AQA

Edward I Revision Notes

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 King Edward I timeline

1272 – The reign of Edward: November 20 1272 – July 7, 1307

1307 He was the son of King Henry III and Eleanor of Provence

King Henry III died on 16 November 1272 at Westminster in London. He was buried in
1272
Westminster Abbey

1274 The coronation of Edward I was on August 19, 1274

Edward commissioned the building of four major castles in Wales - Flint, Rhuddlan, Builth and
1278
Aberystwyth

Edward commissioned the building of Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech and Beaumaris castles in Wales
1282
as part of his strategy to dominate the Welsh

1284 The Statute of Rhuddlan: Wales became incorporated into England

Queen Eleanor died and King Edward was distraught. He erected the Eleanor crosses, one at each
1290
place where her funeral cortege stopped for the night

1292 John Balliol was crowned King of Scotland at Scone

April 1296: Balliol formally renounced his homage to Edward. Edward retaliated by invading and
1296
sacking Berwick. . The Battle of Dunbar followed and Edinburgh Castle was captured.

1296 John de Balliol, King of Scots abdicated on 10th July 1296 and spent the rest of his life in exile

Stone of Scone: King Edward had the sacred Stone of Scone, also known as the Stone of Destiny,
1296
removed to London and placed in the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey

1296 The Scottish Rebellion; William Wallace led the Scots.

The Battle of Falkirk : William Wallace was defeated by King Edward. Wallace escaped but was
1298
later captured

September: King Edward married Marguerite of France (1282–1317), the daughter of King Philippe
1299 III of France (Phillip the Bold) and Maria of Brabant, their surviving children were Thomas, Earl of
Norfolk and Edmund, Earl of Kent

1305 William Wallace was tried and executed in London. The Scots were still not subdued

Robert the Bruce (1274-1329) rebelled and was crowned king of Scotland. King Edward was
1306
desperate to punish the Scots and led another army to Scotland. He died in en-route.

King Edward I died on July 7, 1307 at Burgh-by-Sands, Cumberland, England. He was buried at
1307
Westminster Abbey

1307 King Edward I was succeeded by his son Edward who became King Edward II

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 The themes of Edward’s reign:

 Royal Authority

 Empire

 War

 Finance

 Barons & Parliament

 Good government, law and order

 The Church

 Religion

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Henry III’s legacy

 Henry III was only nine years old when his father died. He did not assume power until 1227.

 As a ruler, Henry proved weak and indecisive. He angered the barons by favouring members of his wife’s
family.

 Henry made his half bother, William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke in 1247, while another half brother,
Aymer, became bishop-elect of Winchester.

 Henry could also be cunning and showed a tendency to go back on his word.

 In 1242, Henry's half brothers involved him in a disastrously expensive military venture in France.

 Parliament demanded new blood on the council to act as 'conservators of liberties' and oversee royal finances.

 Henry was able to exploit the differences between his opponents and little happened.

 In 1254 Henry offered to finance papal wars in Sicily if the Pope would grant his infant son, Edmund, the
Sicilian crown.

 Four years later, the Pope threatened to excommunicate Henry for failing to meet this financial obligation.

 Henry appealed to the barons for funds, but they agreed to cooperate only if he would accept far-reaching
reforms.

Simon de Montfort

 Simon de Montfort came to England and was created Earl of Leicester in 1239.

 He became one of Henry’s favourites and married the king’s sister Eleanor in 1238.

 In 1248, Henry asked Simon to pacify the English-held duchy of Gascony, in south-western France.

 Simon ruthlessly crushed the revolt and restored order; the Gascons appealed to Henry.

 Henry recalled Simon for trial on the rebels’ charges; the English barons acquitted him in 1252.

 Henry’s behaviour over Gascony convinced Simon that Henry was unfit to rule.

 He joined the other leading English barons in forcing upon Henry the revolutionary Provisions of Oxford.

 The Provisions of Oxford (1258) created a 15-member privy council, selected by the barons, to advise the
king and oversee the entire administration.

 Parliament was to be held three times a year and the households of the king and queen were also to be
reformed.

 In 1261, Henry annulled the provisions of Oxford and Simon de Montfort went abroad.

 He returned in 1263 and tried to force Henry to keep to the Provisions, but had to accept a compromise deal.

 In May 1264, Simon de Montfort won a resounding victory at Lewes and set up a new government.

 Henry retained the title and authority of King, but all decisions and approval now rested with his council, led
by de Montfort and were subject to consultation with parliament.

 The Great Parliament of 1265 was summoned by de Montfort. Each county and each borough was asked to
elect two representatives.

 De Montfort included representatives of boroughs (towns), which were called burgesses.

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 The right to vote in Parliamentary elections for county constituencies was uniform throughout the country.

 It granted a vote to all those who owned the freehold of land to an annual rent of 40 shillings (Forty-shilling
freeholders).

 In the boroughs, the franchise varied and individual boroughs had different arrangements.

 In May 1265, Henry's eldest son Prince Edward escaped captivity and rallied the royalist forces.

 He defeated and killed de Montfort at Evesham before taking control of government from his weakened
father.

 By 1270, the country was sufficiently settled for Edward to set off on crusade.

 Henry died on 16 November 1272. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, which he had largely rebuilt in the
gothic style during his reign.

 His son, another Simon, continued to cause trouble for a number of years, but by the time Henry died in 1272,
England was peaceful.

 Edward took the cross and departed on crusade in 1270. He was away for two years. His experiences helped
in his wars in England.

 He saw at first hand the crusader castles, such as Krak des Chevalier. He used them as models for his castles
in Wales.

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Accession

 Edward discovered that his father had died in November 1273. He returned to England on 2 August 1274.

 In Edward's absence, the country was governed by a royal council, led by Robert Burnell.

 Soon after assuming the throne, Edward set about restoring order and re-establishing royal authority after the
disastrous reign of his father.

 He immediately ordered an extensive change of administrative personnel. The most important of these was the
appointment of Robert Burnell as Chancellor.

 Edward then replaced most local officials, such as sheriffs. This was preparation for an extensive inquest
covering all of England.

 One purpose was to hear complaints about abuse of power by royal officers. The inquest produced the set of
so-called Hundred Rolls.

 The second purpose of the inquest was to establish what land and rights the crown had lost during the reign of
Henry III.

The Hundred Rolls

 The Hundred Rolls formed the basis for the later legal inquiries called the Quo
Warranto proceedings.

 The purpose of these inquiries was to establish by what warrant various powers were held.

 If the defendant could not produce a royal licence to prove the grant of the liberty, the liberty should revert to
the king.

 The compilation of the Hundred Rolls was followed shortly after by the issue of the Statutes of Westminster
I (1275).

The Statutes of Westminster

 Both the Statute of Westminster 1275 and Statute of Westminster 1285 codified the existing law in England.

 The Statute of 1275 asserted the royal prerogative and outlined restrictions on liberties.

 It enforced the use of juries and set punishments for anyone who refused trial by jury.

 The first clause of the Statute of Westminster II (1285) dealt with family settlement of land, and entails.

 In the Statute of Gloucester in 1278 the King challenged baronial rights through a revival of the system of
general eyres. Royal justices would go on tour throughout the land.

