Chapter XXIII: Part III: Elementary Education. (1) Powers and duties. School boards (3)

Edward was thirty-five years old when he became king, and the rude schooling of his youth had developed his character and suggested the main lines of the policy which he was to carry out as monarch. He was a tall, well-proportioned and handsome man, extravagantly devoted to military exercises, tournaments and the rougher and more dangerous forms of hunting. He had learned to restrain the hot temper of his youth, and was proud of his love of justice and strict regard to his plighted word. His domestic life was unstained, he was devoted to his friends, and loyal to his subordinates. Without any great originality either as soldier or statesman, he was competent enough to appropriate the best ideas of the time and make them his own. His defects were a hardness of disposition which sometimes approached cruelty and a narrow and pedantic temper, which caused him to regard the letter rather than the spirit of his promises. His effectiveness and love of strong government stand in strong contrast to his father's weakness. Though he loved power, and never willingly surrendered it, he saw that to be successful he must make his policy popular. Thus he continued the system which Montfort had formed with the object of restraining the monarchy, because he saw in a close alliance with his people the best means of consolidating the power of the crown.

The first years of Edward's reign were mainly occupied by his efforts to establish a really effective administration. In carrying out this task he derived great help from his chancellor, Robert Burnell, bishop of Bath and Wells. Administrative reform soon involved legislation, and from 1275 to 1290 nearly every year was marked by an important law. Few of these contained anything that was very new or original. They rather illustrate that policy which caused Dr Stubbs to describe his reign as a "period of definition." Yet the results of his conservative legislation were almost revolutionary. In particular he left the impress of his policy on the land laws of England, notably by the clause _De Donis_ of the Westminster statute of 1285, and the statute _Quia Emptores_ of 1290. The general effect of his work was to eliminate feudalism from political life. At first he aimed at abolishing all franchises whose holders could not produce written warranty for them. This was the policy of the statute of Gloucester of 1278, but the baronial opposition was so resolute that Edward was forced to permit many immunities to remain. Though the most orthodox of churchmen, his dislike of authority not emanating from himself threatened to involve him in constant conflict with the Church, and notably with John Peckham, the Franciscan friar, who was archbishop of Canterbury from 1279 to 1292. The statute of Mortmain of 1279, which forbade the further grant of lands to ecclesiastical corporations without the royal consent, and the writ _Circumspecte Agatis_ of 1285, which limited the church courts to strictly ecclesiastical business, both provoked strong clerical opposition. However, Peckham gave way to some extent, and Edward prudently acquiesced in many clerical assumptions which he disliked. He was strong enough to refuse to pay the tribute to Rome which John had promised, and his reign saw the end of that papal overlordship over England which had greatly complicated the situation under his father.

Besides administration and legislation, the other great event of the first fifteen years of Edward's reign was the conquest of the principality of Wales. It was part of Edward's policy of reconciliation after the battle of Evesham that in the treaty of Shrewsbury of 1267 he had fully recognized the great position which Llewelyn ab Gruffyd, prince of Wales, had gained as the ally of Simon de Montfort. However, Llewelyn's early successes had blinded the Welsh prince to the limitations of his power, and he profited by Edward's early absences from England to delay in performing his feudal obligations to the new king. Even after Edward's return Llewelyn continued to evade doing homage. At last Edward lost patience, and in 1277 invaded north Wales. He conducted his campaign like a great siege, blocking all the avenues to Snowdon, and forcing Llewelyn to surrender from lack of supplies. He thereupon reduced the Welsh prince to the position of a petty north Welsh chieftain strictly dependent on the English. For the next five years Edward did his best to set up the English system of government in the ceded districts. The Welsh resentment of this soon gave Llewelyn another chance, and compelled Edward to devote the years 1282-1283 to completing his conquest. In 1284 he issued the statute of Wales, which provided for a scheme for the future government of the principality. Edward is often called the conqueror of Wales, but in truth he only effected the conquest of Llewelyn's dominions. The march of Wales was only indirectly affected by his legislation, and remained subject to its feudal marcher lords until the 16th century.

Edward was very careful in his foreign policy. Though preserving nominal peace with his cousin Philip III. of France, his relations with that country were constantly strained. After Philip III.'s death in 1285, Edward crossed the Channel in 1286, to perform homage to his successor, Philip the Fair. He remained abroad till 1289, busied in attempts to improve the administration of Gascony, and making repeated and finally successful efforts to end by his mediation the still continuing struggle between the houses of Anjou and Aragon. His long absence threw the government of England into confusion, and on his return in 1289 he was compelled to dismiss most of his judges and ministers for corruption. In 1290 he expelled all Jews from England.

The affairs of Scotland furnished Edward with his chief preoccupation for the rest of his reign. After the death of Alexander III., in 1286, Scotland was governed in the name of his granddaughter Margaret, the Maid of Norway. The English king had suggested that Edward of Carnarvon, his eldest surviving son, should marry the little queen of Scots, and thus bring about the union of the two countries. Unluckily the death of Margaret in 1290 frustrated the scheme. The Scottish throne was now disputed by many claimants, and the Scots asked Edward to arbitrate between them. Edward accepted the position, but insisted that, before he acted, the Scots should recognize him as their overlord. The claimants set the example of submission, and soon the chief Scots nobles followed. Thereupon Edward undertook the arbitration, and in 1292 adjudged the throne to John Baliol. The new king did homage to Edward, but his subjects soon began to resent the claims of jurisdiction over Scotland, which Edward declared were the natural results of his feudal supremacy. At last the Scots deprived John of nearly all his power, repudiated Edward's claims, and made an alliance with the French. During the years of the Scottish arbitration Edward had slowly been drifting into war with France. The chronic difficulties caused by French attempts to confine Edward's power in Gascony were now accentuated by the quarrels between the sailors and merchants of the two countries. In 1293 Edward was persuaded by his brother, Edmund, earl of Lancaster, to yield up Gascony temporarily to Philip the Fair. But Philip refused to restore the duchy, and Edward, seeing that he had been tricked, declared war against France, at the very moment when the Scottish resistance gave the French a firm ally in Britain. To make matters worse, the Welsh rose in rebellion. It was therefore quite impossible for Edward to recover Gascony.

