Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/27

Edward I , thirteen in number, were none of them injured, and their escape was put down to a miraculous interposition of Providence to reward him for refusing to agree to the proposal of the other kings, that he should, like them, desist from his undertaking (, i. 331-83;, p. 329). He spent the winter in Sicily, and in the early spring of 1271 sailed for Syria, parting with his cousin Henry, whom he appointed seneschal of Gascony, and who was shortly afterwards slain at Viterbo by Simon and Guy de Montfort. After touching at Cyprus to take in provisions, he arrived at Acre, which was now closely besieged, in May. His army was small, consisting of not more than about one thousand men. He relieved the town, and about a month later made an expedition to Nazareth, which he took, slew all he found there, and routed a force which tried to cut him off as he returned. At midsummer he won another victory at Haifa, and advanced as far as Castle Pilgrim. These successes brought him considerable reinforcements. He sent to Cyprus for recruits, and a large body came over declaring, it is said, that they were bound to obey his orders, because his ancestors had ruled over them, and that they would ever be faithful to the kings of England. a third expedition was made 1-27 Aug. Still his troops were too few to enable him to gain any material success, and these expeditions were little better than raids. In 1272 he received several messages from the emir of Jaffa, proposing terms of peace: they were brought by the same messenger, one of the sect, it is said, of the Assassins, who thus became intimate with Edward's household. In the evening of 17 June, his birthday, Edward was sitting alone upon his bed bareheaded and in his tunic, for the weather was hot, when this messenger, who had now come to the camp for the fifth time, was admitted into his presence. The door of the room was shut, and the messenger, having delivered his master's letters, stood bending low as he answered the question that Edward asked him. Suddenly he put his hand in his belt, as though to produce other letters, pulled out a knife, which was believed to have been poisoned, and hit violently at Edward with it. Edward used his arm to shield his body from the blow, and received a deep wound in it; then, as the man tried to strike him again, he gave him a kick that felled him to the ground. He seized the man's hand, wrenched the knife from him with so much force that it wounded him in the forehead, plunged it into the assassin's body, and so slew him. When his attendants, who had withdrawn to some distance, came running in, on hearing the noise of the scuffle, they found the man dead, and Edward's minstrel seized a stool and dashed out his brains with it. Edward reproved him for striking the dead. The master of the Temple at once gave him some precious drugs to drink to counteract the effects of the poison, and the next day he made his will (Royal Wills, p. 18). After a few days the wound in his arm began to grow dark, and his surgeons became uneasy. 'What are you whispering about?' he asked; 'can I not be cured?' One of them, an Englishman, said that he could if he would undergo great suffering, and declared that he would stake his life on it. The king then said that he put himself in his hands, and the surgeon having caused the queen, who was crying loudly, to be removed from the room, the next morning cut away the whole of the darkened flesh, telling his lord that within fifteen days he would be able to mount his horse; and his word came true. The story that Eleanor sucked the poison from the wound seems to lack foundation [see under Eleanor of Castile]. When the sultan Bibars, who was suspected of being concerned in this attempt, heard of its miscarriage, he sent three ambassadors to declare that he had no hand in it. As they made repeated salaams to Edward, he said in English, 'You pay me worship, but you have no love for me.' The incident proves that in spite of his French taste and feelings, shown, for example, in his delight in tournaments, Edward constantly spoke English. He found that he could not achieve any material success in Palestine, his men were suffering from sickness, and he knew that his father's health was failing. Accordingly he made a truce for ten years with the sultan, and on 15 Aug. set sail for Sicily. He landed at Trapani after, it is said, a voyage of seven weeks. He was entertained by King Charles, and while he was in Sicily heard of the deaths of his father on 10 Nov., of his uncle Richard, and of his first-born son, John. On the day of Henry's funeral, 20 Nov., the Earl of Gloucester, in accordance with a promise he had made to the late king, and the barons and bishops of the realm, swore fealty to Edward as their king. The magnates of the kingdom recognised and declared his right to succeed his father, and thus for the first time the reign of a sovereign of England began from the death of his predecessor through the doctrine that the 'king never dies' was not propounded until a later age (, Constitutional Hist. ii. 103).

Edward was tall and well made, broad-chested, with the long and nervous arms of a swordsman,and with long thighs that gripped the saddle firmly. His forehead was ample,