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The Statute of Gloucester

 The Statute, proclaimed in August 1278, was crucial to the development of English law.

 The Statute of Gloucester was intended to allow Edward I to recover royal authority that had been lost during
the reign of his father.

 Edward I recognized the need for the legal reform and used Parliament as a means of buying popular support
by encouraging loyal subjects to petition the King against his own barons and ministers.

 The Statute revived the system of general eyres (royal justices who went on tour throughout the land).

 The main purpose was to enquire whether the rights of the crown had been undermined during the reign of
Henry III

 There was also a significant increase in the number of pleas of quo warranto to be heard by such eyres.

 Barons and franchise holders were expected either to show the King's judges that they had proper legal titles
to private jurisdictions.

 If they could prove that they had, they would lose their rights.

 In the Statute of Mortmain (1279), the issue was grants of land to the church and the crown gained control of
the acquisition of land by the church.

 It was aimed at preserving the kingdom's revenues by preventing land from passing into the possession of the
Church.

 Some barons had donated land to the Church for purposes of avoiding feudal services

 The Statute of Merchants (1285) established firm rules for the recovery of debts.

 It strengthened the provisions in the statute of Acton Burnell for the swift recovery of debts in the interest of
promoting trade.

 Debtors could be at once imprisoned on default, and were liable to lose all their lands.

 The Statute of Winchester (1285) dealt with peacekeeping on a local level.

 It reformed the system of Watch and Ward (watchmen) and revived the jurisdiction of the local courts.

 Hundreds were ordered to raise hue and cry and to be answerable for any theft or robbery, in effect a form of
collective responsibility.

 Hundreds were ordered to create a posse comitatus (county) to pursue wrongdoers

 The Statute of Quia Emptores (1290), which was issued along with Quo warranto, set out to remedy land
ownership disputes resulting from alienation of land.

 This was opposed by the barons, who insisted that long use in itself constituted licence.

 A compromise was eventually reached in 1290; a liberty was considered legitimate as long as it could be
shown to have been exercised since the coronation of Richard I in 1189.
Quo Warranto

 The quo warranto inquiry was begun in 1275 and in the statutes of Gloucester (1278) and of Quo Warranto
(1290).

 It tried to bring existing franchises under control and to prevent the unauthorised assumption of new ones.

 Tenants were required to show ‘by what warrant’ or right they held their franchises.
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 Royal gains from the Quo warranto proceedings were insignificant; few liberties were returned to the King.

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

 The 1290 Statute of Quo warranto was only one part of a wider legislative effort, which was one of the most
important contributions of Edward I's reign.

Robert Burnell

 In January 1275, Burnell was elected as Bishop of Bath and Wells. Three years later, Burnell was elected as
Archbishop of Canterbury.

 The election was quashed by the Pope in January 1279. King Edward sent a deputation, to secure Nicholas'
confirmation of the election.

 The pope named three cardinals as investigators, and then appointed John Peckham instead.

 Burnell was the chief and most influential of Edward I's advisers during the first half of his reign.

 Burnell spent most of his time in attendance on the king. He heard many requests and petitions from those
who desired patronage or other advancements.

 Burnell played a leading role in the legislation introduced by King Edward.

 The king's major legislative acts mainly date to Burnell's tenure of the office of chancellor, from 21
September 1274 until Burnell's death in 1292.

 Burnell was instrumental in the enforcement of royal writs and enactments, including the Statutes of
Westminster, enacted in 1275, 1285 and 1290.

 Those of 1275 attempted to deal with the usurpation of royal rights.

 Keeping the peace in the realm and the extension of royal jurisdiction to cover rape was dealt with in the
statutes from 1285, along with a number of other issues.

 The last statute, from 1290, regulated land law, the result of pressure from the magnates, the leading laymen
of England.

 Burnell and his royal officials made great efforts to reassert royal rights that were felt to have been usurped by
the king's subjects.

 These efforts were made under writs of Quo warranto, which asked the recipient what royal grant or warrant
gives the recipient the authority to exercise a right or a power.
 They were first issued in 1278, after earlier attempts to recover royal rights through parliament
unintentionally resulted in too much work for that body.

 Through these writs, attempts were made to enforce the rule that the only correct way to receive a privilege or
grant of land was through a written charter.

 Most lands at that time were held not by documentary grants, but by the force of custom.

 By the 1290s, the government was forced to back down and permit rights as they had been allowed from
‘time out of mind’.

Reorganisation of government under Burnell

 The king's personal household department of the Wardrobe disappeared almost completely during Burnell’s
period in office

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 The government department of the Chancery, which was headed by the chancellor, also disappeared almost
completely.

 This suggests that Burnell took charge of both organisations and ran them personally

 The Wardrobe had developed as a less formal department for the collection and distribution of money. Under
Edward, it effectively became a treasury for warfare.

 During Burnell's time in office the king only used a Privy Seal warrant, or an informal set of instructions for
the chancellor, to issue a letter from the Chancery under the Great Seal when the king and Burnell were apart.

 When they were together, presumably Burnell was instructed verbally by the king.

 This suggests that Edward had complete trust in Burnell to act on his behalf.

 After Burnell's death the number of Privy Seal warrants increased greatly.

 Burnell was also responsible for the decision to force the Court of Chancery to settle in London, rather than
following the king and his court around the country.

 A Chancery record of 1280 states that the chancellor sorted the many petitions that came into the government
and only passed on the most urgent to the king.

 In Welsh affairs, Burnell attended a number of councils dealing with Llywelyn, Prince of Wales.

 In 1277, he escorted Llywelyn to Westminster, where Llywelyn pledged homage to Edward.

 Burnell was present during Edward's conquest of Wales in the 1280s; he witnessed documents in Rhuddlan in
1282, and subsequently at Conwy and Caernarfon.

 Burnell was a dominant figure during the first part of Edward's reign, and he controlled most aspects of royal
administration.

 He was involved not only in domestic issues but also in foreign relations a responsibility he retained for two
decades after Edward's return to England in 1274

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Edward and government

 Edward wanted to re-establish the authority of the Crown, which had suffered during the reign of his father
and as a result of the First Barons’ War, 1214-16.

 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 created by Henry III 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.

 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.

 Edward followed the practice of earlier kings in developing the Household, a mobile court of clerks and
advisers that travelled with the king.

 The King's Council was the most vital section of the four. It consisted of his principal ministers, trusted
judges and clerks, a select group of magnates, and 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 reformed law and justice and this had consequences in decreasing feudal practice.

 The Statute of Gloucester (1278) curbed expansion of large private holdings and established the principle that
all private franchises controlled by the crown.

Parliament

 In the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) parliament became a more consistent part of political life.

 It was summoned as and when the king required it, which usually was when the crown needed taxation.

 This meant that Parliament was meeting twice or sometimes three times a year.

 The length of each parliamentary session varied, depending on the nature of the business to which it attended.

 Most Parliaments met at Westminster, but it was not uncommon for parliament to be held elsewhere in order
to accommodate the king's itinerary.

 In October 1290, Parliament was summoned to meet at Clipstone in Nottinghamshire, a popular royal hunting
lodge.

