Edward I (Longshanks)
Edward I ruled England from 1272 to 1307, conquered Wales, and spent his last years failing to conquer Scotland. Born in 1239, the son of Henry III, he was nearly two metres tall, from which the nickname Longshanks derives. He first sided with the baronial reformers under Simon de Montfort and then switched to his father, and it was he who defeated and killed Montfort at Evesham in 1265, restoring the monarchy. He was on crusade at Acre when his father died, and took two years to return. He was a serious legislator. The statutes of his reign — Westminster I and II, Gloucester, Mortmain, Quia Emptores — clarified land law, restricted grants to the church, and defined feudal obligation, and he ordered the Hundred Rolls inquiry into who held what by what right. He is called the English Justinian. He summoned the Model Parliament of 1295, including knights and burgesses alongside lords, largely because war had to be paid for. He conquered Wales in two campaigns, killing Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282, and secured it with a ring of castles — Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, Beaumaris — designed by James of St George, among the finest military architecture in Europe. In 1290 he expelled the entire Jewish population of England, some two thousand people, after decades of taxation and restrictions had exhausted their usefulness to the crown. They were not readmitted for over three and a half centuries. He was drawn into the Scottish succession, deposed John Balliol, executed William Wallace in 1305, and died marching north in 1307.
- Lived: 1239 CE – 1307 CE
- Nationality: English
- Roles: king, head_of_state
