them; such was the age.
The Lord Edward was in Sicily when his father died, but it took him two years to arrive home, so confident was he that all potential opposition had been crushed. However a new series of wars began soon after when the Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, refused to turn up to his coronation. Edward demanded he pay his respects, and when Llywelyn again refused, the king even travelled up to Chester to make it easier on the Welshman. Again the prince declined, and in total Edward sent Llewelyn five summons.
The prince explained that he was waiting for Edward to hand over rebel Welsh factions, including his brother, who were given sanctuary in England. To add further insult the 50-something Llywelyn married the 23-year-old daughter of Simon de Montfort, without the king’s permission (and without even having met her). Prince Llewelyn had reason to be confident; he had won control of two-thirds of Wales, and had a court large enough to include a bard, a harpist, falconers and a ‘silentiary’, whose job it was to keep the rowdiness to an acceptable level. The Anglo-Normans had been encroaching on southern Wales for 200 years, but in deepest Wales ( pura Wallia ), where Llewelyn’s rule held sway, the old laws still applied; disputes were settled by blood feuds, and a thief would be pardoned if he had passed 10 houses and ‘failed to obtain anything to eat’.
Edward raised an army and marched west, crushing opposition by building a series of castles. Having kidnapped his cousin Eleanor who was en route to marry the Welsh leader, he agreed to the match, part of a scheme by which he would ensure his powerbase there; however she died in childbirth, and he had her daughter imprisoned almost from birth in case she might prove a rallying point for rebellion. She lived to her fifties, a prisoner her entire life. By the end of 1282 all Welsh resistance was over. Llewelyn himself died in December that year, at the hands of an English soldier in Powys who had failed to recognise him as a valuable hostage.
His brother Daffydd then took up the fight but was captured, and convicted of treason, murder, sacrilege and plotting against the king. Daffydd underwent four corresponding punishments for his four crimes, respectively dragged by horses, hanged, disembowled and quartered. Before he was dead, his intestines were slashed from his body and burned in front of him. His corpse was then sent to various English cities, and his head placed on a spike at the Tower of London, along with his brother’s.
In 1284 Edward passed the Statute of Wales, making that country part of the Realm. To celebrate, the king held an Arthurian-style Round Table celebration, presenting himself as heir to the mythical British king and the rightful ruler of all Britain. It is recorded that the party was so popular, with attendees coming from all over the Realm and eager not to snub the king, that the floor gave way.
His attention now turned north. In 1290 the Queen of Scotland, six-year-old Margaret, ‘Maid of Norway’, died in a shipwreck. King Edward had planned for her to marry his youngest son, Edward, and thereby unite the crowns. That same year the king was devastated by the loss of his wife Eleanor, so grief-stricken that he left a cross at every stop that her body rested on its journey from London to Lincoln, 12 in total, three of which still survive.
Edward helped impose a puppet, John Balliol, among the 13 different claimants to the Scottish throne, but when in 1295 the French invaded Gascony-Aquitaine, the Scots rose up. Balliol then turned against his master, and the Welsh took advantage to attack the English. The king marched north and defeated Balliol, taking to London the Stone of Scone, the legendary rock of Scottish kingship, and putting in Balliol’s place another puppet ruler. This led to a fresh Scots revolt in 1307, and Edward, now 68, marched north once again. He never made it. Near the border he came down with
The Lord Edward was in Sicily when his father died, but it took him two years to arrive home, so confident was he that all potential opposition had been crushed. However a new series of wars began soon after when the Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, refused to turn up to his coronation. Edward demanded he pay his respects, and when Llywelyn again refused, the king even travelled up to Chester to make it easier on the Welshman. Again the prince declined, and in total Edward sent Llewelyn five summons.
The prince explained that he was waiting for Edward to hand over rebel Welsh factions, including his brother, who were given sanctuary in England. To add further insult the 50-something Llywelyn married the 23-year-old daughter of Simon de Montfort, without the king’s permission (and without even having met her). Prince Llewelyn had reason to be confident; he had won control of two-thirds of Wales, and had a court large enough to include a bard, a harpist, falconers and a ‘silentiary’, whose job it was to keep the rowdiness to an acceptable level. The Anglo-Normans had been encroaching on southern Wales for 200 years, but in deepest Wales ( pura Wallia ), where Llewelyn’s rule held sway, the old laws still applied; disputes were settled by blood feuds, and a thief would be pardoned if he had passed 10 houses and ‘failed to obtain anything to eat’.
Edward raised an army and marched west, crushing opposition by building a series of castles. Having kidnapped his cousin Eleanor who was en route to marry the Welsh leader, he agreed to the match, part of a scheme by which he would ensure his powerbase there; however she died in childbirth, and he had her daughter imprisoned almost from birth in case she might prove a rallying point for rebellion. She lived to her fifties, a prisoner her entire life. By the end of 1282 all Welsh resistance was over. Llewelyn himself died in December that year, at the hands of an English soldier in Powys who had failed to recognise him as a valuable hostage.
His brother Daffydd then took up the fight but was captured, and convicted of treason, murder, sacrilege and plotting against the king. Daffydd underwent four corresponding punishments for his four crimes, respectively dragged by horses, hanged, disembowled and quartered. Before he was dead, his intestines were slashed from his body and burned in front of him. His corpse was then sent to various English cities, and his head placed on a spike at the Tower of London, along with his brother’s.
In 1284 Edward passed the Statute of Wales, making that country part of the Realm. To celebrate, the king held an Arthurian-style Round Table celebration, presenting himself as heir to the mythical British king and the rightful ruler of all Britain. It is recorded that the party was so popular, with attendees coming from all over the Realm and eager not to snub the king, that the floor gave way.
His attention now turned north. In 1290 the Queen of Scotland, six-year-old Margaret, ‘Maid of Norway’, died in a shipwreck. King Edward had planned for her to marry his youngest son, Edward, and thereby unite the crowns. That same year the king was devastated by the loss of his wife Eleanor, so grief-stricken that he left a cross at every stop that her body rested on its journey from London to Lincoln, 12 in total, three of which still survive.
Edward helped impose a puppet, John Balliol, among the 13 different claimants to the Scottish throne, but when in 1295 the French invaded Gascony-Aquitaine, the Scots rose up. Balliol then turned against his master, and the Welsh took advantage to attack the English. The king marched north and defeated Balliol, taking to London the Stone of Scone, the legendary rock of Scottish kingship, and putting in Balliol’s place another puppet ruler. This led to a fresh Scots revolt in 1307, and Edward, now 68, marched north once again. He never made it. Near the border he came down with
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