transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:01] This is the Tudors Dynasty & Beyond Podcast, History with a Twist. And now your host, Rebecca Larson.

Speaker 2:
[00:12] Hello and welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Rebecca Larson. And well, look who joined me again. I let him back in, Matt Lewis.

Speaker 3:
[00:22] More for you. You've had a little break from me. And now I'm back to ruin it.

Speaker 2:
[00:27] See, today I left the door wide open. There was a welcome home sign for you. And you just walked through with a big smile on your face.

Speaker 3:
[00:35] And it's a big trick because look what you're going to get me to talk about now. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[00:40] So today we're talking about Edward I. We've made our journey from Matilda. Now we're all the way up to Edward I. And this is a period of history that is so intriguing to me. When we ended the last episode on Henry III, I was like, why is it that it's always the case where you end up with a peaceful reign and then the next one is like chaos and wars and so much? And so that's where we're going today. We're going to the chaotic reign of Edward I. And I feel like I say this every week. I don't know very much about this. And so that's why Matt's here because Matt is a medieval historian and he can talk about it much more than I can. So where should we start? So let's probably just start from the death of his father because you had mentioned in the last episode that this was the first time in history, and there was a word for it, but this was the first time in history where once the king died, his heir automatically became king without needing a coronation.

Speaker 3:
[01:44] Yes, it is. And we should probably also start by apologizing to everybody in Scotland and Wales who's probably going to hate this episode and anything nice I say about Edward I. So apologies. Yeah, this is the first time there isn't an interregnum. So previously we've had the position where the king dies and there is no king until the new one is crowned and undergoes his coronation. And that's caused all kinds of problems with people jumping into that space, causing trouble in that space. Henry III has changed the law so that when he dies, his son immediately succeeds without his coronation. He still needs a coronation to make it official. To just to put the bells and whistles on, to cross all the T's and dot all the I's. But in terms of the law, Edward becomes king in the moment that his father dies. Henry has closed the loophole by doing that and a necessary one too, because when Henry dies in 1272, Edward, he becomes immediately King Edward I, is away in the Holy Land on Crusade. He's been gone since 1270 on a Crusade, which is quite often called the 9th Crusade. It's sometimes called Lord Edward's Crusade, because he's called Lord Edward before he's King. It's kind of a continuation of the 8th Crusade. It's like 8th Crusade, part 2, back crusading. I don't know what we're going to call that.

Speaker 2:
[03:08] Crusading again.

Speaker 3:
[03:09] Edward, yeah, carry on crusading. Edward has not had a huge amount of success over there. He's been fighting a Muslim leader called Baibars, who has been very successful. This is the last crusade that will go to the Holy Land before the fall of Acre in 1291, which kind of sparks the end of the crusade estates in the Holy Land that have been there since the first crusade at the end of the 11th century. At one point, Edward tries to make contact with the Mongols, to try and help him against Baibars and the Muslims, but I always think the Mongols, it's not the first time someone's tried to harness the Mongols kind of thing to help in the crusades. I think the Mongols are like, why do we need an alliance with anybody? We're pretty good on our own, thank you. We're very good doing our own thing and destroying the known world and taking everything over. He's not had a huge amount of success over there, also hasn't quite failed. In the end, he manages to negotiate a truce with Baibars, which is to last for 10 years, 10 months, and 10 days. I don't know why 10 of everything, but apparently that's what they decided on. Edward's younger brother, Edmund, who had traveled with him to the Holy Land goes home at this point, Edward stays there a little bit longer to make sure that the truce sticks. And so he's actually on his way home after that in 1272 when he gets the news that his dad had passed away. And he actually, he's in Sicily when the news catches up with him. And it's delivered by Charles of Anjou, who is King Louis IX's brother, Louis IX of France's brother. And he sort of catches up with Edward on Sicily. And has to break the news to him that his son, Edward's son has died, Edward's uncle has died, and Edward's father has also passed away. And he sort of breaks all these three news. And the Chronicles tell us that Charles is sort of a little bit surprised that Edward seems to take the death of his dad, worst of all of those three, worse than the death of his son. And we get this kind of, Charles is asking why he seems more affected by the death of his dad. And we get this response from Edward, which on many levels sounds really kind of callous, but I think gives us a little bit of an insight into his relationship with his dad, in that Edward replies saying, I can have more sons, but I'll only ever get one dad.

Speaker 2:
[05:39] That is so true.

