No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
II. Edward I and the Historians*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2011
Extract
It is generally recognized that Edward I deserves a high place in the history of medieval England, and it is plain why this should be so. Few medieval kings achieved such undisputed mastery of their dominions as he contrived to do. His statutes set a deep and lasting mark on English law, and he had much to do with the beginnings of Parliament. He conquered Wales, and, as his tomb proclaims, he was the hammer of the Scots. These things have led a great company of scholars, whose number includes men so differently placed in time and circumstance as Polydore Virgil and Sir Maurice Powicke, Fuller and Stubbs, Brady and Hallam, Hume and Tout, to see in Edward an historical figure of outstanding importance. On this, at any rate, they are all agreed. They are, however, far from unanimous in the reasons they find for their judgement, and in the significance they attach to the things he did.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1950
References
1 The text is printed in Stubbs, W., Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II (Rolls Series), ii, 3–21. This ‘Commendatio Lamentabilis in transitu Magni Regis Edwardi’, as it is called, formed an important part of the stock in trade of most of those who wrote about Edward I before the time of Hume. There is an English summary of it in the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, LXI, 188–95.
2 Historia Anglica (ed. 1651), p. 444.
3 The Historie of Great Britaine (ed. 1632), p. 646.
4 A Chronicle of the Kings of England (ed. 1674), p. 102.
5 The Church History of Britain (ed. 1655), p. 92.
6 Douglas, D. C., English Scholars, pp. 154–64.
7 Ibid. p. 164.
8 Brady, R., An Introduction to the Old English History Comprehended in Three Several Tracts (ed. 1684), 69, 72, 76, 105, 166–7Google Scholar. Of Edward himself Brady had nothing either new or interesting to say. He refers to him as ‘A Prince of most extraordinary hopes, and whose life let the World see it was not deceived in him’. This occurs in a pamphlet called The Great Point of the Succession Discussed, p. 13. Provoked by the Second Exclusion Bill, it was printed in 1681.
9 Philipps, F., The Established Government of England (ed. 1687), section xviii, pp. 286–371Google Scholar.
10 Ibid. Preface, p. 2.
11 Ibid. pp. 292–5, 340.
12 Ibid. p. 297.
13 Ibid. p. 298.
14 [View of the State of Europe during the] Middle Ages (ed. 1868), iii, 3n. At the time Hallam does not hesitate to condemn what he considered to be Hume's shortcomings as a scholar, particularly ‘his ignorance of English jurisprudence, which certainly in some measure disqualified him from writing our history’, ibid, iii, 156.
15 Hallam also felt strongly that Hume carried his disdain for medieval civilization to absurd lengths. Ibid.
16 The History of England (ed. 1841), ii, 75.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid. ii, 77.
20 Ibid. ii, 36.
21 Ibid. ii, 40.
22 Ibid. ii, 36, 38–40.
23 Ibid. ii, 54.
24 Lingard, J., The History of England (ed. 1888), ii, 504–621Google Scholar.
25 Ibid. II, 606.
26 Middle Ages, iii, 2.
27 Ibid, iii, 35.
28 [The] Constitutional History [of England] (ed. 1896, imp. 1929), ii, 304.
29 Ibid. ii, 305–6.
30 Ibid. ii, 305.
31 Ibid. ii, 306.
32 Middle Ages, iii, 2.
33 Constitutional History, ii, 312.
34 Ibid. ii, 1.
35 Tout, T. F., Edward the First (Twelve English Statesmen, 1893), pp. 86–106.
36 History of the English People (ed. 1890), i, 317.
37 Ibid. i, 313.
38 Constitutional History, ii, 105.
39 Ibid, ii, 307.
40 Edward the First, p. 124.
41 Chapters [in Medieval Administrative History], ii, 190.
42 Tout, T. F., The Place of Edward II in English History [2nd edition], pp. 62–3.
43 Chapters, ii, 151.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid. ii, 152.
46 This whole standpoint is well represented in Dr E. F. Jacob's chapter on Henry III in the Camb. Med. Hist, vi, 252–83, and in the full bibliography of modern work attached to it, ibid. pp. 895–8.
47 Joliffe, J. E. A., The Constitutional History of Medieval England (1937), pp. 266–303, 362–3.Google Scholar
48 Powicke, F. M., King Henry III and the Lord Edward, 2 vols. (1947).Google Scholar Plucknett, T. F. T., The Legislation of Edward I (1949).
49 King Henry III and the Lord Edward, ii, 711.
50 The Legislation of Edward I, p. 22.
51 King Henry III and the Lord Edward, ii, 711.
52 Ibid. ii, 711–12.
53 Ibid, ii, 712. These facts did not escape Tout for he says: ‘From a very practical aspect (the King's) interest as the greatest of the magnates, was that of every large landed prictor.… King and barons were, in short, joint partners in a common enterprise. That enterprise was none other than the governance of England’ (Chapters, ii, 151). Yet he makes little of the whole matter, according it no more than a passing mention in the same paragraph in which he asserts dogmatically that Edward, at every stage of his reign, regarded his great vassals as his natural opponents.
54 King Henry III and the Lord Edward, ii, 712.
55 Ibid. ii, 712.
56 English Historical Review, LX, 18–24, ‘The confirmation of the Charters, 1297’.
57 King Henry III and the Lord Edward, ii, 718.
58 The Legislation of Edward I, P. 157.
59 Ibid. P. 158.
60 King Henry III and the Lord Edward, ii, 725 n. 1.
61 Ibid. ii, 694.
62 Ibid. ii, 724.
63 Ibid. ii, 703.
64 The Legislation of Edward I, pp. 136–56.
65 King Henry III and the Lord Edward, ii, 725.
66 Rothwell, H., ‘Edward I and the Struggle for the Charters 1297–1305’, in Studies in Medieval History Presented to F. M. Powicke (1948), pp. 319–32Google Scholar.