The most critical years of Edward's reign now began. He saw that he could only meet his difficulties by throwing himself on the support of his own subjects, and convoked, in 1295, a representative parliament of the three estates, which has been called in later times the Model Parliament, because it first illustrated the type which was to be perpetuated in all subsequent parliaments. "What touches all," ran Edward's writ of summons, "should be approved of all, and it is also clear that common dangers should be met by measures agreed upon in common." The parliamentary constitution of England was established as the result of Edward's action.

Secure of his subjects' allegiance, Edward put down the Welsh revolt, and conquered Scotland in 1296. When quiet was restored to Britain, he hoped to throw all his energy into the recovery of Gascony, but new troubles arose at home which once more diverted him from his supreme purpose. Led by Archbishop Winchelsea, Peckham's successor, the clergy refused to pay taxes in obedience to the bull of Pope Boniface VIII., called _Clericis Laicos_. Edward declared that if the clergy would not contribute to support the state, the state could afford them no protection. But the clerical opposition was soon joined by a baronial opposition. Headed by the earls of Hereford and Norfolk, many of the barons declined to join in an expedition to Gascony, and Edward was forced to sail to the French war, leaving them behind. Thereupon the recalcitrant barons forced upon the regency a fresh confirmation of the charters, to which new articles were added, safeguarding the people from arbitrary taxation. Edward at Ghent reluctantly accepted this _Confirmatio Cariarum_, but even his submission did not end the crisis. In the same year (1297), all Scotland rose in revolt under the popular hero William Wallace, and next year (1298), Edward was forced to undertake its reconquest. The battle of Falkirk, won on the 22nd of July, was the greatest of Edward's military triumphs; but, though it destroyed the power of Wallace, it did not put an end to Scottish resistance. Bitter experience taught Edward that he could not fight the French and the Scots at the same time, and in 1299 he made peace with Philip, and, Eleanor having died in November 1290, he married the French king's sister Margaret (c. 1282-1318), and some years later obtained the restitution of Gascony. In the same spirit he strove to destroy the clerical and baronial opposition. He did not succeed in the former task until a complacent pope arose in his own subject, Clement V., who abandoned Winchelsea to his anger, and suffered the archbishop to be driven into exile. The baronial leaders could not be wholly overthrown by force, and Edward was compelled to make them fresh concessions.

It was not until 1303 that Edward was able to undertake seriously the conquest of Scotland. By 1305 the land was subdued, and Wallace beheaded as a traitor. But Edward had hardly organized the government of his new conquest when a fresh revolt broke out under Robert Bruce, grandson of the chief rival of Baliol in 1290. Bruce was soon crowned king of Scots, and at the age of seventy Edward had to face the prospect of conquering Scotland for the third time. He resolved to take the field in person; but the effort was too great, and on the 7th of July 1307 he died at Burgh-on-Sands, near Carlisle. His death destroyed the last faint hope of conquering Scotland, and showed that the chief ambition of his life was a failure. Yet his conquest of Wales, his legislation, his triumph over his barons, his ecclesiastics, and the greatest of French medieval kings indicate the strength and permanence of his work. He was buried at Westminster under a plain slab on which was inscribed _Edwardus primus Scottorum malleus hic est. Pactum serva._

By Eleanor of Castile Edward had four sons, his successor Edward II. and three who died young, and nine daughters, including Joan, or Joanna (1272-1307), the wife of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295), and then of Ralph de Monthermer; Margaret (1275-1318), the wife of John II., duke of Brabant; and Eleanor (1282-1316), who married John I., count of Holland, and then Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford (d. 1322). By Margaret of France the king had two sons: Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk, and Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent.

The principal modern authorities for this reign are: W. Stubbs,
_Constitutional History of England_, vol. ii. chaps. xiv. and xv.
(1896); T.F. Tout, _Edward I._ (1893), and _Political History of
England, 1216-1377_, pp. 136-235 (1905); R.B. Seeley, _Life and Reign
of Edward I._ (1872); R. Pauli, _Geschichte von England_, iv. pp.
1-198 (Hamburg, 1864-1875); W. Hunt, article on "Edward I." in
_Dictionary of National Biography_; J.E. Morris, _Welsh Wars of Edward
I._ (Oxford, 1901); and C.V. Langlois's _Philippe le Hardi_ (Paris,
1887). (T. F. T.)

EDWARD II. (1284-1327), "of Carnarvon," king of England, the fourth son of Edward I. by his first wife Eleanor of Castile, was born at Carnarvon Castle on the 25th of April 1284. The story that the king presented the new-born child to the Welsh as their future native prince is quite unfounded, for Edward was only made prince of Wales in the Lincoln parliament of 1301. When a few months old, he became by his elder brother's death the heir to the throne, and Edward I. took great pains to train him in warfare and statecraft. He took part in several Scots campaigns, but all his father's efforts could not prevent his acquiring the habits of extravagance and frivolity which he retained all through his life. The old king attributed his son's defects to the bad influence of his friend, the Gascon knight Piers Gaveston, and drove the favourite into exile. When Edward I. died, on the 7th of July 1307, the first act of the prince, now Edward II., was to recall Gaveston. His next was to abandon the Scots campaign on which his father had set his heart.