Speaker 3:
[05:40] So he's clearly quite upset and affected. I don't think that's necessarily to diminish the way he feels about the death of his son, but he's obviously quite affected by the death of his father. It's not until 1274 that he actually makes it back to England to undergo his coronation at Westminster Abbey, so two years after the death of his dad. That's a big space that in previous reigns would have caused a problem. Somebody else almost certainly would have jumped into that gap in the way that Henry I had done and Steven had done before. Henry has done a really good job of securing things for his son. Edward doesn't need to rush back and he's actually of England for two years before he actually arrives back in the country and undergoes a coronation.

Speaker 2:
[06:23] At this point, is he already married to his first wife?

Speaker 3:
[06:29] He is. So he gets married in 1254 to Eleanor of Castile. And the alliance with Castile, which is part of what's now Spain on the Iberian Peninsula, the idea of that alliance was to protect Gascony from attack. So Castile is one of those places that have attacked Gascony, that bit of southwestern France that England was still holding on to by its fingernails. And so Henry has arranged this marriage for Edward in 1254 to try and protect Gascony. And despite the fact that this is a political alliance, it seems to be an incredibly successful marriage. I think they become really, really close. And to the point that when Eleanor passes away, is the moment that we see a really big change in Edward's personality. It seems to, whether she has been kind of a moderating influence on him, or whether he just reacts really badly to losing his wife, she dies in 1290. So by that point, they've been married for what, 36 years, something like that. So they've had maybe 14 children, lost lots of their oldest sons. Weirdly, their first born son, so their third child is the first son, and they call that son John. So we very nearly had another King John.

Speaker 2:
[07:57] Wow. It kind of surprises me.

Speaker 3:
[08:00] Yeah. King John is Edward I's grandfather. So there's clearly a family connection there. But for all we say, no one's ever been another King John. We very, very nearly had one, but John was one of the sons that unfortunately passed away. Actually, eventually, Edward II, who will succeed Edward I in the end, is their final child, their 14th child and the only son that manages to survive to adulthood.

Speaker 2:
[08:31] Wow. Yeah, that was one of the things before we chatted today. I wanted to look real quick and go, okay, who was ever the first married to? It was, oh, he was married twice. And then I saw that Edward II was that last son born to him and Eleanor. And then after she died, he married again, I presume, for another alliance.

Speaker 3:
[08:52] Yeah, so he marries Margaret of France, so a French princess who is, crikey, what is she, like 40 years younger than him?

Speaker 2:
[09:00] Oh my gosh.

Speaker 3:
[09:00] At this point, maybe. She's born, she's born in 1279, and he's born, was he born 1239? So yeah, 40 years. Almost exactly, exactly 40 years. So yeah, this is a political alliance to try and secure peace with France, as it so often is. Well, you know, as she becomes older in, from the year 1300, they start having children, so she's 21 when they have their first child together, and they end up having two sons and a daughter together as well. So Edward has some more children there. These are half siblings to Edward II. And that marriage seems reasonably successful when Edward I, I mean, high-tailing to the end of Edward I's life here, but when Edward I passes away in 1307, Margaret is still only 28, and she is at that point widowed. But despite only being 28, she never remarries for the rest of her life. She lives until 1318, so she doesn't live too much longer. But it doesn't remarry it. And again, we get this quote that we're told. She said that when Edward died, all men had died for her. To Edward was very much the only man for her. So there was clearly something about Edward that she either she liked or she really didn't like. I don't know. Was he a great husband or did it put her off forever? I guess you can read into that whatever you want.

Speaker 2:
[10:32] Yeah, you pick which way the history went on that one. Okay, so why don't you tell me, how do you think Edward I defined what it meant to be a king in the late 13th century?

Speaker 3:
[10:47] Edward has quite a broad view of what kingship is, I think. We tend to focus utterly reasonably on his efforts to conquer both Wales and Scotland, which we can definitely talk about. But he's doing some other interesting things as well. I mean, lots of people would say that Edward has a foul temper, for one thing, he's a difficult bloke to be in the same room as. We get told at one point that one bishop wants to argue with Edward about taxation, I think it is. And this bishop is all full of bluster and he's like, I'm going to sort the king out, I'll fix this. He walks into the room with Edward, enters the royal presence, stands in front of the king and drops dead of a heart attack. I mean, that's how scary Edward is. The thought of getting into an argument with him is literally enough to kill this guy.

Speaker 2:
[11:39] Oh my gosh, there's an amazing anecdote.

