Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/30

Edward I youth appeared settled at last. Edward's Welsh castles belong to the class named after him 'Edwardian castles' for, though he was not the inventor of the style of forti- fication that marks them, he used it largely. They are built on the concentric principle, having two or three lines of defence, with towers at the angles and on the walls, and so arranged that 'no part is left to its own defences' (Mediæval Military Architecture, i. 157). With this war. in Wales must probably be connected the visit paid by Edward and his queen to Glastonbury on 13 April 1278. The tomb of Arthur was opened on the 19th, and the relics were translated, Edward carrying the bones of Arthur, and Eleanor the bones of Guinevere (, p. 588). The war had been expensive, and on 26 June Edward issued a writ compelling all who had a freehold estate of 20l. to take up knighthood or pay a fine, a measure that did much to blend the lesser tenants-in-chief with the main body of freeholders. A few days later the parliament at Gloucester assented to the Statute of Gloucester, founded on the report in the Hundred Rolls, to amend the working of territorial jurisdictions; and proceeding on this statute and the report, Edward in August issued writs of 'Quo warranto,' which called on the lords to show by what warrant they held their jurisdictions, a measure that occasioned some discontent among them (Statutes, i. 117;, ii. 5). Llewelyn did not attend the Gloucester parliament, and Edward went to the marches on 1 Aug. and received his homage. On 29 Sept. he received the homage of Alexander of Scotland at Westminster (Fœdera, ii. 126; Ann. Wav, p. 370), and with him and the queen and many nobles attended the marriage of Llewelyn and Eleanor de Montfort at Worcester on 13 Oct. In November the king caused all the Jews throughout the kingdom to be arrested, and on 7 Dec. extended this order to the goldsmiths, on the charge of coining and clipping the coin. In April 1279 he had 267 Jews hanged in London, and gave notice of the forthcoming issue of round coins, appointing places where the old coins might be exchanged at a settled rate.

On the resignation of Archbishop Kilwardby in 1278, Edward procured the election of his friend and minister, Robert Burnell, and sent envoys to Rome to beg the pope to confirm the election. His request was refused, and Nicolas III gave the see to John Peckham. The death of the queen's mother, to whom the county of Ponthieu belonged, obliged Edward and the queen to visit Paris on 11 May 1279. Edward did homage to Philip for Ponthieu, and definitely surrendered all claim to Normandy (Ann. Wigorn, p. 477; Fœdera, ii 135). While at Amiens he met Peckham on his way to England, and received him graciously (, Reg. i. 6); he returned on 19 June. Peckham soon offended the king, for in his provincial council at Heading he ordered the clergy to post copies of the Great Charter on the doors of cathedral and collegiate churches, and to ex-communicate all who obtained writs from the king to hinder ecclesiastical suits or neglected to carry out ecclesiastical sentences. Edward naturally took these decrees as an insult, and in the Michaelmas parliament forced Peckham to renounce them. He further replied to the archbishop's challenge by the statute 'De Religiosis' or of 'Mortmain,' passed on 15 Nov. by the parliament at Westminster, a measure which preserved the rights of the superior lords and of the crown, as lord-paramount, against the church, and which was a development of one of the provisions of 1269 (Statutes, i. 133; Ann. Wav. p. 392; Cotton, p. 158; Select Charters, p. 448; Const. Hist. ii. 112). And he also demanded a fifteenth from the spiritualities. In these measures Edward was not acting in a spirit of revenge, for the next year, when he remonstrated with Peckham for holding a visitation of the royal chapel, he accepted the archbishop's assertion of his right. Findings however, that Peckham was about to issue canons in a council held at Lambeth in September 1281 that would have removed causes touching the right of patronage and other spiritual matters from the courts of the crown, he peremptorily interfered, and the archbishop was compelled to give way (, p. 285;, ii. 50). On 9 June 1280 he attended a general chapter of the Dominicans held at Oxford. In the course of the last year he had issued a decree pronouncing that all Jews guilty of irreverence and all apostates to Judaism should be punished with death, and now, at the persuasion of the Dominicans, he ordered that the Jews should be forced to listen reverently to certain sermons that were to be preached for their edification. In September of this year he was at Lanercost, and held a great hunting in Inglewood Forest (Chron. Lanercost, p. 106).

While Edward was keeping Easter at Devizes in 1282, news was brought him that Llewelyn and David, whom he had loaded with favours, had rebelled against him, had taken his castles, slain a multitude of people, and carried off Roger Clifford, the constable of Howarden, as a prisoner. At first he could not believe what he heard, but he soon found