The new king was physically almost as fine a man as Edward I. He was, however, destitute of any serious purpose, and was, as Dr Stubbs says, "the first king after the Conquest who was not a man of business." He cared for nothing but amusing himself, and found his chief delight in athletics and in the practice of mechanical crafts. He was not so much vicious as foolish, and wanting in all serious interests. He had so little confidence in himself that he was always in the hands of some favourite who possessed a stronger will than his own. In the early years of his reign Gaveston held this role, acting as regent when Edward went to France--where, on the 25th of January 1308, he married Isabella, the daughter of Philip the Fair--and receiving the earldom of Cornwall with the hand of the king's niece, Margaret of Gloucester. The barons soon grew indignant at Edward's devotion to his "brother Piers," and twice insisted on his banishment. On each occasion Edward soon recalled his friend, whereupon the barons, headed by the king's cousin Thomas, earl of Lancaster, went to war against king and favourite, and in 1312 treacherously put Gaveston to death. Edward was not strong enough even to avenge his loss. He was forced to stand aside and suffer the realm to be governed by the baronial committee of twenty-one lords ordainers, who, in 1311, had drawn up a series of ordinances, whose effect was to substitute ordainers for the king as the effective government of the country. But in all the ordinances nothing was said about the commons and lower clergy. Parliament meant to the new rulers an assembly of barons just as it had done to the opponents of Henry III. in 1258. The effect of their triumph was to change England from a monarchy to a narrow oligarchy.

During the quarrels between Edward and the ordainers, Robert Bruce was steadily conquering Scotland. His progress was so great that he had occupied all the fortresses save Stirling, which he closely besieged. The danger of losing Stirling shamed Edward and the barons into an attempt to retrieve their lost ground. In June 1314 Edward led a great army into Scotland in the hope of relieving Stirling. On the 24th of June his ill-disciplined and badly led host was completely defeated by Robert Bruce at Bannockburn. Henceforth Bruce was sure of his position as king of Scots, and his pitiless devastation of the northern counties of England was his wild vengeance for the sufferings his land had previously experienced from the English. Edward's disgraceful defeat made him more dependent on his barons than ever. His kinsman, Thomas of Lancaster, had now an opportunity of saving England from the consequences of the king's incompetence. He had shown some capacity as a leader of opposition, but though he had great wealth, and was lord of five earldoms, he had small ability and no constructive power. In his desire to keep the king weak, he was suspected to have made a secret understanding with Robert Bruce. Before long the opposition split up under his incompetent guidance into fiercely contending factions. Under Aymer of Valence, earl of Pembroke, a middle party arose, which hated Lancaster so much that it supported the king to put an end to Lancaster's rule. After 1318 the effect of its influence was to restore Edward to some portion of his authority. However, the king hated Pembroke almost as much as Lancaster. He now found a competent adviser in Hugh le Despenser, a baron of great experience. What was more important to him, he had in Despenser's son, Hugh le Despenser the younger, a personal friend and favourite, who was able in some measure to replace Gaveston. The fierce hatred which the barons manifested to the Despensers showed that they could hate a deserter as bitterly as they had hated the Gascon adventurer. They were indignant at the favours which Edward lavished upon the favourite and his father, and were especially alarmed when the younger Despenser strove to procure for himself the earldom of Gloucester in right of his wife, Edward's niece.

At last, in 1321, the barons met in parliament, and under Lancaster's guidance procured the banishment of the Despensers. The disasters of his friends inspired Edward to unwonted activity. In 1322 he recalled them from exile, and waged war against the barons on their behalf. Triumph crowned his exertions. Lancaster, defeated at Boroughbridge, was executed at Pontefract. For the next five years the Despensers ruled England. Unlike the ordainers, they took pains to get the Commons on their side, and a parliament held at York in 1322 revoked the ordinances because they trenched upon the rights of the crown, and were drawn up by the barons only. From this time no statute was technically valid unless the Commons had agreed to it. This marks the most important step forward in Edward II.'s reign. But the rule of the Despensers soon fell away from this wise beginning. They thought only of heaping up wealth for themselves, and soon stirred up universal indignation. In particular, they excited the ill-will of the queen, Isabella of France. Craftily dissembling her indignation, Isabella kept silence until 1325, when she went to France in company with her eldest son, Edward of Windsor, who was sent to do homage for Aquitaine to her brother, the new French king. When her business was over, Isabella declined to return to her husband as long as the Despensers remained his favourites. She formed a criminal connexion with Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, one of the baronial exiles, and in September 1326 landed in Essex accompanied by Mortimer and her son, declaring that she was come to avenge the murder of Lancaster, and to expel the Despensers. Edward's followers deserted him, and on the 2nd of October he fled from London to the west, where he took refuge in the younger Despenser's estates in Glamorgan. His wife followed him, put to death both the Despensers, and, after a futile effort to escape by sea, Edward was captured on the 16th of November. He was imprisoned at Kenilworth Castle, and a parliament met at Westminster in January 1327, which chose his son to be king as Edward III. It was thought prudent to compel the captive king to resign the crown, and on the 20th of January Edward was forced to renounce his office before a committee of the estates. The government of Isabella and Mortimer was so weakly established that it dared not leave the deposed king alive. On the 3rd of April he was secretly removed from Kenilworth and entrusted to the custody of two dependants of Mortimer. After various wanderings he was imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Every indignity was inflicted upon him, and he was systematically ill-treated in the hope that he would die of disease. When his strong constitution seemed likely to prevail over the ill-treatment of his enemies he was cruelly put to death on the 21st of September. It was announced that he had died a natural death, and he was buried in St Peter's Abbey at Gloucester, now the cathedral, where his son afterwards erected a magnificent tomb.