Speaker 3:
[11:43] So he's quite an intimidating figure. He's six foot two, really tall for the times where he gets the nickname Longshanks from that he's fairly tall. We also know that he has a heavily lidded eye, which is something he shares with his father. And he also has a lisp. So when he speaks, he speaks with a lisp. And I doubt whether anyone is very keen to point that out to the king. If just the idea of arguing with him is enough to kill you, you're probably not going to say anything about the fact that he has a lisp. So he's an incredibly intimidating and impressive figure. And he also, aside from war, has a huge interest in law. So he quite often also gets called the English Justinian. So after the Byzantine Empire, Justinian, who kind of rewrites all the law codes of the old Roman Empire. And those, I mean, Justinian's laws become the basis of laws in Europe for centuries and centuries to come. You know, up to the Napoleonic period, people are still kind of relying on similar systems to Justinian's law. And Edward, you know, gets this nickname, the English Justinian, because he begins to use Parliament, which has emerged during his father's reign, as this kind of check on the activities of the king. So Parliament begins as this mechanism that looks for reforms in line with Magna Carta, so to make the king behave himself, in return for a grant of taxation for whatever projects the king has got going on at that moment that he wants taxation money for. Edward begins to use Parliament as a way to standardise and codify the laws of England. So the laws across England at this point could be quite different from north to south and east to west, and was quite often based on precedents. So if you could prove that something had been happening in this place for X amount of time, then it was a law. Edward decides that this all needs standardising, and everyone needs to know what the law is wherever they are in his kingdom. So he begins to put all of these statutes through parliament as a way, as a vessel to create these national laws that will apply to everybody in his kingdom. Everybody knows what the law is, so we start getting lots and lots of legislation during his reign. We also get, I think it's in Edward's reign that we get time immemorial being actually given a codified date. So you could prove that something was legal if it had happened since time immemorial. But nobody really know what that meant, so it meant living memory, I guess. He sets the date of time immemorial as the date of the coronation of Richard I, Richard the Lionheart. If you could prove that something had happened since that date, then it was legal, it was an accepted law. But it's one of those weird oddities of the law, I guess, that time immemorial actually has a specific date, it's the date of the coronation of Richard I. So he's interested in lots of other things. He's a strong figure, a strong character. He is partially experienced. He's taken part in the Battle of Lewis, which he lost alongside his father. He's taken part in the Battle of Evesham, which he won and freed his father. He's definitely interested in military exploits, but he does have these other elements to what he's doing. He's interested in the law. Later on in his reign, in 1290, he issues the edict of the expulsion of Jews from England. So in line with pretty rampant, horrible anti-Semitism all across Europe. Edward isn't particularly unpleasant in this sense. He's doing what everybody else in Europe is doing in persecuting Jews. Obviously horrible, unacceptable. But essentially in 1290, he issues an edict that all Jews must leave England. That stays in place. That isn't undone by any monarch in England until 1656 when Oliver Cromwell allows Jews back into England. So for more than 350 years, it's illegal to be Jewish in England because of what Edward I does. This is a guy who I guess he's a crusader. He's full of that kind of zeal and maybe views this as something that a Christian king ought to be doing. As I mentioned, it is something that's happening in other places in Europe. Jews are driven out of various kingdoms at various times. So definitely something that we would consider that Edward has done that's deeply unpleasant during this period. But again, another thing that has a huge impact on England for several centuries after his reign.

Speaker 2:
[16:37] Yeah. Well, okay. It's not sure enough good, is it?

Speaker 3:
[16:42] No. I mean, you know, Edward is a really, really tricky figure because in so many ways, he is incredibly impressive and he is interested in some really good things around the law and codifying the law. But you have to juxtapose that with this guy who is so anti-Semitic that he drives Jews out of his kingdom for the rest of his reign. He may be not responsible for what happens after that, but he drives all the Jews from England. And depending where you live in the British Isles, I guess, maybe you can think it's impressive that he manages to conquer Wales, which is something that Norman kings have been trying to do since the Norman Conquest. And it's more than 200 years, and it takes for Edward I to come along for that to succeed. And who very nearly conquers Scotland during his reign too, and sort of imposes this imperial idea across the British Isles that the kings of England have often tried to impress this idea that they're the most significant ruler in all of the British Isles. So if you're Scottish and Welsh, that's a really bad thing. If you're living in England in the 13th and early 14th century, you probably think it's a good thing. This is what you want from your king. You want him to be militarily successful. And then alongside that as well, we can also talk about Edward the builder and the architect. You know, he's building castles all over the place. And as part of his conquest of Wales, one of the things that he does is build this ring of iron castles to cement his control over North Wales. And he brings back from his travels in Europe, he brings back a guy called James of St. George, who was an architect who has been building castles in Central Europe. And Edward has all of these ideas. And some of the castles that you see in Wales around this time, and the one at Bowmaris on Anglesey is kind of the, was meant to be the pinnacle of this, but Edward sort of runs out of money and time before he manages to finish Bowmaris. But he brings back Crusader influences to the castles. He brings back European influences from his travels to the castles. He hires this guy, James of St. George, to make the most splendid, beautiful and defensible castles that he can possibly make anywhere. You get to Conway. Conway is a fascinating place. He builds a whole walled town there, drives the Welsh out from it, settles it with English people. But the castle there was meant to be very much a royal palace. One thing you might notice if you go to Conway Castle is it doesn't have a keep. It's one of the few castles that you'll find that doesn't have a keep at its center because Edward envisaged it as a palace, not as a castle in the old fashioned way.

