In 1307, Edward died, with his business in Scotland unfinished. His repeated

campaigns had earned him the nickname Hammer of the Scots, but his hammering

had got him nowhere.

New laws, model parliaments

Edward did not spend all his time rampaging around the country trying to

conquer his neighbours. He also found time to improve the English legal

system, building on the work of his Plantagenet predecessors (see Chapter 7)

to make the operation of the courts fairer and to make Parliament more relevant

to the needs of the people.

What was Edward’s interest in legal reforms? Well, from one point of view,

Edward probably didn’t make these reforms solely out of a desire to be fair

to his subjects. His military campaigns, as ever, cost a lot of money, and big

Welsh castles didn’t come cheap. Some, but not all, of his reforms were to

do with how taxes were negotiated. The king and his ministers had a sense

of justice, too, and the other reforms were to make life safer and fairer for

many people.

The following reforms to the laws and Parliament made Edward popular

In England, and the English have usually seen Edward as a good king. But

opinions in Wales and Scotland are different – here he is usually seen as a

bully who poked his nose, and his armies, into places where they should

not have been.

As for Edward himself, he was probably proud of his achievements in

England and Wales, but disappointed with his failure to conquer Scotland. His

personal life was a mixture of happiness and sadness, too. After Queen

Eleanor died, Edward took a second wife, Margaret, daughter of the King of

France. But although she bore him three children, she was no replacement

for his beloved Eleanor.

Law reforms

Early on in his reign, Edward faced up to a number of problems to do with

crime and punishment. Keeping the peace was good for everyone, king and

subjects alike:

_ Edward passed the laws allowing the appointment of the first Justices of

the Peace.

_ The king gave local communities the responsibility for policing.

_ He laid out clearly the rights held by the nobility when it came to dispensing

justice on behalf of the crown.

_ He dealt with the problems that arose when sheriffs did not carry out

their duties properly.

_ He passed a range of statutes tightening up issues such as land law and

the law relating to debt.

Edward’s reforms made English law faster, more efficient, and on the whole

fairer. They also gave more power to the king to bring cases in royal courts,

providing him with much-needed revenue in the shape of fines.

Model Parliaments

Edward also made changes to the way Parliament operated. He made it more

relevant to the people by encouraging subjects to come to Parliament to ask

for royal help if they had been wronged. To make this system work, Edward

promised that all petitions brought to Parliament would be answered.

Parliament became more relevant in another way, too. Individuals from both

the counties and towns were asked to come to Parliament whenever the king

was discussing the raising of taxes. A medieval Parliament was a far cry from

the modern institution, but it was starting to become representative of the

people. The 1295 Parliament included elected burgesses from the towns and

members of the clergy, and well as nobles and knights. It covered such a

broad spectrum that this sitting became known as the Model Parliament.

Edward I died in 1207, on his way north to make another attack on his enemies,

the Scots. He was succeeded by his son, also called Edward. Young Edward had

had a difficult upbringing. His mother, Eleanor of Castile, died when he was 6

years old, and he saw little of his father, who was often away fighting.

As a result, Edward had a difficult youth and grew up with a reputation for

eccentricity. Although he was good-looking and tall like his father, Edward did

not have much passion for the kind of horsey activities that royal sons usually

went in for. Young Edward preferred swimming and was said to like rural

crafts, such as hedge-laying – something that other royals and nobles would

have seen as way below their dignity.

Living apart from his family, Edward’s main emotional attachments were

to his aristocratic friends. The trouble was that no one else liked Edward’s

friends very much, a situation that more than once brought the kingdom to

crisis-point.

King and favourite

Before he became king, Prince Edward’s closest friend was a young lord from

Gascony called Piers Gaveston. Gaveston had come to England to find his fortune,

and young Edward soon became attached to him. Just before old king

Edward died, the prince asked his father to confer a title on his friend. The

prince wanted Gaveston to be made either Count of Ponthieu (one of

England’s possessions in France) or Earl of Cornwall (one of the most important

English earldoms). Edward I would have nothing of either idea and sent

Gaveston packing off to France. You didn’t just turn up from France and start

expecting earldoms – it wasn’t done.

A few months later, the old king died, and Edward II was on the throne.

Edward quickly took the opportunity to bring back his friend:

_ Edward recalled Gaveston back from exile.

_ Gaveston was made Earl of Cornwall.

_ The earl was given the place of honour – right next to the king, where the

queen would normally expect to sit – at the royal coronation banquet.

_ Gaveston began to act like an assistant king, influencing all Edward’s

decisions.

All these favours offended people at court. The king’s favourite seemed to

have far more power than he deserved. People began to wonder exactly what

was going on.

Discussing royal sexuality in public was taboo in the Middle Ages. But some

people probably thought that Edward was gay, and that Gaveston was his

lover. Writers at the time certainly talked about the king’s love for his

favourite, but they may have been talking about brotherly love.

Edward certainly fathered children by his queen, Isabella, and, in addition,

had at least one illegitimate son. Historians just don’t know for sure the

details of his personal life, although rumours abounded.

The important thing, though, was that the English nobles felt that Gaveston

had too much power, and that the time was ripe for some more curbs on the

crown. In 1311, a royal commission drew up the New Ordinances, a list of

restrictions designed to put Edward in a straitjacket. The king had to seek

the consent of the barons in Parliament for the following:

_ Dishing out major titles and privileges.

_ Declaring war.

_ Drawing up peace terms after a war.