Edward's wife, Isabella (c. 1292-1358), bore him two sons, Edward III. and John of Eltham, earl of Cornwall (1316-1336), and two daughters, Isabella and Joanna (1321-1362), wife of David II., king of Scotland. After the execution of her paramour, Roger Mortimer, in 1330, Isabella retired from public life; she died at Hertford on the 23rd of August 1358.

See R. Pauli, _Geschichte von England_, iv. pp. 199-306; T.F. Tout,
_Political History of England_, 1216-1307, pp. 236-304, and article in
_Dictionary of National Biography_; W. Stubbs, _Constitutional
History_, vol. ii. pp. 319-386, and _Introductions to Chronicles of
the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II._ in Rolls series.
(T. F. T.)

EDWARD III. (1312-1377), "of Windsor," king of England, eldest son of Edward II. and Isabella of France, was born at Windsor on the 13th of November 1312. In 1320 he was made earl of Chester, and in 1325 duke of Aquitaine, but he never received the title of prince of Wales. Immediately after his appointment to Aquitaine, he was sent to France to do homage to his uncle Charles IV., and remained abroad until he accompanied his mother and Mortimer in their expedition to England. To raise funds for this he was betrothed to Philippa, daughter of the count of Hainaut. On the 26th of October 1326, after the fall of Bristol, he was proclaimed warden of the kingdom during his father's absence. On the 13th of January 1327 parliament recognized him as king, and he was crowned on the 29th of the same month.

For the next four years Isabella and Mortimer governed in his name, though nominally his guardian was Henry, earl of Lancaster. In the summer he took part in an abortive campaign against the Scots, and was married to Philippa at York on the 24th of January 1328. On the 15th of June 1330 his eldest child, Edward, the Black Prince, was born. Soon after, Edward made a successful effort to throw off his degrading dependence on his mother and her paramour. In October 1330 he entered Nottingham Castle by night, through a subterranean passage, and took Mortimer prisoner. On the 29th of November the execution of the favourite at Tyburn completed the young king's emancipation. Edward discreetly drew a veil over his mother's relations with Mortimer, and treated her with every respect. There is no truth in the stories that henceforth he kept her in honourable confinement, but her political influence was at an end.

Edward III.'s real reign now begins. Young, ardent and active, he strove with all his might to win back for England something of the position which it had acquired under Edward I. He bitterly resented the concession of independence to Scotland by the treaty of Northampton of 1328, and the death of Robert Bruce in 1329 gave him a chance of retrieving his position. The new king of Scots, David, who was his brother-in-law, was a mere boy, and the Scottish barons, exiled for their support of Robert Bruce, took advantage of the weakness of his rule to invade Scotland in 1332. At their head was Edward Baliol, whose victory at Dupplin Moor established him for a brief time as king of Scots. After four months Baliol was driven out by the Scots, whereupon Edward for the first time openly took up his cause. In 1333 the king won in person the battle of Halidon Hill over the Scots, but his victory did not restore Baliol to power. The Scots despised him as a puppet of the English king, and after a few years David was finally established in Scotland. During these years England gradually drifted into hostility with France. The chief cause of this was the impossible situation which resulted from Edward's position as duke of Gascony. Contributing causes were Philip's support of the Scots and Edward's alliance with the Flemish cities, which were then on bad terms with their French overlord, and the revival of Edward's claim, first made in 1328, to the French crown. War broke out in 1337, and in 1338 Edward visited Coblenz, where he made an alliance with the emperor Louis the Bavarian. In 1339 and 1340 Edward endeavoured to invade France from the north with the help of his German and Flemish allies, but the only result of his campaigns was to reduce him to bankruptcy.

In 1340, however, he took personal part in the great naval battle off Sluys, in which he absolutely destroyed the French navy. In the same year he assumed the title of king of France. At first he did this to gratify the Flemings, whose scruples in fighting their overlord, the French king, disappeared when they persuaded themselves that Edward was the rightful king of France. However, his pretensions to the French crown gradually became more important. The persistence with which he and his successors urged them made stable peace impossible for more than a century, and this made the struggle famous in history as the Hundred Years' War. Till the days of George III. every English king also called himself king of France.

Despite his victory at Sluys, Edward was so exhausted by his land campaign that he was forced before the end of 1340 to make a truce and return to England. He unfairly blamed his chief minister, Archbishop Stratford, for his financial distress, and immediately on his return vindictively attacked him. Before the truce expired a disputed succession to the duchy of Brittany gave Edward an excuse for renewing hostilities with France. In 1342 he went to Brittany and fought an indecisive campaign against the French. He was back in England in 1343. In the following years he spent much time and money in rebuilding Windsor Castle, and instituting the order of the Garter, which he did in order to fulfil a vow that he had taken to restore the Round Table of Arthur. His finances, therefore, remained embarrassed despite the comparative pause in the war, although in 1339 he had repudiated his debt to his Italian creditors, a default that brought about widespread misery in Florence.