Speaker 2:
[19:23] Interesting. Out of curiosity, I do want to get into the whole Wales thing. But where did Edward...

Speaker 3:
[19:29] I'm trying to avoid it for as long as I possibly can. Can you tell? I want to get into trouble with everyone. That's good.

Speaker 2:
[19:34] This gives me the opportunity because he's doing all of this building. Where is he getting all the money for this? I mean, was the treasury stocked when his dad died, or is he just taxing the shit out of people?

Speaker 3:
[19:46] I mean, I think he is just... He's taxing. He is... I mean, he's quite wealthy. Henry had overseen a period of peace, so Henry hasn't been spending lots of money on war in the way that Edward will. Part of the reason, I think, for that, he quite rightly pointed to this flip-flop between peaceful reigns and reigns that are full of war. And quite often, that has to do with money and resources. You know, you get to the Tudor period, you think about the reign of Henry VII, and this is a guy who's been relatively peaceful, but storing up lots and lots of cash. And what does Henry VIII do? He's like, right, I've got a use for that cash. It's going to invade France. It's going to be great. So, and then he blows all of that money trying to do that and leaves a situation where that has to be recovered from. So I think, you know, that's been going on in a cycle for centuries. So Edward is incredibly proficient as a governor. You know, he doesn't necessarily inherit vast amounts of money, but he's good at harnessing what he does have. And he does run out of money because that's the reason that Beaumaris Castle never gets finished, that he essentially runs out of money. And he stretches everything to breaking point. By the time he's undertaking the war with Scotland, he's having to get more and more and more money to keep that going. As we see Wallace and Robert the Bruce resist his efforts to take control there. So he's by no means rich, but I think he's good at making good use of the money that he does have.

Speaker 2:
[21:13] I was going to say, if he had money, he's sure spending it on building and fighting. So that's going to go fast. OK, and now I'm going to shift to Wales here. I'm just so intrigued by this stuff. When it comes to his conquest of Wales, was it out of necessity or was it just aggression?

Speaker 3:
[21:34] Aggression, I think. But I think Edward is very careful to try and frame it as something that he's forced into doing. That whole idea, I really don't want to come to Wales and have to conquer you, but if you're going to keep forcing me, I'm going to have to come over there and do it. So, the main ruler in Wales at this point is a guy called Clwelyn Abgryffydd. He is the ruler of Gwynedd in the north of Wales, and he's actually been recognized in the piece. We talked a lot about Henry III in this period of peace that he oversaw with neighbours. Part of that piece was a recognition of Clwelyn as the Prince of Wales. Henry III was happy to give him that title, to let him use it, to consider him the most senior ruler in all of Wales, and to have that title Prince of Wales, which is something that Edward is going to pinch and steal as part of what he does. And quite how all of this kicks off, it seems to centre around the idea that Clwelyn, there's an effort to assassinate Clwelyn, which seems to be by his brother, Dapheth and some of Dapheth's followers. When this attempt fails, Dapheth and his followers flee to the court of Edward in England. Edward is only just arriving back in England and preparing for his coronation. And he summons Clwelyn to come to London to do homage, to him as the new King of England in recognition for this position as Prince of Wales. And Clwelyn is like, you know what? The guys who just tried to assassinate me are right there. I am not coming to do this. Whether Clwelyn is using this as an excuse not to have to do homage to Edward is certainly what Edward is positioning this as, or whether Clwelyn is genuinely scared that if he comes to Edward's court, this is going to cost him his life. Clwelyn also was planning to marry a daughter of Simon de Montfort, which wasn't something that Edward was ever likely to approve of. This is the guy who had stolen the government of England from his dad, the guy that Edward had killed at the Battle of Evesham. And Clwelyn is trying to... The de Montforts spent several years after the Battle of Evesham causing trouble. Simon's sons caused trouble for Henry III and Edward. So the idea that Clwelyn is looking to marry into that family and perhaps harness some of that opposition to Edward's reign is not something that's appealing to Edward. So I think Edward might be looking at this and saying, this guy is refusing to do homage, which he's supposed to do in recognition, or in return for being recognized as Prince of Wales. He's planning to marry someone who is from a family that I would consider to be my enemies. This isn't great. I think Clwelyn might say, I'm marrying someone, that's nothing to do with you. And also if you're going to harbour the people who tried to assassinate me, I am not coming to your court, Edward.

