Little Arthur's history of England

by Lady Maria Callcott

While Edward was a young man, he travelled a great deal into different countries, and whenever he saw anything done that he thought good and right, he remembered it, that he might have the same thing done in England when he was king.

When he was in Spain he married his good wife Eleanor; and as her father and brother were wise kings, he learned a great many useful things from them.

One thing was, how to take care of cows and horses much better than the English had done before; and another thing was, to improve the gardens and fields with many kinds of vegetables for eating, and with new sorts of grass for the cattle. In return for what he learned in Spain he sent some good sheep from England to that country, because the sheep they had before were small, and had not such fine wool as our sheep; but since the English sheep went to feed among the Spanish hills, their wool has been the best in the world.

When King Edward came home to England, he determined to do everything he could to make the people happy: he knew they could not be happy if the laws were not obeyed; so he was determined that no wicked person should escape without punishment, and that all good people might live quietly, and do what they liked best.

I told you before that wise Simon de Montfort, who was killed in Henry the Third’s reign, had got the king to observe the custom of not taking money from the people without the consent of the parliament or of the people themselves. This law King Edward improved very much, and he improved the parliament too.

Edward, who was very wise, thought that, as there were a great many more towns than there used to be in the olden times, and a great many more people in all the towns, it would be a good thing if some of the best men belonging to the largest towns came to the parliament. The largest towns in England were then called burghs, and the richest men who lived in them were called burgesses, and King Edward settled that one or two burgesses out of almost every burgh should come along with the great noblemen, and the bishops, and the gentlemen to the parliament. I told you in the last chapter that Simon de Montfort did this once; but Edward first made it the rule.

These burgesses made the parliament complete. In the first place, there was the king to answer for himself; in the second place, the great lords and bishops to answer for themselves; and, thirdly, the gentlemen and burgesses to answer for the country gentlemen and the farmers and the merchants and the shopkeepers. For a time the clergy also sent persons to act for them; but they soon gave up doing so.

So King Edward the First made good rules about the parliament, which were not much changed for a very long time. Besides that, he improved the laws, so as to punish the wicked more certainly, and to protect the lives and goods of everybody. And in these things Edward was one of the best kings that ever reigned in England.

We will end this chapter here, while we can praise King Edward the First,—who was, as I told you, wise and brave, and very handsome; but people used to call him Longshanks, because his legs were rather too long.