A new phase of the French war begins when in July 1346 Edward landed in Normandy, accompanied by his eldest son, Edward, prince of Wales, a youth of sixteen. In a memorable campaign Edward marched from La Hogue to Caen, and from Caen almost to the gates of Paris. It was a plundering expedition on a large scale, and like most of Edward's campaigns showed some want of strategic purpose. But Edward's decisive victory over the French at Crecy, in Ponthieu, on the 26th of August, where he scattered the army with which Philip VI. attempted to stay his retreat from Paris to the northern frontier, signally demonstrated the tactical superiority of Edward's army over the French. Next year Edward effected the reduction of Calais. This was the most solid and lasting of his conquests, and its execution compelled him to greater efforts than the Crecy campaign. Other victories in Gascony and Brittany further emphasized his power. In 1346, David, king of Scots, was also defeated and taken prisoner at Neville's Cross, near Durham. In the midst of his successes, however, want of money forced Edward to make a new truce in 1347. He was as far from the conquest of France as ever.

Edward returned to England in October 1347. He celebrated his triumph by a series of splendid tournaments, and completed his scheme for the establishment of the order of the Garter. In 1348 he rejected an offer of the imperial throne. In the same year the Black Death first appeared in England, and raged until 1349. Yet the horrors which it wrought hardly checked the magnificent revels of Edward's court, and neither the plague nor the truce stayed the course of the French war, though what fighting there was was indecisive and on a small scale. Edward's martial exploits during the next years were those of a gallant knight rather than those of a responsible general. Conspicuous among them were his famous combat with Eustace de Ribemont, near Calais, in 1349, and the hard-fought naval victory over the Spaniards off Winchelsea, in 1350. Efforts to make peace, initiated by Pope Innocent VI., came to nothing, though the English commons were now weary of the war. The result of this failure was the renewal of war on a large scale. In 1355 Edward led an unsuccessful raid out of Calais, and in January and February 1356 harried the Lothians, in the expedition famous as the Burned Candlemas. His exploits sank into insignificance as compared with those of his son, whose victory at Poitiers, on the 19th of September 1356, resulted in the captivity of King John, and forced the French to accept a new truce. Edward entertained his royal captive very magnificently, and in 1359 concluded with him the treaty of London, by which John surrendered so much that the French repudiated the treaty. Edward thereupon resolved to invade France afresh and compel its acceptance. On the 28th of October he landed at Calais, and advanced to Reims, where he hoped to be crowned king of France. The strenuous resistance of the citizens frustrated this scheme, and Edward marched into Burgundy, whence he made his way back towards Paris. Failing in an attack on the capital, he was glad to conclude, on the 8th of May 1360, preliminaries of peace at Bretigny, near Chartres. This treaty, less onerous to France than that of London, took its final form in the treaty of Calais, ratified by King John on the 9th of October. By it Edward renounced his claim to France in return for the whole of Aquitaine.

The treaty of Calais did not bring rest or prosperity either to England or France. Fresh visitations of the Black Death, in 1362 and 1369, intensified the social and economic disturbances which had begun with the first outbreak in 1348. Desperate, but not very successful, efforts were made to enforce the statute of Labourers, of 1351, by which it was sought to maintain prices and wages as they had been before the pestilence. Another feature of these years was the anti-papal, or rather anti-clerical, legislation embodied in the statutes of Provisors and Praemunire. These measures were first passed in 1351 and 1353, but often repeated. In 1366 Edward formally repudiated the feudal supremacy over England, still claimed by the papacy by reason of John's submission. Another feature of the time was the strenuous effort made by Edward to establish his numerous family without too great expense. In the end the estates of the houses of Lancaster, Kent, Bohun, Burgh and Mortimer swelled the revenues of Edward's children and grandchildren, in whose favour also the new title of duke was introduced.

In 1369 the French king, Charles V., repudiated the treaty of Calais and renewed the war. Edward's French dominions gladly reverted to their old allegiance, and Edward showed little of his former vigour in meeting this new trouble. He resumed the title and arms of king of France, but left most of the fighting and administration of his foreign kingdoms to his sons, Edward and John. While the latter were struggling with little success against the rising tide of French national feeling, Edward's want of money made him a willing participator in the attack on the wealth and privileges of the Church. In 1371 a clerical ministry was driven from office, and replaced by laymen, who proved, however, less effective administrators than their predecessors. Meanwhile Aquitaine was gradually lost; the defeat of Pembroke off La Rochelle deprived England of the command of the sea, and Sir Owen ap Thomas, a grand-nephew of Llewelyn ab Gruffyd, planned, with French help, an abortive invasion of Wales. In 1371 the Black Prince came back to England with broken health, and in 1373 John of Lancaster marched to little purpose through France, from Calais to Bordeaux. In 1372 Edward made his final effort to lead an army, but contrary winds prevented his even landing his troops in France. In 1375 he was glad to make a truce, which lasted until his death. By it the only important possessions remaining in English hands were Calais, Bordeaux, Bayonne and Brest.

Edward was now sinking into his dotage. After the death of Queen Philippa he fell entirely under the influence of a greedy mistress named Alice Perrers, while the Black Prince and John of Gaunt became the leaders of sharply divided parties in the court and council of the king. With the help of Alice Perrers John of Gaunt obtained the chief influence with his father, but his administration was neither honourable nor successful. His chief enemies were the higher ecclesiastics, headed by William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, who had been excluded from power in 1371. John further irritated the clergy by making an alliance with John Wycliffe. The opposition to John was led by the Black Prince and Edmund Mortimer, earl of March, the husband of Edward's grand-daughter, Philippa of Clarence. At last popular indignation against the courtiers came to a head in the famous Good Parliament of 1376. Alice Perrers was removed from court, and Duke John's subordinate instruments were impeached. But in the midst of the parliament the death of the Black Prince robbed the commons of their strongest support. John of Gaunt regained power, and in 1377 a new parliament, carefully packed by the courtiers, reversed the acts of the Good Parliament. Not long after Edward III. died, on the 21st of June 1377.