Speaker 2:
[24:38] Yeah, seems fair.

Speaker 3:
[24:39] I think both sides might say that they had just cause and a good reason for what they did. But in 1276, so a couple of years after this, Edward effectively declares war on Clwelyn and invades Wales. But as is usual ever since the conquest, campaigns into particularly the north of Wales just don't go well. They just don't make any progress whatsoever. Eventually, in 1277, they agree the Treaty of Aberconwy, which leaves Clwelyn only in control of Gwynedd. But he does get to retain the title Prince of Wales still. So he's holding less land, but he still has that prestige of being Prince of Wales. Six years after this in 1282, war erupts again. But this time, Edward has unexpected success, I think, in the north of Wales. So every, even Henry II, who I will often hold up as one of the greatest kings that England ever had in this kind of unstoppable military machine, Henry II goes into north Wales and is like, I can't do this. It's too hilly, it's too rainy. And the people we're trying to fight keep disappearing. I can't do it.

Speaker 2:
[25:57] We can't find them.

Speaker 3:
[25:59] Exactly. We would fight them, but we can't find them. So Edward manages to mount this effort in 1282 that is much more successful. Llewelyn is ambushed at the battle of Orewyn Bridge and is killed during that ambush. His brother, Dapheth, is captured and also executed. And he appears to be, I mean, by this time, Dapheth is kind of backing with Llewelyn. So he's made himself an enemy to Edward. And as far as we can tell, Dapheth is the first person to undergo the execution of being hang, drawn and courted. Edward I specifically designs this method, this brutal method of execution to deal with Dapheth. And this is very clearly about sending a message to your enemies. You know, if you oppose Edward, then he has a pretty horrific fate waiting for you. So Dapheth is the first person to be recorded to be hang, drawn and courted. It seems likely that Edward kind of creates that most brutal method of execution. And then in 1284, so two years after Edward's success, we get the Statute of Ruthland, which effectively sees Wales absorbed into England. It simply becomes a part of England, almost a county of England. English law is imposed to replace Welsh law. English settlements begin, so particularly places like Conwy, as I mentioned, they build a whole walled town there and a castle and they drive the Welsh out and they have a bell that sounds in the morning and the evening and Welsh people are only allowed to be inside the walls of Conwy between the sounding of that bell. You're not allowed to be Welsh inside Conwy overnight. You take your life into your own hands if you're Welsh and you stay inside Conwy overnight. And also in 1284, we have Edward's son, the future Edward II, is born at Canarfon Castle. And so he's born during these Welsh campaigns. And Edward I, I think, sees the opportunity to really associate his son with these Welsh campaigns. And it's this Edward, the future Edward II, who will be invested as Prince of Wales in 1301. And that's, you know, that's something that has continued kind of ever since. Actually, Edward II never makes his son Prince of Wales. But for the most part, the heirs of the throne then are made Prince of Wales again, because that's something that Edward I began in 1301 as a way of really reinforcing and driving home the fact that the English now control Wales, that Wales is effectively part of England. And there is no Welsh Prince of Wales anymore, is the message that Edward is sending. The Prince of Wales is the heir to the English throne. So it's really an effort to make it clear to Wales that their independence is over and that they are now subservient to England.

Speaker 4:
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Speaker 2:
[29:43] So basically by conquering Wales, he's just got another plot of land that he can tax, people that he can tax and make money off of. That's the biggest benefit, would it not be?

Speaker 3:
[29:56] Absolutely. Wales has quite often been the source of lots of rebellion. So English kings have quite often found in the past, and King John found this when he tried to go to France to use all of that money that he got gathered up in silver coins to try and get his land back in France. They would quite often find themselves diverted by problems on the Welsh borders in the marches. So rebellious Welsh barons would see the king getting ready to go over the channel and think, this is our chance to have a bit of fun, lads. And it would quite often drag them back. You know, John was dragged back from attempts to cross the channel into France by rebellion in Wales that he then had to go and deal with. So it's partly about prestige and about land and about more people to tax and control. But it's also about shutting up some of that rebellion, like, you know, just guarding the back door, bolting the back door, I guess. If you want to look at France, your two main problems are always going to be Wales and Scotland. And I think that Edward I would say that by 1284 with the Statute of Rutland, he has dealt with Wales. That's one less problem he's got to look over his shoulder at.

Speaker 2:
[31:09] Well, this is such an interesting period of history to me. This is really when England starts becoming something bigger because of these moves that Edward I is making. How much time elapses between his Welsh invasion and his Scottish invasion?

