III.
THE FIRST SEVEN YEARS.
The key‐note struck by Bracton seems never to have ceased vibrating in the minds of Edward and his chancellor. “Let the king render to the law, what the law hath invested in him with regard to others, dominion and power.” “The king hath a superior—namely, God—and also the law, by which he was made a king.” Duty, the pressure of moral obligation, is as constantly present in Edward’s mind as, six centuries after, it was in the mind of Arthur Wellesley. We have seen it recognized at Marlborough, in 1267, in his father’s day, when the Statute so named is thus prefaced—“Our lord the king, providing for the better estate of this realm, and for the more speedy administration of justice, as belongeth to the office of a king,” etc. We find it again in the opening of the Westminster Statute—“Because our lord the king hath great desire to redress the state of the realm, in such things as require amendment.” And a little later, in the “Statutes of Gloucester,” we hear the same strain—“The king, providing for the amendment of his realm, and for the fuller administration of justice, as the good of the kingly office requireth,” etc.
Thus, from time to time, we hear from Edward’s lips the frank confession, “I hold an office, and that office has its duties; let me look to it that those duties are rightly discharged.” He proceeds, after the great “Parliament of Westminster, 1275,” to enter in earnest on the important work of regulation, organization, and the removal of abuses and disorders. Just as the owner of a large estate, on coming into full possession after a long minority, sets to work, if he rightly comprehends his position, first to examine and then to regulate every portion of his inheritance, so does Edward give the earlier years of his reign to a similar though larger work. He shows his consciousness that the weakness of a long period of misrule had filled the land with disorders, and that “the kingly office requireth” that he should, in a variety of particulars, introduce new laws and a purer administration. He had seen and regretted, in his father’s reign, the fearful weakening of the royal authority which accompanied a system of pecuniary improvidence. At once, therefore, without waiting for the assembling of his parliament, he issued a royal commission to inquire into, and ascertain, the royalties and revenues appertaining to the crown, the state and particulars of the crown‐lands, with the names of the tenants and the terms of their tenure.[21] He rightly judged that on this point—the regulation of the royal revenues—largely depended the just fulfilment of “the office of a king.” He soon made himself acquainted with the extent and particulars of his possessions; and so well were these administered, throughout his whole reign, that his applications to parliament were few, and always based upon public grounds,—the acknowledged requirements of the state. Yet he was never wanting in a truly royal munificence; exhibiting liberality on all fitting occasions, and a never‐ceasing kindness to the poor.
In the course of these investigations, touching the royalties and revenues belonging to the crown, it would naturally happen that legal questions and doubts would arise, as to the respective boundaries of possessions belonging to the crown, and those belonging to the great barons who had received grants from former sovereigns. The king soon came to the conclusion that, rightly to define these limits, it would be necessary to refer, in all cases, to the original grants. He issued, therefore, after the lapse of two or three years, which the first investigation must have required, another order or commission, that all parties who were in possession of any estates of doubtful title, should lay their grants or charters before the judges, that their validity might be ascertained by competent authority.
In taking this step, Edward was actuated by those motives of frankness and rectitude which were never absent from his mind. He evidently thought that the same sort of investigation to which he had submitted the rights of the crown might fairly be applied to the grants under it; but he soon found that he was likely to involve himself in a serious peril. During such disorderly times as those of Stephen and John, many of the great barons had seized upon estates, the owners of which had perished in the field or on the scaffold. Those great proprietors would very naturally shrink from any sort of legal examination or inquiry. They would have been prompt to combine in a league of resistance to any such investigation. One of the greatest of them, the earl of Surrey, John de Warenne, who had fought at Edward’s side at Lewes, and had entertained him in 1274 at Reigate, on his landing,—took an early and a very peremptory position of resistance. He doubtless was one of the first to whom the royal commissioners addressed their inquiries. His answer was that of a rough, bold, and impetuous soldier. He unsheathed an ancient sword, exclaiming, “It was by this that my forefathers won these lands, and it is by this that I mean to maintain my title.”
Edward was wise, as well as frank and noble. A little reflection would enable him to perceive, that if he pressed his demand upon this irascible and powerful soldier‐baron, he might soon discover that there were hundreds of other land‐owners who felt a sympathy with the earl, and that thus he might be engaged in a strife of a very serious character. His object and his motives had been pure, but prudence evidently dictated a moderate and cautious course. The resistance of this great earl materially affected the whole inquiry. The intended investigation was, for a time at least, suspended. On this, as well as in two or three other passages of his life, Edward showed that even when his first determination had been just and reasonable, he could exercise a thoughtful self‐control—that he knew how to waive his rights, when prudence so counselled, as well as how to assert them on all fitting occasions.[22]
One of the chief matters, however, on which Edward had evidently set his heart, was that of bringing the relations of England and Wales into a better condition. It was on the Welsh border that the first years of his public life had been spent. As early as in his eighteenth year, his father had given him the charge of “the Welsh Marches;” and he had had the grief of witnessing, again and again, inroads of the Welsh into Cheshire and Herefordshire, in which maraudings whole districts were desolated, and the poor English farmers of those counties reduced to beggary. Matthew Paris says: “The Welsh carried fire and slaughter into the border counties. They gave themselves up to incendiarism and pillage, till they had reduced the whole border to an uninhabitable desert.” Edward had seen these things with pain and with resentment, and he had evidently resolved to bring the relations of the two countries into a more satisfactory state.
It has suited the purposes of those who wished to represent Edward as an ambitious and designing man, to assume, throughout, that Edward’s object, from the beginning, was the conquest of Wales. But the facts of the case, if patiently examined, tell a very different tale. They rather justify our old chronicler Fabyan’s description of him. Writing more than three hundred years ago, and conveying down to us the old English belief and tradition, he says: “This prince was slow to all manner of strife, discreet and wise, and true of his worde.” And, assuredly, the plain facts of this Welsh controversy justify entirely Fabyan’s words.