 In 1292, as Edward I was campaigning in the North against the Scots, an assembly met at Berwick.

Why did Parliament meet more often during the reign of Edward I?

 Parliament developed in the 13th and 14th centuries largely through the desire of Edward I and his successors
to wage war.
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 This needed more money than they had from their own wealth and they had to levy ‘extraordinary’ taxes, with
Parliament's assent, to raise the funds.

 Each time the King requested assent to a tax from Parliament, it could ask a favour back again and often used
the King's desperation for money to get what it wanted.

 Edward I made the meeting of Parliament a more frequent event and over the course of his reign of 35 years
(1272-1307) he summoned it on 46 occasions.

 For the first 20 years of his reign it met regularly - almost twice a year.

 In 1278, The Clerk of the Parliaments began to compile the Rolls of Parliament, the records of proceedings,
particularly the petitions and acts passed

 Official records were written up and sewn together in long scrolls, the Rolls of Parliament.

 In 1275, Edward I called his first Parliament. He summoned nobles and churchmen.

 He also issued orders (known as writs) for the election of two representatives from each county (the knights
of the shire) and two from each city or town (the burgesses) to attend.

 They were called on primarily to listen to and approve the King's plan for a new tax.

 Over the following years it became an accepted rule that the representatives of those who were going to be
most affected by taxation had to give their consent to it in Parliament.

The Model Parliament

 In 1295, in addition to the secular and ecclesiastical lords, two knights from each county and two
representatives from each borough were summoned.

 The representation of commons in Parliament was nothing new; what was new was the authority under which
these representatives were summoned.

 Previously the commons had been expected simply to assent to decisions already made by the magnates.

 Each county returned two knights, two burgesses were elected from each borough, and each city provided two
citizens.

 This composition became the model for later parliaments, hence the name.

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 Edward I summoned the parliament on 13 November 1295. In calling the parliament,
Edward proclaimed in his writ of summons, ‘what touches all should be approved of all’.
‘It is also clear that common dangers should be met by measures agreed upon in common’. He was more
likely to get what he wanted from the Barons and people if he consulted them.

 At the time, Parliament's legislative authority was limited and its primary role was to levy taxes.

 Edward's aim in summoning Parliament was to raise funds for his wars, specifically planned campaigns
against the French and the Scots for the upcoming year.

 The Parliament became a model for a new function as well: the addressing of grievances with the king.

 The elected members were far more anxious to establish the second function: to discuss grievances.

 A kind of quid pro quo (compromise) was looked for: money for the Scottish campaign of 1296 would be
forthcoming if certain grievances were addressed.

 The Model Parliament was unicameral, summoning 49 lords to sit with 292 representatives of the Commons.
(ie, one sitting of both the Lords and Commons)

 The Model Parliament created a precedent, whereby each ‘successor of a baron’ who received a writ to the
parliament of 1295 ‘had a legal right to receive a writ’.

 The King now had full backing for collecting lay subsidies (taxes) from the entire population.

 Lay subsidies were taxes collected at a certain fraction of the moveable property of all laymen.

 Whereas Henry III had only collected four of these in his reign, Edward I collected nine.

Finance

 Edward began his reign with heavy debts incurred on crusade, and his various wars were also costly.

 He borrowed extensively from Italian bankers on the security of customs revenues.

 The revenues from the customs duty were handled by the Riccardi, a group of bankers from Lucca in Italy.

 This was in return for their service as money lenders to the crown, which helped finance the Welsh Wars.

 When the war with France broke out, the French king confiscated the Riccardi's assets, and the bank went
bankrupt.

 After this, the Frescobaldi of Florence took over the role as money lenders to the English crown.

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Life in Medieval England

 Less than 5% of the population lived in towns and cities. The remainder lived in villages and was tied to the
land.

 Agricultural land on an estate was divided between some fields that the landowner would manage and
cultivate directly, called demesne land.

 The majority of the fields would be cultivated by peasants, who would pay rent to the landowner either by
labour on the lord's demesne or by cash or produce.

 The English economy was not a subsistence economy and many crops were grown by peasant farmers for sale
to the early English towns.

 Agriculture formed the bulk of the English economy at the time of the Norman invasion.

 Twenty years after the invasion, 35% of England was arable; 25% was pasture; 15% was woodland and the
remaining 25% was moorland and fens.

 Most of the smaller landowning nobility lived on their properties and managed their own estates.

 Some of the agricultural land on an estate was fields that the landowner would manage and cultivate directly,
called demesne land.

 The majority of the fields would be cultivated by peasants, who would pay rent to the landowner either by
labour on the lord's demesne or by cash or produce.

 The English economy was not a subsistence economy and many crops were grown by peasant farmers for sale
to the early English towns.

A farmer’s year:
 In January, farmers hoped for rain. They focused on making and repairing tools as well as repairing fences.
 In February, farmers hoped for rain. They focused on carting manure and marl.
 In March, farmers hoped for a dry month with no severe frosts. They focused on the ploughing and spreading
of manure.
 In April, farmers hoped for a mixture of rain and sunshine. They focused on sowing the spring seeds and
harrowing them.
 In May, farmers hoped for a mixture of rain and sunshine. They focused on digging ditches and started their
first ploughing of the fallow fields.
 In June, farmers hoped for dry weather. They focused on hay making, sheep shearing, and did a second
ploughing of the fallow fields.
 In July, farmers hoped for a month in which the first half was dry and the second half was rainy. They
focused on hay making, sheep shearing, and crop weeding.
 In August, farmers hoped for warm, dry weather. They focused on harvesting.
 In September, farmers hoped for rain. They focused on threshing, ploughing and pruning fruit trees.
 In October, farmers hoped for dry weather with no severe frosts. They focused on their last ploughing of the
year.
 In November, farmers hoped for a mixture of rain and sunshine. They focused on collecting acorns for pigs.
 In December, farmers hoped for a mixture of rain and sunshine. They focused on making and repairing tools
and slaughtering livestock.

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Towns

 England had a number of old, economically important towns. A large amount of trade came through the
Eastern towns, including London, York, Lincoln and Norwich.

 Increasingly, trade was the focus of the boroughs. Many served their local areas with goods like livestock and
fish.

 Salt was another important commodity, essential for preserving fish and meat.

 An urban settlement had developed around this natural resource at Droitwich in Worcestershire since Roman
times.

 Droitwich was a major salt-producing area. There were 13 salt-houses in Droitwich from which three salt-
workers paid 300 measures of salt to the King.

 While most rural activities were agricultural in nature, the production of iron and lead was also important.

 Metalworking was often situated near wooded areas in order to supply the fuel needed for furnaces.

 The iron mentioned in the Gloucester entry in Domesday probably came from the Forest of Dean.

 Between 1180 and 1230, 57 new towns were created; most during John’s reign.

 The new towns were usually located with access to trade routes in mind, rather than defence.

 The streets were laid out to make access to the town's market convenient.

 A growing percentage of England's population lived in urban areas; estimates suggest that this rose from
around 5.5% in 1086 to up to 8% in 1216.

 London was very important for the English economy. The nobility purchased and consumed many luxury
goods and services in the capital.