Speaker 3:
[31:31] I mean, Edward can do more than one thing at once. This is what he is going to demonstrate. So the Scottish stuff kind of kicks off quite early on. So 1278 is when Alexander III, who is Edward's brother-in-law, so he had been married to one of Edward's sisters, we mentioned again and talked about Henry III and this piece that he found with Wales and Scotland and France and all of that. And that close familial relationship that he had with Scotland in particular. So in 1278, Alexander III dies. Sorry, that's wrong. It's 1286, Alexander III dies and he is succeeded by his three-year-old granddaughter, who is Margaret of Norway, also known as the maid of Norway. She, a few years later, makes her way back towards Scotland, but manages, she doesn't make it home. She dies on the journey home just at the age of seven. So this little girl was the last member of the Scottish royal family, who had a really clear claim and she unfortunately never makes it back on to Scottish territory. Alexander had done homage to Edward before he died, just after Edward's coronation. Although it seems like this is one of those tricky things where medieval kings are very good at not saying exactly what's going on. Because I think if you asked Edward, he would say Alexander has done homage to me because I'm the king of England. I'm more important than the king of Scotland and technically I'm his overlord. I think Alexander would probably say, no, I came and did homage to you for the lands that I own in England, but not for Scotland. But nobody needs to say any of that out loud. So they can all think it meant whatever they thought it meant and just go home happy. But in the aftermath of the death of Margaret of Norway, 14 competing claims to the Scottish crown emerge from amongst the noble families of Scotland. They have no way of picking who is going to win. So in hindsight, the big mistake that they make is they go to Edward I and ask him to arbitrate amongst these 14 claims. For Edward, the klaxon is going off. The Scots have just fallen into the trap that he's been desperately digging underneath them for a long, long time. Because what does it mean if he's arbitrating the claims of monarchs of Scotland, if he's deciding who is going to be the next monarch of Scotland? That implies, at least, that he is superior, that he has more power than them, that they are somehow beholden to him. Here is also his opportunity to install a king who will be beholden to him. He's going to want the one who will seem to him probably to be the most compliant, the most pliable, the one who is willing to say that Scotland is now subservient to England in return for the Scottish crown. In the end, there's two main claimants that emerge as the forerunners. There's John Balliol and Robert the Bruce, who is the grandfather of the Robert the Bruce. This isn't the Robert the Bruce, it's another one. A couple of generations earlier. We've got John Balliol and Robert the Bruce. Edward decides in 1292, he comes down on the side of Balliol, probably because he was the most pliant option of the two. He was the one who was willing to give Edward the most in return for getting the crown. Edward gets Balliol to come to Parliament in England to answer for issues in Scotland. For Scotland, this is bizarre. The King of Scotland is now being summoned to the English Parliament to face charges for random stuff. But I think this is very clearly Edward showing Scotland as he done in Wales, very much where they stand now. Edward then demanded that Scottish nobles provide him with men to join a campaign into Scotland. He wants Scottish soldiers to be made available to attack other Scots. They refuse utterly to do that. I mean, he's obviously pushing the boundaries, and I think this is the moment where he pushes a little bit too far.

Speaker 2:
[36:07] He's like a toddler. You tell them no, and they keep trying until you really put your foot down.

Speaker 3:
[36:13] Absolutely. Someone needed to smack the back of his hand, except obviously you drop dead if you did.

Speaker 2:
[36:18] Yeah, right. Exactly.

