The Life and Reign of Edward I.

by Robert Benton Seeley

He saw the necessity for a considerable stay in Wales for the thorough pacification and regulation of the country. He began at once the erection of the noble castle of Carnarvon. This work occupied several years. In 1283 queen Eleanor kept her court in Rhuddlan Castle, but in 1284, a portion of the castle at Carnarvon being completed, she removed thither, and on the 25th of April she gave birth, in a chamber of the Eagle Tower, which is still shown, to a prince—afterwards king Edward II. The king was at this time at Rhuddlan Castle, engaged in affairs of state. A Welsh gentleman, named Griffith Lloyd, was announced, who brought him the intelligence of the birth of a prince. Edward, in great joy, knighted Lloyd on the spot, making him a grant of lands. He soon hastened to Carnarvon to see his Eleanor and her son; and when a few days had elapsed, he was able to present to the Welsh chiefs “a prince born in Wales, and who could not speak a word of English.”

He had now remained in Wales for more than two years, and the great work of union, and the establishment of peace, and the reign of law, seemed to be solidly advancing. At Newyn, in Carnarvonshire, in the summer of 1284, Edward held a grand tournament, with the usual festivities. Here were assembled, says Matthew of Westminster, “the great body of the knights of England, with many foreign nobles.” So splendid a spectacle was, at least, calculated to show the chiefs and gentry of Wales that the nation with which they had been incorporated was no mean one, and that the sovereign they had gained was a chief of might and power.

So ended the king’s transactions in Wales in 1282, 1283, and 1284, and in the autumn of the latter year he proceeded slowly through Cardiganshire and Glamorganshire, reaching Bristol before the end of the year, and celebrating Christmas in that city.

So ends the brief history of the union of Wales with England. This war had been forced upon Edward, who evidently had no option in the matter. It was soon ended, and a single criminal—he who had caused the war—was the only victim claimed by the scaffold. The king’s slowness and long deliberation show also that, could any reasonable plea for mercy have been found, even David himself would have been spared. A rather severe judge of Edward’s whole career, says, of the annexation: “Never was conquest more merciful.”[26] Yet some of the Scottish historians, while they endeavour to assume an air of impartiality when they speak of Edward’s Scottish controversies, are eager to create a prejudice against him by giving the darkest complexion to his acts in Wales. Thus Hume, in narrating this portion of Edward’s career, calmly tells us that “The king, sensible that nothing kept alive the ideas of military valour and of ancient glory so much as the traditional poetry of the people, which, assisted by the power of music and the jollity of festivals, made a deep impression on the minds of the youth, gathered together all the Welsh bards, and, from a barbarous but not absurd policy, ordered them to be put to death.” And Gray, accepting the fiction as a fact, clothed it in noble verse, and his ode beginning “Ruin seize thee, ruthless king,” fixed the alleged crime in the memory of every school‐boy and school‐girl in the realm.

And yet the whole charge was a mere calumny. These bards, who were said to have been extirpated, continued to sing and to write in such sort that “Mr. Owen Jones, in forming a collection of their productions, after the time of Edward, had to transcribe between fifty and sixty quarto volumes”; and “the work of transcription,” said Sir Richard Hoare, “was not even then completed.”[27]

A later Scottish historian than Hume—Sir James Mackintosh—admits the falsity of the charge. He says, “The massacre of the bards is an act of cruelty imputed to Edward without evidence, and it is inconsistent with his spirit, which was not infected by wanton ferocity.”

Such an act as this slaughter, had it ever been committed, would have been nothing less than atrocious. But if so, what are we to say of a writer who coolly ascribes it to a king whom he dislikes, knowing that he is asserting it “without evidence,” and in the teeth of such a practical refutation as Sir Richard Hoare has pointed out?

England was now again at peace, and with the assured prospect that the strife which had so long infested her western border was at last permanently ended. “The conquest of Wales,” says Rapin, “and the universal esteem in which the king was held among his subjects, produced in England a profound tranquillity.” Hence, as several questions of importance called Edward abroad, he began, about this time, to prepare for a visit of some length to various parts of the continent.

A singular application had been made to him while engaged in the affairs of Wales. Two princes—Peter of Aragon and Charles of Anjou—had each advanced a claim to the crown of Sicily. An appeal to arms appeared inevitable, when it was suggested by Charles, and agreed to by Peter, that they should decide the question by single combat. Arrangements were seriously made; twelve commissioners were appointed on each side, and these twenty‐four drew up articles, which were afterwards ratified by both the princes. It was agreed that the combat should take place at Bourdeaux, whither the combatants were to repair on a certain day appointed, each to be accompanied by one hundred knights. But as all parties agreed in regarding Edward as standing at the head of the chivalry of Europe, it was made an essential point in the agreement that he should act as the umpire, and that the combat should take place in his presence.

These two princes had regarded Edward, evidently, as one of the same race with him of “the lion heart,” who would, no doubt, have delighted in such a scheme. They thought of the English king as a man known to be “mighty in arms,” and who had taken part in most of the great tournaments of his time. But they had overlooked, or not understood, that this was only the inferior part of his character; and that his nobler aspect was his wisdom, his statesmanlike sagacity, and, what a modern historian calls, “his legislative mind.” The proposal, when made to Edward, only struck him as being eminently absurd. He was fond of martial sports and deeds of chivalry, but he had never dreamed that the affairs of the world could be carried on by tournaments. Questions concerning kingly rights and disputed successions were handled by him in courts and parliaments, on the ground of truth, and justice, and established law, with a deliberateness which disregarded the lapse of months and years. To leave such matters to be decided by, perchance, the possession of the strongest horse or the toughest spear, was not to be for a moment thought of. His instant reply was, “that if he were to gain by it both the kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, he would not appoint the field of battle, or suffer the two princes to fight in any place within his dominions, nor in any other place, if it were in his power to hinder it.” But he accompanied his refusal with offers of friendly mediation, which were afterwards carried into effect.