 From the 1170s, London markets were providing exotic products such as spices, palm oil, gems, silks, furs
and foreign weapons.

 London was also an important for industrial activity; it had many blacksmiths making a wide range of goods,
including decorative ironwork and early clocks.

 Provincial towns also had a substantial number of trades. A large town like Coventry contained over three
hundred different specialist occupations.

 Edward began on a full-scale project of English settlement of Wales, creating new towns like Flint,
Aberystwyth and Rhuddlan.

 The new residents were English migrants, with the local Welsh banned from living inside them, and many
were protected by extensive walls.

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Wool

 Wool became the driving force of the medieval English economy between the late thirteenth century and late
fifteenth.

 The English wool trade was primarily with Flanders (where wool was made into cloth) and was dominated by
Flemish merchants.

 In 1275, Edward I negotiated an agreement with the domestic merchant community and secured a permanent
duty on wool.

 Italian merchants had begun to gain dominance in the trade, extending their activities to finance : the Riccardi,
a group of bankers from Lucca in Italy, became particularly prominent in English taxation and finance.

 As the wool trade increased the great landowners including lords, abbots and bishops began to count their
wealth in terms of sheep.

 The monasteries, in particular the Cistercian houses, played a very active part in the trade, which pleased the
king who was able to levy a tax on every sack of wool that was exported.

 The bales of wool were loaded onto pack-animals and taken to the English ports such as Boston, London,
Sandwich and Southampton.

 In time the larger landowners developed direct trading links with cloth manufacturers abroad, whereas by
necessity the peasants continued to deal with the travelling wool merchants.

 By cutting out the middle man and dealing in larger quantities, the landowners got a much better deal.

 Successive monarchs taxed the wool trade heavily. King Edward I was the first.

 As the wool trade was so successful, he felt he could make some royal revenue to fund his military
endeavours by slapping heavy taxes on the export of wool.

 English wool, particularly from the Welsh Marches, the South West and Lincolnshire, were the most prized in
medieval Europe.

 It was exported to the emergent urban centres of cloth production of the Low Countries, France, and Italy.

 In 1280, about 25,000 sacks of wool were exported from England; trade in raw wool peaked around 40,000-
45,000 sacks per year

 England's wool-trade was volatile, however, affected by diverse factors such as war, taxation policy,
export/import duties or even bans, disease and famine.

 For example, since Continental industry relied on English wool, and export embargoes could 'bring whole
areas to the brink of starvation and economic ruin'.

 The wool trade was a powerful political tool. Likewise taxes on the wool trade financed Edward’s wars

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Other taxes

 The system of levying taxes on an assessment of the value of movable goods was also of great value.
Successive profitable taxes were granted, mostly in Parliament.

 Edward I's frequent military campaigns put a great financial strain on the nation.

 There were several ways through which the king could raise money for war, including customs duties and
money lending.

 In 1275, Edward gained a secure financial basis when he negotiated a grant of export duties on wool,
woolfells, and hides that brought in an average of £10,000 a year.

 In 1303, a similar agreement was reached with foreign merchants, in return for certain rights and privileges.

 The incessant warfare of the 1290s put a great financial demand on Edward's subjects.

 The King had only levied three subsidies until 1294, but four such taxes were granted in the years 1294–97,
raising over £200,000.

 Along with this came the burden of prises (appropriation of food), seizure of wool and hides, and the
unpopular additional duty on wool, dubbed the maltolt.

Recoinage

 A completely new coinage was struck in 1279 with a different design which made clipping much easier to
detect.

 Millions of coins were struck at London and Canterbury and the public could take their old, pennies to the
mint and exchange them for new coins of the correct weight.

 This exchange also served as a form of taxation as moneyers were required to charge a fee for the service.

 The new coins were much admired in Europe and were extensively copied: this only made Edward's coins
even more popular. A

 The export of English coins was forbidden in 1299 to prevent a loss of supply of silver

 The new, good-quality coins strengthened the economy and brought prosperity to the country.

 The 1279 penny was different from earlier issues in many ways. The king's bust wass more lifelike and faced
the front.

 The new coins also contained small differences such as a rose on the king's breast, or an alteration in the size
of the king's eyes.

 These differences were to enable identification of the moneyer who produced the coin, in place of giving the
moneyer's name.

16
Opposition to Edward’s demands for money.

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

 The initial resistance was not caused by the lay taxes, however, but by clerical subsidies.

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

 There was some resistance, but the King responded by threatening with outlawry, and the grant was
eventually made.

 At the time, the archbishopric of Canterbury was vacant, since Robert Winchelsey was in Italy to receive
consecration.

 Winchelsey returned in January 1295 and had to consent to another grant in November of that year.

 In 1296, however, his position changed when he received the papal bull Clericos Laicos.

 This bull prohibited the clergy from paying taxes to lay authorities without explicit consent from the Pope.

 When the clergy refused to pay, Edward responded with outlawry.

 Winchelsey was presented with a dilemma between loyalty to the King and upholding the papal bull.

 He responded by leaving it to every individual clergyman to pay as he saw fit.

 By the end of the year, a solution was offered by the new papal bull Etsi de statu, which allowed clerical
taxation in cases of pressing urgency.

 Resistance from the laity focused on two things: the King's right to demand military service, and his right to
levy taxes.

 At the Salisbury parliament of February 1297, Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, in his capacity as Marshal of
England, objected to a royal summons of military service.

 Bigod argued that the military obligation only extended to service alongside the King.

 If the King intended to sail to Flanders, he could not send his subjects to Gascony.

 In July, Bigod and Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Gloucester and Constable of England, drew up a series of
complaints known as the Remonstrances.

 It was a list of objections to the extortionate level of taxation.

 Edward ignored the Remonstrances and requested another lay subsidy.

 This caused trouble, because the King had sought consent only from a small group of barons, rather than from
Parliament.

 While Edward was preparing for the campaign in Flanders, Bigod and Bohun turned up at the Exchequer to
prevent the collection of the tax.

 As the King left the country with a greatly reduced force, the kingdom seemed to be on the verge of civil
war.

 The situation was changed by the English defeat by the Scots at Stirling Bridge. The new threat gave king and
magnates common cause.

 Edward signed the Confimio Cartarum, a confirmation of Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest, and the
barons agreed to serve with the King on a campaign in Scotland.
17
 Edward's problems with the opposition did not end with the Falkirk campaign.

 In the parliament of 1301, the King was forced to order an assessment of the royal forests.

Jews

 Another source of crown income was the Jews. The Jews were the king's personal property, and he was free
to tax them at will.

 By 1280, the Jews had been exploited to a level at which they were no longer of much financial use to the
crown, but they could still be used in political bargaining.

 Their usury business – a practice forbidden to Christians – had made many people indebted to them and
caused general popular resentment.

 In 1275, Edward had issued the Statute of Jewry, which outlawed usury 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.

 In 1280, he ordered all Jews to attend special sermons, preached by Dominican friars, with the hope of
persuading them to convert, but these exhortations were not followed.

 The final attack on the Jews in England came in the Edict of Expulsion in 1290, whereby Edward formally
expelled all Jews from England.

 This generated revenues through royal appropriation of Jewish loans and property.