Speaker 3:
[36:20] I'm not going to do it. But this is what drives the Scots to seek out an alliance with France, and this is the beginning of what will become known as the Old Alliance, A-U-L-D, the Old Alliance, between Scotland and France, and it's Edward who drives the Scots to seek out that kind of link. But in 1296, Edward actually does launch an invasion of Scotland. He takes Berwick, Berwick-on-Tweed, which is kind of a really strategically important border town. It's still on the border of England and Scotland. It's now on the English side of the border, but it had changed hands frequently throughout this period. It was in Scottish hands at this moment. Edward manages to take Berwick and he slaughters most of the people inside the town, most of the Scots inside the town. Again, it's a pretty brutal episode of Edward showing what it means to stand against him. He then engages with the Scots forces at the Battle of Dunbar, which Edward wins decisively. It's at this point that he deposes Baeliol. The man that he's installed as the King of Scotland, he's now deposing him. He takes him back to England and puts him in the Tower of London as a prisoner. It's at this point that he also takes the Stone of Scone, the Scottish Stone of Destiny. The idea being that this is the stone that it probably almost certainly isn't as old as everybody claims it is. But there is this mystique around it, that this is the stone on which kings of Scotland are crowned, are anointed, and that it plays this kind of mystical role in them becoming king of Scotland. Edward takes that with him to London. These messages are blaringly loud and clear for everybody in Scotland. It's around this time that Edward has the coronation chair built, the one that is still in Westminster Abbey today, that every monarch of England and Britain and the United Kingdom has sat on for their coronation since Edward II, since his son. And he has this chair specifically built with this little box underneath it, this space underneath it, which the stone of Scone is placed into. So again, there's this really clear notion that Scotland now sits beneath the king of England. Kings of England are now being crowned on the Scottish stone of destiny as well. And Edward's messaging really, really couldn't be any clearer. Edward installs English governors across Scotland. And these people, doubtlessly in Scotland, are very much viewed in the brave heart mould of the cruel oppressors who arrive and start causing trouble. And Edward, I think, probably believes that's job done. You know, the king of Scotland is deposed, is a prisoner. I've got their stone of destiny. They can't crown another king because they don't have that. And now England is in charge of Scotland. And he's kind of thinking, you know, I've shut the door on Wales, that's all sorted. And now I've shut the door on Scotland and that's all sorted. Things are going pretty well for Edward. Until 1297, the year later. So that's when we begin to see Andrew Moray and William Wallace rise in resistance to Edward. And interestingly, it's Andrew Moray who seems to be the real leader initially. They seem to come from different parts of Scotland and they sort of come together. But Andrew Moray seems to be the brains of the operation. He seems to be considered the leader of what's going on. But it's the fact that he kind of dies a little bit early in all of this that then leaves William Wallace as the figurehead for what goes on. So what we think of as Braveheart might actually have been Andrew Moray had he lived longer rather than William Wallace. And in 1298, we have the Battle of Falkirk. So there's already been the Battle of Stirling Bridge. So this is Andrew Moray, I think, showing his military now. So this is an English force that is on its way to relieve the castle at Stirling. And we're told that you have to cross over this narrow bridge over the river just outside Stirling Castle. And the Scottish forces kind of hide not too far off and watch the English crossing the river. And they're sort of counting, you know, one, two, three. They're trying to work out how many they can let across and still beat because they've got an opportunity to separate this huge English force. So, they kind of let as many across the bridge as they think they can beat. They ride down the hills and they crush this part of the English army. And the rest of them are trapped by this narrow bridge on the other side of the river. So, you get this really smart victory at Stirling Bridge for Andrew Moray and William Wallace. And then you get the battle of Falkirk as well. And this is the first battle that Edward himself has taken part in since Evesham. So, for the best part of 30 years. This is the first time that Edward has had to get in his armour and go and do some fighting. And he crushes William Wallace's force at the Battle of Falkirk. Andrew Moray, I think, he appears to have died possibly of some wounds that he sustained at the Battle of Stirling Bridge. But he doesn't seem to be around by the time we get to the Battle of Falkirk. And now Wallace is kind of front and centre leading this Scottish rebellion. Edward, despite his success there, struggles to really maintain control over Scotland. So over the next few years, into kind of 1301, he campaigns into Scotland regularly. But the Scots revert to this tactic, much as the Welsh had done and the Scots are used to doing, of kind of withdrawing, disappearing off into the highlands and into the hills, and refusing to engage with the English army in battle. Despite this, Edward is kind of irresistible. By about 1304, pretty much all of the Scottish nobility have done homage to Edward and pledged their allegiance to Edward to try to keep the peace. That includes Robert Bruce by this point, who is the Robert the Bruce. He's done homage to Edward. They kind of submitted in recognition of the fact that they can't beat him, even if they won't stand in front of him and fight him. And by this point, we do have Wallace as this kind of lone figure of resistance, who wants to maintain Scottish independence, wants to continue the fight against Edward, but is now isolated. And for those Scottish nobility who have sworn their allegiance to Edward, Wallace is becoming a bit of an embarrassment. He's kind of uncontrollable. This is why I do think Braveheart, the film, for all of its horrible historical inaccuracies. This is where it does kind of get into the interestingly correct territory, I think, in that Wallace becomes this kind of lone figure, who is now something of a problem for the Scots nobility as well as for Edward, because he's sort of embarrassing them by continuing resistance when they want Edward. What they really want is for Edward to go away and leave them alone. And they're willing to swear homage for Edward, to Edward in return for peace. If he's down in London, what difference is it really going to make to their day-to-day life is what I imagine they're thinking. Yeah. William Wallace is thinking, it makes a massive difference because we're no longer a free Scotland. And he wants to keep that fight going, and they simply don't anymore. And it's in 1305 that Wallace is betrayed to the English by his fellow Scotsman. He's taken to London, he undergoes a trial in which he refuses to recognize Edward's authority. He says, you know, I've never done homage to you, you're not my king. Edward doesn't really care, doesn't really put Edward off. Wallace is tried as a traitor and he undergoes that method of execution that Edward appears to have devised and he's hanged, drawn and courted at Smithfield. In 1306, so the year after Wallace is killed, Bruce murders his main rival, his only real rival for the idea of the Scottish crown to become king in John Common. So he actually stabs John Common in the church, which is hugely problematic. Murdering people in church, really not a good thing. So Robert the Bruce has to go in and get himself absolved by the bishops of Scotland for this sin. And he sort of says, you know, it was a really, really bad thing that I did, but now there's just one guy, all of Scotland can get behind me, you can make me king of Scotland and we can sort all of this mess out. And the bishops are obviously swayed by this. And they forgive him for stabbing someone to death in church, so that they can make him king of Scotland, even though they don't have the stone of schoon.