Edward III. was not a great man like Edward I. He was, however, an admirable tactician, a consummate knight, and he possessed extraordinary vigour and energy of temperament. His court, described at length in Froissart's famous chronicle, was the most brilliant in Europe, and he was himself well fitted to be the head of the magnificent chivalry that obtained fame in the French wars. Though his main ambition was military glory, he was not a bad ruler of England. He was liberal, kindly, good-tempered and easy of access, and his yielding to his subjects' wishes in order to obtain supplies for carrying on the French war contributed to the consolidation of the constitution. His weak points were his wanton breaches of good faith, his extravagance, his frivolity and his self-indulgence. Like that of Edward I. his ambition transcended his resources, and before he died even his subjects were aware of his failure.

Edward had twelve children, seven sons and five daughters. Five of his sons played some part in the history of their time, these being Edward the Black Prince, Lionel of Antwerp, duke of Clarence, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, Edmund of Langley, afterwards duke of York, and Thomas of Woodstock, afterwards duke of Gloucester. John and Edmund are also important as the founders of the rival houses of Lancaster and York. Each of the last four was named from the place of his birth, and for the same reason the Black Prince is sometimes called Edward of Woodstock. The king's two other sons both died in infancy. Of his daughters, three died unmarried; the others were Isabella, who married into the family of Coucy, and Mary, who married into that of Montfort.

AUTHORITIES.--The two chief modern lives of Edward III. are W.
Longman's _Life and Times of Edward III._, and J. Mackinnon's _History
of Edward III._ Neither work can be regarded as adequate, and in some
ways J. Barnes's quaint _History of Edward III._ (1688) is less
unsatisfactory. The general history of the time can be read in W.
Stubbs's _Constitutional History of England_, vol. ii. chapters xvi.
and xvii.; in T.F. Tout's _Political History of England_, 1216-1377,
pp. 301-441; in R. Pauli's _Geschichte von England_, iv. pp. 307-504;
and in Edward's life by W. Hunt in the _Dictionary of National
Biography_. For the Hundred Years' War, see E. Deprez's _Les
Preliminaires de la guerre de cent ans, 1328-1342_, and H. Denifle's
_La Desolation des eglises, monasteres et hopitaux en France pendant
la guerre de cent ans_. For economic and social history see W.J.
Ashley's _English Economic History_, and W. Cunningham's _Growth of
English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages_. For
the end of the reign see S. Armitage Smith's _John of Gaunt_, J.
Lechler's _Wiclif und die Vorgeschichte der Reformation_, translated
as _Wycliffe and his English Precursors_, R.L. Poole's _Wycliffe and
Movements for Reform_, and G.M. Trevelyan's _England in the Age of
Wycliffe_. (T. F. T.)

EDWARD IV. (1442-1483), king of England, son of Richard, duke of York, by Cicely Neville, was born at Rouen on the 28th of April 1442. As a boy he was styled earl of March, and spent most of his time at Ludlow. After the Yorkist failure at Ludlow field in October 1459, Edward fled with the earls of Salisbury and Warwick, his uncle and cousin, to Calais. Thence in the following July he accompanied them in their successful invasion of England, to be welcomed in London, and to share in the victory over the Lancastrians at Northampton. After the acceptance of Richard of York as heir to the crown, Edward returned to the Welsh marches, where early in the new year he heard of his father's defeat and death at Wakefield. Hastily gathering an army he defeated the earls of Pembroke and Wiltshire at Mortimer's Cross on the 2nd of February 1461, and then marched on London. He was acclaimed by the citizens in an assembly at Clerkenwell, declared king by a Yorkist council, and took possession of the regality on the 4th of March. Soon after the new king and the earl of Warwick went north, and on the 28th of March won a decisive victory at Towton.

Edward owed his throne to his kinsmen the Nevilles, and he was content for the time to be guided by them. For himself he was young and fond of pleasure. Still he made frequent progresses, and took some part in the fighting that went on in the north during 1462 and 1463. But he was absent from the final victory at Hexham on the 14th of May 1464, and was at the very time engaged in contracting a secret marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers, and widow of Sir John Grey of Groby (d. 1461). The marriage was disclosed at Michaelmas, much to the vexation of Warwick, who in pursuit of his foreign policy had projected a match with a French princess. Edward heaped favours on his new relatives; his father-in-law was made treasurer, and great marriages were found for his wife's sisters and brothers. In foreign affairs also Edward thwarted Warwick's plans by favouring an alliance with Burgundy rather than France. There was, however, no open breach till 1469, when Warwick, taking advantage of the unpopularity of the Woodvilles, and supported by the king's next brother George, duke of Clarence, appeared in arms. Edward was surprised and made prisoner at Middleham, and Rivers was beheaded. For six months Edward had to submit to Warwick's tutelage; then on the occasion of a rising in Lincolnshire he gathered an army of his own. Sir Robert Welles, the leader of this rebellion, made a confession implicating Warwick, who fled with Clarence to France. The king thought himself secure, but when Warwick and Clarence made terms with the Lancastrian exiles, Edward in his turn had to seek refuge in Holland (September 1470). His brother-in-law, Charles of Burgundy, at first refused him any assistance, but at last furnished him with money, and on the 14th of March 1471 Edward and his brother Richard landed with a small force at Ravenspur near Hull. Marching south he was welcomed at London on the 11th of April, defeated Warwick at Barnet three days later, and the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury on the 4th of May. From thenceforth Edward's possession of the crown was secure. His position was strengthened by the birth of a son (2nd of November 1470, during his exile), and by the wealth which he acquired through the confiscation of the estates of his opponents. Clarence had made his peace with Edward, but was at enmity with his other brother Richard of Gloucester, who now married Warwick's second daughter and claimed a share in the Neville inheritance. Their rivalry and Clarence's continued intrigues furnished Edward with his chief domestic difficulty; the trouble was ended by the judicial murder of Clarence in 1478.