 It also gave Edward the political capital to negotiate a substantial lay subsidy in the 1290 Parliament.

The Church

 The Church was the only national institution in England apart from the government.

 It touched everybody’s lives and the parish priest was the only source of news and information for the vast
majority of people.

 The Church was the main source for the government of ministers. Bishops were usually appointed as
chancellors.

 Getting the right person appointed to a key Church post, e.g. Archbishop of Canterbury was very important.

 At the battle of Falkirk, the Bishop of Durham commanded one of the sections (battles) of the English army.

 In the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, Popes had insisted on making appointments personally.

 Edward had trouble with Robert Burnell and John Winchelsey.

Church courts

 Benefit of Clergy was the most common way of avoiding execution as churchmen could not be punished in
the king’s courts.

 Church courts not only covered priests and church buildings but also many ‘social offences’.

 Adultery and all cases to do with wills went to church courts; there was one in every diocese.

 Major cases went to provincial courts at Canterbury and York.

18
 To prove you were a churchman you had to read aloud this passage from the Bible:

 Oh loving and kind God, have mercy. Have pity upon my transgressions (Psalm 51, Verse 1).

 This verse became known as the ‘neck-verse’ because reading it saved the necks of many criminals.

 The theory behind this was that generally the only people who could read were churchmen.

 Criminals learned the verse by heart even if they could not read.

 This option was only open to men as women could not become priests.

 Benefit of clergy did not get you off punishment altogether. The church preferred mutilation to execution as it
wanted to give the convict a chance to repent.

 The church courts were seen as much less harsh than the King’s court or the manor courts.

 Over time, more and more people claimed the benefit of the clergy, from monks to the church doorkeeper.

Sanctuary

 If someone was being pursued for committing a crime and they made it to a church they could claim
sanctuary.

 In English common law, anyone accused of a felony could take refuge in a church for 40 days.

 The criminal, suspect or gaol-breaker only had to reach a church, or even a religious building such as an
Abbot's House, to claim sanctuary for forty days.

 It was not always necessary to enter the actual building, the churchyard was usually sufficient.

 The fugitive had to come unarmed and was not have committed any sacrilege.

 In some places, a wide area around the church was equally safe, the boundaries being marked by special
‘sanctuary posts’.

 This would give the criminal breathing space to decide on his next move. There were a number of
alternatives.

 There was a good chance of escaping again. Local people had to provide a guard and food, so quite often they
would turn a blind eye and let the person slip away.

 If that happened the Coroner would put them up before the Judges for a stiff fine at the next court

 Another alternative was surrender to the Coroner or Sheriff, but that almost certainly meant dangling at the
end of a rope.

 A further alternative was to ‘abjure the realm’, meaning he could avoid trial and execution by leaving the
country under a set routine prescribed by the Coroner.

 The Coroner was responsible for arranging these ‘abjurations of the realm’ for fugitives in sanctuary.

 He had to take their confessions without which they were not allowed to leave.

 He would seize all their land and possessions, if they had any, and record all the details for presentation at the
next Eyre.

 At that time, the person could submit to a trial and take the consequences, or he could confess and leave the
kingdom, swearing never to return without the king's permission.

 In most cases the fugitive confessed to the Coroner, then he ‘abjured the realm’.
19
 The confession was usually taken by the Coroner at the gate or stile of the churchyard, or in the chancel. It
had to refer to a felony, not a lesser offence.

 In 1241, a Berkshire Coroner was himself hauled before the Justices in Eyre for allowing a man to ‘abjure the
realm’ for a petty larceny of corn worth only sixpence.

 The minimum amount for a felony was the theft of a shilling.

 After taking this oath, the Coroner had to arrange for his departure. The most important matter was the choice
of a port of embarkation.

 Coroners saw this as a way of punishing criminals who appeared to be getting away with crimes.

 Many Coroners chose ports that were as far as possible from the place of sanctuary.

 Many Yorkshire Coroners made their felons walk all the way to Dover, sometimes giving them an impossibly
short time to get there.

 A Kent Coroner, in 1313, was censured for sending a felon to Portsmouth, when Dover was just down the
road, though most similar acts by Coroners went unchallenged.

 The law stated that felons must abjure the realm of England, so many went to Scotland, Ireland and even
Wales.

 In some areas, a long white robe had to be worn instead of sackcloth to mark the felon out to the public and
carry a wooden cross.

 The Coroner was also obliged to give a public warning to the local people, ordering them not to interfere with
the abjuror en route.

 This was often disregarded as soon as he went around the first bend in the road. Many were murdered before
they got very far.

 If the fugitive dared use the footpath alongside the highway he was considered ‘as the wolf's head’, as the
expression went, and was fair game for decapitation.

 In the Bishopric of Durham there was a system whereby he was handed on from Constable to Constable along
the route, but elsewhere the abjuror was at the mercy of the local people.

 Probably only a small proportion ever reached their nominated port of departure. A large number simply
disappeared and became outlaws.

 The few who did get to the port had to go through the ritual of seeking a ship and wading in and out with the
tide each day until a passage was possible.

 If they could not leave within forty days due to bad weather, then, in theory, they could seek new sanctuary in
a local church and start the business all over again.

 The majority probably just threw away their wooden crosses on a lonely stretch of road.

 They then melted away into the woods to take up a new identity or join the many bands of outlaws that
plagued the country

 A person was not allowed to claim sanctuary if they had committed certain crimes such as heresy.

 Over time, the number of crimes a person was not allowed to claim sanctuary for was increased. Henry VIII
dissolved the monasteries in 1536 and sanctuary ended entirely.

20
Education and learning

 Universities in England were dominated by the Church. Most lecturers were churchmen.

 Oxford and Cambridge were also supported by the crown and supplied ministers and officials for the crown.

 University studies took six years for an MA; a BA would be awarded after completing the third or fourth year.

 The studies were the seven liberal arts: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music theory, grammar, logic, and
rhetoric.

 All instruction was given in Latin and students were expected to be able to converse in that language.

 Study was oral and there were no experiments. Medicine lectures were usually recited from the works of
Claudius Galen

 Three subjects were taught first: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. These three subjects were the most important
of the seven liberal arts for medieval students.

Roger Bacon

 Roger Bacon was a lecturer on Aristotle at Oxford University and went to teach in Paris in 1237. In 1256, he
became a Franciscan friar.

 He was constantly in trouble with the Church because he challenged traditional ideas.

 Universities were largely limited to addressing disputes on the known texts of Aristotle.

 Bacon wanted to change the structure of learning at universities and was imprisoned for two years in the
1270s.
 Bacon believed that facts should be collected before attempts to reach scientific conclusions.

 He argued that, rather than training to debate minor philosophical distinctions, theologians should focus their
attention primarily on the Bible itself.

 Theologians should learn the languages of its original sources thoroughly.

 In his Opus Majus, he put forward theories for the positions of stars and bodies in the sky.

 He attempted top work out the anatomy of the eye and the brain, taking into account light distance, position
and size.

 One passage in the Opus Majus is usually taken as the first European descriptions of a mixture containing the
essential ingredients of gunpowder..

