Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech and Beaumaris, planting English settlers in new walled towns.

When Margaret, the child heir to the Scottish throne, died in 1290, Edward was asked to oversee the choice among the claimants. He demanded recognition as Scotland's overlord and in 1292 decided in favour of John Balliol. His further demands drove the Scots into alliance with France. In 1296 Edward invaded Scotland, sacking Berwick, deposing Balliol and taking the Stone of Destiny to Westminster. Resistance revived under William Wallace, who won at Stirling Bridge in 1297 but was defeated by Edward at Falkirk in 1298 and executed in 1305.

In 1306 Robert the Bruce had himself crowned King of Scots. Edward, now ailing, treated the rising as rebellion and dealt harshly with Bruce's family and supporters. Marching north once more, he fell ill with dysentery and died at Burgh by Sands, near the Scottish border, on 7 July 1307. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. His son Edward II inherited an unfinished war that ended in English defeat at Bannockburn in 1314.

Our 1300 map shows the Kingdom of England late in his reign, with Wales absorbed; the 1279 map shows the situation early in his reign.