The only serious enterprise of these latter years was the short French war of 1475, from which Edward was bought out by the treaty of Pecquigny. As foreign policy it was inglorious, and involved a departure from Edward's earlier plan of a Burgundian alliance. However, it shows a certain recognition of England's need to concentrate her energies on her own development. The annual subsidy which Louis XI. agreed to pay further served Edward's purposes by providing him with money for home government, and enabled him to avoid possible trouble through the necessity for too frequent parliaments and heavy taxation. So Edward's personal rule became in its character autocratic; but it was in the art of courting popularity and concealing despotism that he most shows himself as a type of tyranny. He lacked neither ambition nor capacity, but was indolent and only exerted himself spasmodically. He could be ruthless, but was not habitually cruel. His strongest weapons were the fine presence, the affable manners (even with citizens), and the love of pleasure and entertainments which secured his personal popularity. In his last years he was given to self-indulgence and scandalous excesses, which did not, however, alienate the London citizens, with whose wives he was too familiar. Most of the power at court was in the hands of the Woodvilles, in spite of their unpopularity; the more arduous work of administration in the north was left to Richard of Gloucester. If as a prince of the Renaissance Edward was the first to rule tyrannically in England, he also deserves credit as a patron of the new culture and friend of Caxton; he further resembles his Italian contemporaries in the commercial purposes to which he applied his wealth in partnership with London merchants.

Edward died at Westminster on the 9th of April 1483, and was buried at Windsor. By Elizabeth Woodville, who died on the 8th of June 1492, he had two sons, Edward V. and Richard of York, who were murdered in the Tower; and five daughters, of whom the eldest, Elizabeth, married Henry VII. Of his numerous mistresses the most notorious was Jane Shore. Before his marriage he had been contracted to Lady Eleanor Butler, and this was alleged by Richard III. to have made his children by Elizabeth Woodville illegitimate.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Of original authorities for Edward's reign the chief
are the _Continuation of the Cropland Chronicle_ in Fulman's
_Scriptores_; the various London Chronicles, especially for the early
years _Gregory's Chronicle_; Warkworth's _Chronicle_, and the
_Arrivall of King Edward IV._ (a partisan account of events in
1470-1471), published by the Camden Society; the _Paston Letters_ with
Dr Gairdner's valuable Introduction; and for foreign affairs the
_Memoires_ of Philippe de Comines; the collection called _Chronicles
of the White Rose_ is useful. For modern authors, consult Sir James
Ramsay's _Lancaster and York_ (1892), and the _Political History of
England_, vol. iv. (1906), by Prof. C. Oman. (C. L. K.)

EDWARD V. (1470-1483), king of England, was the elder son of Edward IV. by his wife Elizabeth Woodville, and was born, during his father's temporary exile, in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey on the 2nd of November 1470. In June 1471 he was created prince of Wales. When Edward IV. died in April 1483 a struggle for power took place between the young king's paternal uncle, Richard, duke of Gloucester, who had been appointed as his guardian by Edward IV., and his maternal uncle, Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers. Gloucester obtained possession of the king's person, and, having arrested Rivers and some of his supporters, assumed the crown himself after a very slight and feigned reluctance, on the ground that the marriage of Edward and Elizabeth Woodville was invalid, and consequently its issue was illegitimate. At this time Edward and his brother Richard, duke of York, were living in the Tower of London. Shortly afterwards a movement was organized to free them from captivity, and then it became known that they were already dead; but, though it was the general conviction that they had been murdered, it was twenty years before the manner of this deed was discovered. According to the narrative of Sir Thomas More, Sir Robert Brackenbury, the constable of the Tower, refused to obey Richard's command to put the young princes to death; but he complied with a warrant ordering him to give up his keys for one night to Sir James Tyrell, who had arranged for the assassination. Two men, Miles Forest and John Dighton, then smothered the youths under pillows while they were asleep. The murder was committed most probably in August or September 1483. Horace Walpole has attempted to cast doubts upon the murder of the princes, and Sir C.R. Markham has argued that the deed was committed by order of Henry VII. Both these views, however, have been traversed by James Gairdner, and there seems little doubt that Sir Thomas More's story is substantially correct.

See RICHARD III.; and in addition, Sir Thomas More, _History of
Richard III._, edited by J.R. Lumby (Cambridge, 1883); Horace Walpole,
_Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III._ (London,
1768); J. Gairdner, _Richard III._ (Cambridge, 1898); J. Gairdner and
C.R. Markham in the _English Historical Review_, vol. vi. (London,
1891); Sir C.R. Markham, _Richard III._ (1907).