 Bacon most likely witnessed at least one demonstration of Chinese firecrackers

21
Duns Scotus

 John Duns Scotus was born in Duns, Scotland around 1265. He joined the Franciscans as a teenager and was
ordained to the priesthood in 1291.

 He devoted his life to theology and philosophy, studying and teaching at the great universities of the day.

 The Sentences of Peter Lombard and similar works formed the backbone of philosophical and scientific
studies.

 These Sentences arranged doctrinal opinions of the church fathers under categories with objections made to
them and comments by other church authorities.

 His greatest work is the Opus Oxoniensis, a commentary on the famous Sentences of Peter Lombard.

 Until the end of the thirteenth century Peter Lombard's Sentences were accepted as the basic theological
reference.

 Duns Scotus produced numerous valuable writings. The majority of these written works are commentaries or
treatises on disputed questions.

Royal justice

 In 1275, the first Statute of Westminster imposed the punishment peine forte et dure (strong and severe) on
those who refused a trial by jury.

 In 1285, the Second Statute of Winchester said that men had to help form a posse comitatus (force of the
county).

 This was to help the sheriff to chase and catch criminals. All of this was an extension of the traditional
Tithings’ practice of hue and cry.

 The Exchequer created a court to hear financial disputes.

 The Court of Common Pleas developed to hear property disputes.

 The Court of the King's Bench dealt with criminal cases in which the king had a vested interest.

 Other statutes prohibited vassals from giving their lands to the church and encouraged primogeniture.

 They established the king as the sole person who could make a man his feudal vassal.

 In essence, Edward set the stage for land to become an article of commerce.

 Wales was divided into shires, English civil law was introduced, and the region was administered by
appointed justices.

22
Types of crime

 The most common types of crime dealt with in the Middle Ages were theft and murder. Almost 80% of all
cases dealt with theft or the handling of stolen property.

 About 18% of cases dealt with murder. Cases dealing with rape and other crimes (such as arson and treason)
were much rarer.

 However, the court rolls only record crimes which were reported; even today, many crimes are not reported.
The number of unreported crimes is known as the ‘dark figure’.

Edward I’s military campaigns in Wales and Scotland

The composition of the army

 In Medieval England, there was no standing army; armies were raised when they were needed, i.e. to go to
war.

 The king and his nobles maintained units of professional soldiers for protection; these formed the nucleus of
an army when necessary.

 The medieval knight was usually mounted and armoured and connected with nobility or royalty.

 The cost of a knight's armour, horses, and weapons was considerable. Knights had to maintain the correct
equipment to provide service.

 The cost and the equipment transformed the knight into a distinct social class separate from other warriors.

 Knights were heavy cavalry, designed to smash into other soldiers and formations.

 Heavy cavalry, armed with lances and an assortment of hand weapons, played a significant part in the battles
of the Middle Ages.

 For the mounted knight, medieval warfare could be a relatively low risk affair. Nobles avoided killing each
other, rather preferring capturing them alive.

 They were all members of the same elite culture; a noble's ransom could be very high, and indeed some made
a living by capturing and ransoming nobles in battle.

Warfare

Knights at the end of the thirteenth century

 Feudal armies consisted of a core of highly skilled knights and their household troops.

 Mercenaries could be hired for the time of the campaign and feudal levies used as foot soldiers.

 In the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Edward I and Edward III transformed the English army.

 The best infantrymen came from free land-owning yeomen; they provided archers and pikemen.

 In theory, every Englishman had an obligation to serve for forty days. Forty days (called quarantine) was not
long enough for a campaign, especially one on the continent.

 Scutage was introduced. This was a tax that was paid in place of military service.

 The name comes from the Latin word for a shield (scuta). Most Englishmen paid the tax to escape their
service and this money was used to create a permanent army

23
Foot soldiers

 Pikemen carried long pikes, up to five meters in length, which could be used in defence against cavalry.

 Archers were armed with longbows made from yew. They needed to be immensely strong to pull the bow,
which was almost two meters long.

 Welsh and English longbowmen used a single-piece longbow to deliver arrows that could penetrate plate
armour and mail.

 The longbow was a difficult weapon to master, requiring years of use and constant practice.

 A skilled longbowman could shoot about 12 arrows per minute. This rate of fire was far superior to
competing weapons like the crossbow or early gunpowder weapons.

 The nearest competitor to the longbow was the much more expensive crossbow, used often by urban militias
and mercenary forces.

 The crossbow had greater range and penetrating power, and did not require the extended years of training.

 For close quarter fighting, archers would also carry hammers and axes to smash the armour of dismounted
knights.

24
The feudal hierarchy

 The king was at the top of the feudal hierarchy. Next came the tenants-in-chief (barons). Below them were the
knights.

 In theory, the tenants-in-chief did not own the lands allotted to them. They held it on condition that they
provided soldiers for the king.

 In practice, by the fourteenth century, this was no longer the case. The great lords owned vast estates and had
large bands of retainers.

 Tenants had to perform homage to their lord; in return, he offered them his protection. The link was sealed by
an oath. By now, mostly a ceremonial act.

 Below knights were peasants, who worked on the knight’s land (labour service) and farmed their own plot.

 Their role was to work for the knight and pay dues, which enabled him to maintain his equipment and horses.

 If tenant broke his oath, he was liable for forfeiture of his estate. The land would revert to the lord or king.

The knights

 The tenants-in-chief were the king’s closest companions. He would expect to be able to rely on them for
service in time of war.

 Tenants were responsible for a certain number of knights; when summoned they were expected to come with
their knights.

 This was usually for a period of forty days. After that, the king was expected to pay.

 There were thousands of knights who formed the next level of society. They were, in theory at least,
professional fighters.

Knight-service

 These men owed ‘knight service’ to their lord; he in turned owed military service to the king.

 Knight-service included keeping the proper military equipment for fighting and being ready to fight when
called.

 The king expected the archbishops, bishops and abbots render service providing armed troops.

 Bishops were often involved in warfare; at the battle of Falkirk (1298), the Bishop of Durham commanded the
rearguard.

 Knights received land from tenants-in-chief; the land was used to pay for the maintenance of their equipment.

 After 1300, personal military service by knights was replaced more and more by a money payment in lieu of
personal service.

 The backbone of the army became retained knights, increasingly called ‘men at arms’ or who were horsed,
armoured and armed like knights, but who were paid.

25
Payment

 In the mid-1340s a knight was paid two shillings a day, an ordinary man-at-arms was paid half this amount.

 An archer received two or three pence (12 pennies to the shilling). A man-at-arms was also paid according to
the quality of his principal war-horse, if the horse was to die or was killed in battle.

 An ordinary esquire might own a war-horse worth only five pounds whilst a great nobleman might own a
horse worth up to 100 pounds.

 Social status also affected the types of military service performed by men-at-arms.

 Garrison duty was considered unattractive and was often carried out by soldiers of lesser status.

 The English garrison in the Scottish town of Roxburgh in 1301 consisted of just three knights compared to
twenty seven men-at-arms of lesser status.

 It has been claimed that during his wars Edward I transformed the traditional feudal host into an efficient,
paid army.

 Feudal summonses continued throughout his reign, though only providing a proportion of the army.

