EDWARD I.—1272 to 1307.
How Edward the First learnt many good things abroad, and did many
more to make the people happy; how he caused the burgesses to come to
Parliament; how he made good laws; why he was called Longshanks.
When the unhappy King Henry the Third died, his eldest son Edward was
abroad, fighting in the same country where I told you William the
Conqueror’s eldest son Robert went, and where Richard of the Lion’s
heart spent the greatest part of his reign. When he heard his father
was dead he came home, and brought with him his very good wife,
Eleanor of Castile, who had saved his life in Syria, by taking great
care of him when he was wounded.
Edward was crowned king as soon as he came to England; he was as wise
as Henry the Second, and as brave as King Richard of the Lion’s heart.
His wisdom was shown in the manner in which he governed his people.
His bravery everybody had seen before he was king, and he showed it
afterwards in fighting against the Welsh and the Scotch, which I will
tell you about by and by.
While Edward was a young man, he travelled a great deal into
different countries, and whenever he saw anything done that he
thought good and right, he remembered it, that he might have the same
thing done in England when he was king.
When he was in Spain he married his good wife Eleanor; and as her
father and brother were wise kings, he learned a great many useful
things from them.
One thing was, how to take care of cows and horses much better than
the English had done before; and another thing was, to improve the
gardens and fields with many kinds of vegetables for eating, and with
new sorts of grass for the cattle. In return for what he learned in
Spain he sent some good sheep from England to that country, because
the sheep they had before were small, and had not such fine wool as
our sheep; but since the English sheep went to feed among the Spanish
hills, their wool has been the best in the world.
When King Edward came home to England, he determined to do everything
he could to make the people happy: he knew they could not be happy if
the laws were not obeyed; so he was determined that no wicked person
should escape without punishment, and that all good people might live
quietly, and do what they liked best.
I told you before that wise Simon de Montfort, who was killed in
Henry the Third’s reign, had got the king to observe the custom
of not taking money from the people without the consent of the
parliament or of the people themselves. This law King Edward improved
very much, and he improved the parliament too.
Edward, who was very wise, thought that, as there were a great many
more towns than there used to be in the olden times, and a great many
more people in all the towns, it would be a good thing if some of the
best men belonging to the largest towns came to the parliament. The
largest towns in England were then called burghs, and the richest
men who lived in them were called burgesses, and King Edward settled
that one or two burgesses out of almost every burgh should come along
with the great noblemen, and the bishops, and the gentlemen to the
parliament. I told you in the last chapter that Simon de Montfort did
this once; but Edward first made it the rule.
These burgesses made the parliament complete. In the first place,
there was the king to answer for himself; in the second place, the
great lords and bishops to answer for themselves; and, thirdly, the
gentlemen and burgesses to answer for the country gentlemen and the
farmers and the merchants and the shopkeepers. For a time the clergy
also sent persons to act for them; but they soon gave up doing so.
So King Edward the First made good rules about the parliament, which
were not much changed for a very long time. Besides that, he improved
the laws, so as to punish the wicked more certainly, and to protect
the lives and goods of everybody. And in these things Edward was one
of the best kings that ever reigned in England.
We will end this chapter here, while we can praise King Edward the
First,—who was, as I told you, wise and brave, and very handsome; but
people used to call him Longshanks, because his legs were rather too
long.