HIS3406 Lecture Notes on Edward I

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HIS3406 Lecture Notes on Edward I

• by Fred Cheung

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• The Angevin (Plantagenet) Kings
• Henry II (Father of the English Common Law), r.
  1154-1189
• Richard I (the Lion-Hearted), r. 1189-1199
• John (the Lackland), r. 1199-1216
• Henry III, r. 1216-1272
• Edward I, r. 1272-1307
• Edward II, r. 1307-1327
• Edward III, r. 1327-1377
• Richard II, r. 1377-1399

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• Main References
• Hollister, The Making of England, pp. 286-300.
• Michael Prestwich, The Three Edwards War and
  State in England, 1272-1377, (London, 1980), pp.
  1-78.
• T.F.T. Plucknett, The Legislation of Edward I,
  (Oxford, 1949)
• Paul Brand, The Origins of the English Legal
  Profession, (Oxford, 1992)

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• The reign of King Edward I (r. 1272-1307) was a
  significant period in the development of
  parliamentary custom in England. He was
  successful in defeating Simon de Montforts
  rebellion (at Evesham). Historians regarded him
  as a skillful and capable leader and he was
  definitely much better than his father Henry
  III.

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• When Henry III died in 1272, Edward was a mature
  and confident man at the age of thirty-five. He
  was admired by his barons, and he was brave and
  chivalrous. He was very tall, and his long arms
  and legs enabled him to excel at swordsmanship,
  and so on. Furthermore, he was a fluent and
  persuasive speaker.

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• Although his hobbies were fighting and hunting,
  (when needed), he also dedicated to law and
  administration. Edward was a characteristic king
  of the age that produced the legal treatise
  ascribed to Bracton and the works of Thomas
  Aquinas. Indeed, Edward I had the quest for
  order, system, and definition, which led him to
  (according to Hollister), bring to completion
  the legal achievements of Henry II, Hubert
  Walter, and the administrators of Henry III.

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• In the admiring words of a seventeenth-century
  chief justice, The very scheme, mold and model
  of the common law was set in order by King Edward
  I, and so, in a very great measure, it was
  continued the same in all succeeding ages to this
  day. Edward Is regime gave structure and
  system to the common law, Customary law began
  to give way to enacted law thereafter, when the
  royal government sought to effect significant
  legal changes, it generally did so by issuing new
  statutes.

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• It was under Edward I that statute became a
  widely understood concept. The ancient notion
  that law was traditional and unchanging had long
  been inconsistent with the realities of legal
  development. By Edward Is time, however,
  the English were coming to understand more
  clearly that the king, with baronial consent,
  might indeed change old laws and create new ones.
  

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• In the fourteenth century, the definition of
  a statute would become progressively sharper
  whereas an ordinance might be issued by the king
  and his council, a statute could only be enacted
  by the king in Parliament. This developing
  association between parliaments and statutory law
  was of enormous importance, for it led eventually
  to Parliaments power to legislate. ..

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• Bractons treatise declared that the king was
  the fountainhead of all justice and that magnates
  and prelates who operated courts of their own did
  so only by royal permission. Edward I undertook
  to translate this theory into reality. The royal
  administration insisted that private franchises

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• Private franchises were districts in which a
  private landholder operated the legal machinery
  would be recognized only if they had been granted
  by royal charter. As early as Henry IIIs reign,
  the monarchy had tried to enforce this principle
  through writs of quo warranto by what
  warrant?, which initiated investigations of the
  legal foundations of private franchises. Between
  1278 and 1294, Edward I initiated quo warranto
  proceedings on a large scale.

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• Predictably, these royal efforts evoked a
  baronial furor. A fourteenth-century
  chronicler tells a story that, whether accurate
  or embroidered, catches the outraged spirit of
  Edward Is nobility.

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• The elderly earl Warenne, summoned to defend his
  jurisdictional rights, waved a rusty sword before
  the royal justices Here, my lords, here is my
  warrant. My forefathers came over with William
  the Bastard and conquered their lands with this
  sword. And I will defend them with the same
  sword against anyone who tries to take them from
  me.

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• In the Statute of Quo Warranto of 1290, Edward
  modified his policy his administration would
  recognize franchises backed not only by royal
  charter but by ancient privilege as well. By
  endorsing unchartered franchises that could be
  shown to date back to at least the time of
  Richard I, Edward was in fact submitting to Earl
  Warennes argument of the rusty sword. But
  while doing so, the kings officials held to
  their basic principle that a landholder might
  exercise private justice only by royal
  delegation. As a consequence, the primacy of
  royal jurisdiction gained ever-wider acceptance.

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• The kings council, a small group of royal
  advisers including judges, administrators,
  bishops, and baronial cronies, was the vital
  center of the kings administration.
• The reign of Edward I splits into two distinct
  periods.

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• 1. 1274 to 1294 Edward Is foreign policy was
  highly successful, and his domestic policies of
  administrative and legal centralization were
  without much opposition
• II. 1294 to 1307 Edward Is wars were
  inconclusive, and his relations with his people
  were bad

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• Despite Edwards severity, however, and despite
  the inconclusive outcome of his Gascon and
  Scottish wars, his reign remains one of the most
  productive in the annals of England. It was a
  period of immense legal and administrative
  accomplishment and decisive constitutional
  development.

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• Under Edward I, the royal administration became
  truly professional, the common law reached
  maturity, voluntary taxation and customs duties
  became an accepted part of the crowns revenues,
  and Parliament became an indispensable component
  of English government. These were the
  foundations upon which the political history of
  later medieval and early modern England would be
  built. (Hollister, The Making of England, pp.
  259-300.)

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• According to Michael Prestwich, Edward I was
  without doubt one of the greatest rulers of his
  time, Edward was a king to inspire fear and
  respect contemporaries valued his many
  achievements With news of his illness in 1307
  preachers were prophesying evil days to come ---
  when his death became known, the news was met
  with genuine and wide-spread grief. (Michael
  Prestwich, The Three Edwards War and State in
  England, 1272-1377, p. 41.)

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• Chronology of Historical Events in the reign of
  Edward I, r. 1272-1307
• 1272 Accession of Edward I
• 1274 Return of Edward I to England
• 1275 Statute of Westminster I
• 1277 First Welsh War
• 1278 Statute of Gloucester quo warranto
  inquiries set up
• 1282 Second Welsh War
• 1285 Statute of Westminster (amended)

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• 1290 Death of Eleanor of Castile
• 1294 War with Philip IV of France
• 1296 Edward Is campaign in Scotland
• 1297 Constitutional crisis issue of the
  Confirmation of the Charters
• 1306 Rebellion and enthronement of Robert Bruce
  in Scotland
• 1307 Death of Edward I

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• (Source Michael Prestwich, The Three Edwards
  War and State in England, 1272-1377.)