 The paid forces of the royal household were a very important element, but that the barons also provided
substantial unpaid forces for campaigns of which they approved.

 The scale of infantry recruitment increased notably, enabling Edward to muster armies up to 30,000 strong.

 The king’s military successes were primarily due to the skill of his government in mobilizing resources, in
terms of men, money, and supplies, on an unprecedented scale.

Schiltrons

 Schiltrons were a Scottish invention and were used at the battles of Falkirk (1298) and Bannockburn (1314).

 They were large, static formations of pikemen, usually in the form of a circle. They usually numbered about
2,000 soldiers.

 Their purpose was to stop the charge of enemy knights and they worked in much the same way as infantry
squares at the battle of waterloo in 1815.

 They were ineffective at Falkirk because Edward I used his archers to destroy the massed bodies of pikemen.

 At Bannockburn, Edward II, a far less imposing general, allowed the English cavalry to charge pointlessly at
the schiltrons.

26
A schiltron

Medieval Siege Warfare

 Medieval Siege warfare was an extremely expensive and time consuming business.

 Siege warfare was, however, a common form of warfare during these violent times. Siege warfare was a
common occurrence especially during:

 The Crusades when the use of the Siege Warfare was used by the crusaders to capture towns and
fortresses in the Holy Land from the Infidels, Saracens
 The Hundred Years War (1337 - 1453), when the English were claiming French lands and mounting
invasions
 In England, the building of stone castles acted as power basis for the warring lords and knights

 An important requirement to ensure a successful invasion was to capture the enemy’s power base - their
towns, fortresses or castles.

 Siege warfare was essential to ensure victory. There were more sieges than there were pitched battles during
the Middle Ages.

Siege Warfare from the attackers’ perspective

 The attackers had the upper hand in negotiations as they were in total control of the siege and could withdraw
at any time.

 The attackers force in England would have been raised by the Medieval Feudal Levy where nobles and their
troops were only obliged to serve for a limited amount of time - usually 40 days.

 The cost and time elements were therefore critical to both sides and pressure was on both sides to achieve a
peaceful agreement.

 The attackers fighting abroad were not subject to such strict time limits but cost was still an important factor.

27
 Laying siege was often fought with the use of massive siege weapons such as the Ballista, Mangonel,
Battering Ram, Siege Tower and the awesome Trebuchet.

 A prolonged siege was a last thing that an attacker wanted due to the cost and the negative effect on morale
due to the boredom factor.

Siege Warfare from the defenders’ perspective

 The defenders involved in siege warfare were aware of the cost of a siege and that a prolonged siege would
cause significant problems in terms of the man power of the attackers.

 From the defenders’ perspective they had to hold out against the assault of siege weapons or survive a
prolonged siege where food, fresh water and morale was of prime importance.

Siege Warfare was fought according to the Chivalric Code

 Neither Attacker nor Defender involved in siege warfare wanted a prolonged siege.

 Medieval Siege Warfare was conducted according to Chivalric Rules and a truce or settlement would always
be attempted, according to the Chivalric Code, before Siege Warfare commenced.

 The Chivalric Code regulated Medieval Siege warfare. These rules allowed surrender under honourable terms.

 Each side would have estimated the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition.

 Siege Warfare was costly and Siege Weapons and the besieging forces would not be assembled until it was
believed that all truce negotiations would fail.

 The Siege warfare rules of the honourable Chivalric Code included the following elements:

 Siege Warfare / Time: A reasonable and specific amount of time was allowed for truce or surrender conditions
to be considered. This ranged from 7 - 40 days.

 The shorter time period was most commonly allowed because of the problems caused by the Feudal Levy

 Siege Warfare / Honourable Surrender: An honourable surrender had to be negotiated before the start of
hostilities

 Siege Warfare / Safe Conduct: Castle inhabitants could leave the castle unharmed

 Siege Warfare / Weapons: Often terms would allow inhabitants to retain their weapons

 Should inhabitants refuse to surrender no such promises were given

 The attackers would signal the start of the siege with flags or launching arrows or crossbow bolts at the castle
entrance

28
Wales

 When Edward became king, North Wales was dominated by Llywellyn ap Gruffydd.

 The Treaty of Montgomery, in 1267, had given him the title of Prince of Wales.

 In 1274, Llywelyn's younger brother Dafydd, after failing in an assassination attempt against Llywelyn,
defected to the English in 1274.

 Trouble arose when Llywelyn refused to do homage to Edward and Llywelyn planned to marry Eleanor,
daughter of Simon de Montfort.

 In November 1276, war was declared. In July 1277 Edward invaded with a force of 15,500.

 He advanced into Wales by three coordinated advances with naval support (1277), blockaded Llywelyn in
Snowdonia.

 He was starved into submission and stripped of all his conquests since 1247.

 He then erected a tremendous ring of powerful castles encircling Gwynedd and reorganized the conquered
districts as shires and hundreds.

 In the Treaty of Aberconwy in November 1277, he was left only with the land of Gwynedd, though he was
allowed to retain the title of Prince of Wales.

 War broke out again in 1282. It was provoked particularly by attempts to impose English law on Welsh
subjects.

 Edward treated it as a war of conquest rather than simply a punitive expedition.

 The war started with a rebellion by Dafydd, who was unhappy with the reward he had received from Edward
in 1277.

 Llywelyn and other Welsh chieftains soon joined in, and initially the Welsh were successful. In June,
Gloucester was defeated at Llandeil Fawr.

 On 6 November, John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, was conducting peace negotiations.

 Edward's commander of Anglesey, Luke de Tany, decided to carry out a surprise attack.

 A pontoon bridge had been built to the mainland and Tany and his men crossed over. They were ambushed by
the Welsh and suffered heavy losses.

 On 11 December, Llywelyn was lured into a trap and killed at Orewin Bridge

 Dafydd was captured in June 1283 and taken to Shrewsbury and executed as a traitor.

 Further rebellions occurred in 1287–88 and, more seriously, in 1294, under the leadership of Madog, a distant
relative of Llywellyn.

 In both cases the rebellions were put down, but Edward had to take command himself in 1294

29
Castles and colonisation

 By the Statute of Rhuddlan, 1284, Wales was incorporated into England and was given an administrative
system like the English.

 Sheriffs were appointed to take charge; English law was introduced in criminal cases.

 Welsh law was allowed to continue in some cases of property disputes.

 Edward began on a full-scale project of English settlement of Wales, creating new towns like Flint,
Aberystwyth and Rhuddlan.

 The new residents were English migrants, with the local Welsh banned from living inside them, and many
were protected by extensive walls.

 An extensive project of castle-building was started, under the direction of Master James of Saint George,
whom Edward had met on his return from the crusade.

 Carpenters, ditch diggers and stonemasons were gathered by local sheriffs from across England.

 Caernarfon castle and walls cost £15,500, Conwy castle and walls came to around £15,000 and Harlech Castle
cost £8,190 to construct.

 The walled towns were planned out in a regular fashion. Their new residents were English migrants, with the
local Welsh banned from living inside the walls.

 Permanent garrisons of soldiers were established, 40 at Caernarfon, 30 at Conwy and 36 at Harlech, equipped
with crossbows and armour.

