Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/28

Edward I and his face shapely, and he inherited from his father a peculiar droop of the left eyelid. In youth his hair was so light that it had only a shade of yellow, in manhood it was dark, and in age of snowy whiteness. Although his voice was indistinct, he spoke with fluency and persuasiveness. He excelled in all knightly exercises, and was much given to hunting, especially to stag-hunting, and hawking (, p. 281 sq.;, ii. l ). Brave, and indeed rash as regards his own safety, he was now an experienced leader; he was prudent in counsel, ready in devising, and prompt in carrying out whatever measures the exigencies of the moment seemed to demand. His word was always sacred to him, and he was ever faithful to the motto, 'Pactum serva,' that appears upon his tomb. At the same time he did not scruple when in difficulties to make subtle distinctions, and while keeping to the letter he certainly sometimes neglected the spirit of his promises. He was hasty, quick to take offence, and towards the end of his life hard and stern, though he was not wantonly cruel. No one probably ever learnt more from adversity. By his absence from England he enabled men to forget old feelings of bitterness against him; he returned when the country was prepared for the restoration of orderly administration, fully determined to supply its needs. And he did not simply restore, he reorganised. He was 'by instinct a lawgiver.' The age was strongly affected by the study of civil law, and he kept Francesco Accursi, the son of the famous legist of Bologna, in his service. He was skilful in arrangement, in definition, and in finding remedies and expedients in materials already at hand. His laws were for the most part founded on principles previously laid down, which he worked out and applied to the present wants of the nation. It was the same with all his constitutional and administrative reforms. He carried on the work that had been taken in hand by Henry II, developed its character, and organised its methods. Everywhere he freed the state from the action of feudal principles, and encouraged, and may almost be said to have created, national political life. He was the founder of our parliamentary system, yet in this as in most else his work was the completion of a process that had long been going forward. In his hands the assembly of the nation ceased to have a feudal character; the lords are no longer a loose gathering of the greater tenants in chief, but a definite body of hereditary peers summoned by writ, and the clergy and the commons appear by their representatives. Rights and duties were clearly laid down. and in all his reforms there is conspicuous an extraordinary power of adapting 'means to ends.' Yet great as the benefits are which he conferred on the nation, he loved power and struggled for it, generally unsuccessfully, for the means of self-government that he organised and placed in the hands of the nation were turned against him, and were more than once sufficient to thwart his will. These struggles led him to take advantage of quibbles that naturally suggested themselves to his legal mind. At the same time if he had not striven for power he would not have been a strong man, or done so great a work. (On Edward s legislative and constitutional work see Constitutional History, vol. ii. c. 14, 15; and Early Plantagenets, p. 202 sq.)

The kingdom was in good hands, and Edward did not hasten home. After all that had happened he probably judged wisely in prolonging his absence. From Sicily he passed through Apulia, and went to Home to visit Gregory X, who before his elevation had been with him on the crusade. He was received by the pope at Orvieto on 14 Feb. 1273, obtained a grant of the tenths of the clergy for three years to reimburse him for his crusading expenses, which pressed heavily on him, and stirred up Gregory to proceed against Guy de Montfort for the murder of his cousin. As he passed through Tuscany and Lombardy he was received with much honour by the cities to which he came, and saluted with cries of 'Long live the Emperor Edward!' (Flores, ii. 353). He crossed Mont Cenis 7 June, and forced a robber knight of Burgundy, who owned no lord, to become a vassal of the Count of Savoy. On the 18th he came to S. Georges les Reneins, near Lyons, and about this time engaged in a melee with the Count of Chalons. He received the count's challenge in Italy, and sent for divers earls and barons from England to come to him, so that he was at the head of a thousand picked men. The count singled him out, and strove to drag him from his horse, but was himself unhorsed. Then the fighting became serious, and the Burgundians, though superior in numbers, were defeated. Something more than a mere chivalrous encounter was evidently intended from the first, and the affair was called the 'little battle of Chalons' (, i. 337-40). Edward reached Paris on the 26th, and did homage to Philip III for the lands he held of him. On 8 Aug. he left Paris for Gascony, where Gaston of Bearn was in revolt, and stayed there nearly a year. During a good part of this time he was engaged in an unsuccessful war with Gaston,