Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 1.djvu/180

 11U SOLDIERS AND SAILORS a native English king. Edward was brought up at Windsor, was given by his father in 1252 the government of Gascony, and in 1254 married, in the monas- tery of Las Huelgas, Eleanor, sis- ter of Alfonso X. of Castile, receiv- ing immediately thereafter from his father Gascony, Ireland, and the Welsh march betwixt the Comvay and the Dee, where, in fighting with the turbulent Welshmen, he learned his first lessons in warfare. At the Parliament of Oxford (1258) he took part with his father in his contest with his trouble- some nobles, but thereafter ap- pears to have at first sided with the great Earl Simon de Mont- fort, the leader of the barons or national party, without, however, impairing his own personal loy- alty and affection for his father, with whom ere long he was reconciled. It was his rash eagerness in pur- suing an advantage gained over the Londoners, who were devoted to the party of Simon, that lost the battle of Lewes (1264), one immediate consequence of which was the prince's imprisonment as a hostage for his father's pledges. Con- ditions for his liberation, discussed at Simon's famous parliament of 1265, were frustrated through Edward's escape by a stratagem from Hereford Castle ; and at the final battle at Evesham (August 4), where Simon recognized in the skil- ful disposition of his enemy's forces a fatal lesson learned from himself, the strug- gle practically ended with the great popular champion's death on the battle-field. Edward gained much influence by the wise prudence and moderation with which he stamped out the last embers of rebellion. In 1270 he started, at the instigation of Louis IX. of France, to join the last of the Crusades, but when he reached Tunis, found that king dead, and the expe- dition already desperate of success. He went on to Acre, and won great renown as a knight, but failed to save the Frankish kingdom in the East from its inevi- t table fate. In June, 1272, while sitting alone on his bed, his own strength and energy saved him from being murdered by one of the infamous sect of the Assas- sins. Hastily guarding himself with his arms, and receiving a desperate wound, from which he afterward suffered much, he tore the knife from his assailant's hand, and buried it in his heart. The ancient story that his queen Eleanor, who had followed him in his pilgrimage, saved his life at the risk of her own by suck- ing the poison from the wound, unfortunately lacks historical support, but fits well with the romantic temper of the times, as well as with the deep affection that survived throughout life betwixt husband and wife.