 The castles and towns were all ports and could be supplied by sea if necessary, an important strategic
advantage.

 The castles were each equipped with a rear gate that would allow them to be re-supplied directly by sea, even
if the town had fallen.

 The castles of Beaumaris, Conwy, Caernarfon and Harlech were intended to act both as fortresses and royal
palaces for the King.

 Edward ensured widespread use of crenellation in castle walls, as across Europe.

 Four of the eight castles Edward founded in Wales were concentric.

 The castles were a statement of Edward's intentions to rule North Wales permanently in an attempt to build
legitimacy for his new regime.

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

 In 1301 at Lincoln, the young Edward became the first English prince to be invested with the title of Prince of
Wales.

 King Edward granted him the Earldom of Chester and lands across North Wales.

 The King 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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Scotland

 The relationship between the nations of England and Scotland by the 1280s was good.

 In 1278, King Alexander III paid homage to Edward I, but apparently only for the lands he held of Edward in
England.

 Problems arose only with the Scottish succession crisis of the early 1290s.

 In the years from 1281 to 1284, Alexander's two sons and one daughter died in quick succession.

 In 1286, King Alexander died himself, leaving as heir to the throne of Scotland his three-year-old
granddaughter, Margaret, the Maid of Norway.

 By the Treaty of Birgam, it was agreed that Margaret should marry King Edward's six-year-old son Edward,
though Scotland would remain free of English overlordship.

 Margaret, seven years old, sailed from Norway for Scotland in the autumn of 1290, but fell ill on the way and
died,

 This left the country without an obvious heir, and led to the succession dispute known to history as the Great
Cause.

 Thirteen claimants put forward their claims to the title; the real contest was between John Balliol and Robert
de Brus.

 The Scottish barons made a request to Edward to conduct the proceedings and administer the outcome, but
not to arbitrate in the dispute.

 The actual decision would be made by 104 auditors; 40 appointed by Balliol, 40 by Bruce and the remaining
24 selected by Edward I.

 Edward insisted that, if he were to settle the contest, he had to be fully recognised as Scotland's feudal
overlord.

 The Scots were reluctant to make such a concession, and replied that since the country had no king, no one
had the authority to make this decision.

 The claimants agreed that the realm would be handed over to Edward until a rightful heir had been found.

 After a lengthy hearing, a decision was made in favour of John Balliol on 17 November 1292.

 Even after Balliol's accession, Edward still continued to assert his authority over Scotland.

 He agreed to hear appeals on cases ruled on by the court of guardians that had governed Scotland during the
interregnum.

 Edward also demanded that Balliol appear in person before Parliament to answer charges from MacDuff, a
baron.

 Balliol did appear, but the final straw was Edward's demand that the Scottish barons provide military service
in the war against France.

 The Scots instead formed an alliance with France and launched an unsuccessful attack on Carlisle.

 Edward responded by invading Scotland in 1296 and taking the town of Berwick.

 At Dunbar, the Scots were heavily defeated and Edward confiscated the Stone of Destiny.

 He deposed Balliol and placed him in the Tower, and installed Englishmen to govern the country.

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 Resistance soon developed under the leadership of William Wallace.

 On 11 September 1297, a large English force under the leadership of the Earl of Surrey was routed by a much
smaller Scottish army led by Wallace at Stirling Bridge.

 The defeat sent shockwaves into England, and preparations for a retaliatory campaign started immediately.

 Edward headed north and on 22 July 1298, Edward defeated Wallace's forces at Falkirk.

Falkirk 1298

 In March 1298, following the English defeat at Stirling Bridge, William Wallace led a punitive raid into
Northumberland.

 In response, later in 1298, Edward I assembled an army of 15,000, including veterans from his campaigns in
France as well as Welsh and Irish troops.

 In the campaign that followed Wallace was outnumbered and forced to employ hit and run tactics.

 Edward, who had mustered his army at Roxburgh, organised seaborne supplies to support his forces as they
marched north to Edinburgh.

 Wallace planned a night time attack on Edward’s army near Kirkliston, just to the north west of Edinburgh.

 It was betrayed by two Scottish nobles, who resented Wallace’s rise to power.

 He now had little alternative but to face Edward in open battle before he reached Stirling, with its strategically
important castle. He chose Falkirk as the location.

 He chose terrain in which he could use an area of marshy ground to protect his deployment.

 His infantry were organised in four schiltrons (‘great circles’) of spearmen, with the archers between these
and with the cavalry to the rear.

 The English deployed in three ‘battles’ (formations); the vanguard was commanded by Norfolk and Hereford.

 The main battle was commanded by Edward I and the rearguard battle was under the Bishop of Durham.

 The vanguard moved to the right and the main battle to the left of the marsh. The first cavalry attack became
bogged down.

 A second English charge caused the Scottish cavalry to flee and then carried on to ride down the Scottish
archers. The charge was halted by the schiltrons.

 The English archers advanced and fired at the schiltrons. They opened up the schiltron lines with hails of
arrows.

 This provided openings which the English cavalry then exploited, destroying the schiltrons and forcing
Wallace’s army to flee; it was destroyed in the pursuit.

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 Edward, however, was not able to take advantage and in the next year the Scots managed to recapture Stirling
Castle.

 In 1300 and 1301, the Scots refused to engage in open battle again, preferring instead to raid the English
countryside in smaller groups.

 In 1303, a peace agreement was reached between England and France, effectively breaking up the Franco-
Scottish alliance.

 Robert the Bruce, the grandson of the claimant to the crown in 1291, had sided with the English in the winter
of 1301–02.

 By 1304, most of the other nobles of the country had also pledged their allegiance to Edward, and this year
the English also managed to re-take Stirling Castle.

 A great propaganda victory was achieved in 1305 when Wallace was betrayed and turned over to the English.
He was taken to London where he was publicly executed.

 Edward installed Englishmen and collaborating Scots to govern the country.

 The situation changed again on 10 February 1306, when Robert the Bruce murdered his rival John Comyn. A
few weeks later, on 25 March, he had himself crowned King of Scotland.

 Bruce began a campaign to restore Scottish independence, and this campaign took the English by surprise.

 Edward was suffering ill health and gave different military commands to Aymer de Valence and Henry Percy;
the main royal army was led by the Prince of Wales.

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 Bruce was forced into hiding, while the English forces recaptured their lost territory and castles.

 Edward treated Bruce's allies and supporters very cruelly. Bruce's sister, Mary, was hung in a cage outside of
Roxburgh for four years.

 Isabella, Countess of Buchan, who had crowned Bruce, was hung in a cage outside of Berwick Castle for four
years.

 Bruce's younger brother Neil was executed by being hanged, drawn, and quartered; he had been captured after
he and his garrison held off Edward's forces.

 This brutality, though, rather than helping to subdue the Scots, had the opposite effect, and rallied growing
support for Bruce.

 In February 1307, Bruce reappeared and started gathering men, and in May he defeated the English at
Loudoun Hill.

 Edward, who had rallied somewhat, now moved north himself. On the way, however, he developed dysentery,
and his condition deteriorated. On 6 July he died.

 The new king, Edward II, remained in the north until August, but then abandoned the campaign and headed
south.

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