EDWARD VI. (1537-1553), king of England and Ireland, born at Greenwich on the 12th of October 1537, was the only child of Henry VIII. by his third wife, Jane Seymour, who died of puerperal fever twelve days later. The story that the mother's life was deliberately sacrificed by the performance of Caesarean section is unfounded, although Jane's death was little noticed amid the rejoicings which greeted the advent of a male heir to the throne. But in spite of Holbein's vivacious portrait of Edward at the age of two (now at Hanover), he was a frail child, and a short life was anticipated for him from his early years. This did not prevent a strenuous education; until the age of six he was naturally left in the charge of women, but when he was only seven his tutor Dr Coxe, afterwards bishop of Ely, writes that he could decline any Latin noun and conjugate any regular verb (_L. and P._, 1544, ii. 726); "every day in the mass-time he readeth a portion of Solomon's Proverbs, wherein he delighteth much." Sir John Cheke, Sir Anthony Cooke and Roger Ascham all helped to teach him Latin, Greek and French; and by the age of thirteen he had read Aristotle's _Ethics_ in the original and was himself translating Cicero's _De philosophia_ into Greek.

Edward was duke of Cornwall from his birth, but he was never prince of Wales, and he was only nine when he succeeded his father as king of England and Ireland and supreme head of the church (28th of January 1546/7). His nonage threw power into the hands of Somerset and then of Northumberland, and enabled Gardiner and Bonner to maintain that the royal supremacy over the church was, or should be, in abeyance. Projects for his marriage were hardly even the occasion, but only the excuse, for Somerset's war on Scotland and Northumberland's subsequent alliance with France. All factions sought to control his person, not because of his personality but because of his position; he was like the Great Seal, only more so, an indispensable adjunct to the wielder of authority. The Protector's brother tried to bribe him with pocket-money; Northumberland was more subtle and established a complete dominion over his mind, and then put him forward at the age of fourteen as entitled to all the power of Henry VIII. But he was only Northumberland's mask; of his individual influence on the course of history during his reign there is hardly a trace. A posthumous effort was made to give him the credit of a humane desire to save Joan Bocher from the flames; but he recorded with apparently cold-blooded indifference the execution of both his uncles, and he certainly made no attempt to mitigate the harassing attentions which the council paid his sister Mary. This passed for piety with the zealots, and the persecutions of Mary's reign reflected a halo on that of the Protestant Josiah. So strong was the regret that rumours of his survival persisted, and hare-brained youths were found to personate him throughout Mary's and even far into Elizabeth's reign.

It was well that they were false, for Edward showed signs of all the Tudor obstinacy, and he was a fanatic into the bargain, as no other Tudor was except Mary. The combination would probably have involved England in disasters far greater than any that ensued upon his premature death; and it was much better that the Anglican settlement of religion should have been left to the compromising temper of Elizabeth. As it was, he bequeathed a legacy of woe; his health began to fail in 1552, and in May 1553 it was known that he was dying. But his will and the various drafts of it only betray the agitated and illogical efforts of Northumberland to contrive some means whereby he might continue to control the government and prevent the administration of justice. Mary and Elizabeth were to be excluded from the throne, as not sufficiently pliant instruments; Mary Stuart was ignored as being under Scottish, Catholic and French influence; the duchess of Suffolk, Lady Jane's mother, was excluded because she was married, and the duke her husband might claim the crown matrimonial. In fact, all females were excluded, except Jane, on the ground that no woman could reign; even she was excluded in the first draft, and the crown was left to "the Lady Jane's heirs male." But this draft was manipulated so as to read "the Lady Jane and her heirs male." That Edward himself was responsible for these delirious provisions is improbable. But he had been so impregnated with the divine right of kings and the divine truth of Protestantism that he thought he was entitled and bound to override the succession as established by law and exclude a Catholic from the throne; and his last recorded words were vehement injunctions to Cranmer to sign the will. He died at Greenwich on the 6th of July 1553, and was buried in Henry VII.'s chapel by Cranmer with Protestant rites on the 8th of August, while Mary had Mass said for his soul in the Tower.

J.G. Nichols collected almost all that is known of Edward VI. in his
excellent edition of the king's _Journal_. A few additional facts and
suggestions can be gleaned from the _Letters and Papers of Henry
VIII._ vols. xii.-xxi.; _Acts of the Privy Council_, ed. Dasent, vols.
i.-iv.; Domestic, Spanish, Venetian and Foreign _Calendars of State
Papers_; Froude's _History_; Dixon's _Hist. Church of England_; A.F.
Pollard's _England under Somerset_ and _Life of Cranmer_; and _English
Historical Review_, xxiii. 286, &c. Sir Clements Markham's _Edward
VI._ (1907) emphasizes his interest in geography. (A. F. P.)

EDWARD VII. (ALBERT EDWARD) (1841-1910), king of Great Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, emperor of India, the eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and of Albert, prince consort, was born at Buckingham Palace on the 9th of November 1841. He was created prince of Wales and earl of Chester on the 4th of December following, and was baptized on the 25th of January 1842. In his childhood he was educated by the dowager Lady Lyttelton; and in his boyhood successively by the Rev. Henry Mildred Birch, Mr F.W. Gibbes, the Rev. C.F. Tarver and Mr Herbert W. Fisher. He afterwards resided at Edinburgh, studying chemistry in its industrial applications under Professor (afterwards Lord) Playfair at the university; at Christ Church, Oxford; and at Trinity College, Cambridge. In November 1858 he was made a knight of the Garter and a colonel in the army. In 1859 he travelled in Italy and Spain, and in 1860 paid a visit as "Lord Renfrew" to the United States and Canada.

Upon the completion of his Cambridge course in June 1861 he joined the camp at the Curragh. The prince consort died on the 13th of December, and in 1862 the prince of Wales went for a tour in the Holy Land (February-June) under the guidance of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, afterwards dean of Westminster. Early in 1863 he was sworn of the privy council, and took his seat in the House of Lords as duke of Cornwall. The estate of Sandringham, in Norfolk, was purchased for him out of the savings of his minority, and his town residence was fixed at Marlborough House.