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Edward I Longshanks (1272 - 1307 AD)

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Plantagenet Kings (1154 – 1399 AD)

Edward I Longshanks (1272 – 1307 AD)
Edward was thirty-three years old on the death of his father, Henry III, and had played an important part in the civil war which preceded his defeat of the de Montfort faction in 1265. He learnt of his father’s death while returning from an abortive crusade, and did not reach English soil until 1274.

His early years on the throne were devoted to a series of legal reforms which sought to clarify criminal and property law. An early rebellion by the Welsh was put down in 1277, but a second uprising in 1282-3 met with Edward’s full and vigorous attention: the king engaged in a building a series of castles across the land, from which English troops could enforce the king’s will. A disputed Scottish succession offered him the opportunity to exercise authority in the north, although this was bitterly resisted. Robert the Bruce, a former supporter of Edward’s cause in Scotland, eliminated his rival, John Comyn, and declared himself king of Scotland and seceded from the arrangement with the English king. Edward died on the ensuing military campaign.

Henry III had been a devotee of the Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor, and gave his eldest son the same name – a departure from the Norman/Frankish names which had previously been favoured. Aside from his nickname ‘longshanks’, he was also known as ‘Hammer of the Scots’ after an inscription on his tomb: Edwardus Primus Scottorum Malleus hic est, (Her lies Edward the First, Hammer of the Scots). Despite being the fourth king of England to bear the name Edward, Longshanks is usually accorded the regnal serial Edward I due to the conventions of the aristocracy.