Speaker 2:
[45:36] It's interesting.

Speaker 3:
[45:38] Yeah, and Edward, Robert the Bruce has done homage to Edward. He's recognized Edward as overlord of Scotland and has now had himself proclaimed king of Scotland. So Edward is, probably understandably for Edward, pretty annoyed at this. This was not what was meant to happen. Edward is outraged, he sends armies into Scotland, led by his son, Edward, and also by Imad de Valence. They initially do really well against Robert the Bruce. They defeat him at the Battle of Methan. Robert's family are captured. His sister Mary is taken to Roxburgh Castle and hung in a cage outside the walls of Roxburgh Castle as a form of public humiliation for Robert the Bruce and torture for her. You know, that Robert can't save her. And other members of his family are held in various places. His brother, Neil, Robert the Bruce's brother, Neil, is hanged, drawn and courted when he's captured. He had fought a rearguard to try and allow Robert's wife and his daughters and one of their other sisters to escape, but he's captured, kind of protecting them as they flee. And Edward has him hanged, drawn and courted. Robert the Bruce then manages to kind of regroup and bring together the Scottish forces. And this is the moment where we have that legend of him, you know, watching the spider build its web and the web is constantly knocked down and the spider just rebuilds the web again. And this idea that he shouldn't give up and he might've been knocked back down, but he can get back up and he can rebuild Scotland. And in early 1307, he fights the Battle of Loudoun Hill against some English forces and he wins that battle. It's a fairly decisive victory for the Scots, really revitalises the Scottish cause and the Scots are now willing to get firmly behind Robert the Bruce. And it's at this point that Edward himself is again stirred into action. He decides to head north. He's 68 by this point, but he's very clearly willing to put his armour on and go and sort Robert the Bruce out. He's very clearly annoyed that all of this is happening. By the middle of that year in July, he is at Burby Sands in the North West on his way to Scotland. He seems to have contracted dysentery, which is a big problem for campaigning armies at this time, essentially is violent diarrhea that is likely to kill you. At the age of 68, that seems to have played in with several of his other health issues that he had at that age, to mean that he died on the 7th of July, 1307 at Burby Sands. He reportedly, so we get these deathbed stories of what Edward was saying when he was dying. He reportedly asked for his heart to be taken to the Holy Land on a crusade. He had been a crusader nearly 40 years earlier, and he wanted his heart to be taken back there. A different source says that he wanted his bones to be taken on every future campaign into Scotland so that he could continue to fight the Scots from beyond the grave and that he could be present. But his body ends up lying in state and he's eventually taken back down to London. So despite whatever he might have wanted to happen to his heart and his bones and things, his body is laid to rest at Westminster Abbey in October 1307. His tomb is really interesting as well. You can see it in Westminster Abbey today. It's just a huge black Purbeck marble box tomb with no effigy on top. Lots of the tombs from around this period have effigies on top. His father has an effigy on his tomb. But Edward sort of elects not to. The tomb was opened in 1774. They measured his skeleton and this is how they estimate that he was six foot too tall. This is one of those periods where they were all very happy to crack open tombs and mess around with the bodies. They recorded that actually it was 460 odd years after he'd been buried that his body was still really well preserved. He'd obviously been wrapped in linen cloth and all of that kind of thing. Some of the stories of those are bizarre. When we get to Henry IV, he's buried at Canterbury Cathedral and his tomb was re-opened centuries later as well. They cut into the bindings around his cloth and went, oh, isn't his face really well preserved? Then his face immediately crumbled on contact with the oxygen. They effectively destroyed his remains. Also interestingly, I guess, the inscription that is written around his tomb in Latin calls him the Hammer of the Scots, which is a famous nickname that we know him by. But that inscription wasn't added until the 16th century. So we're kind of, what, 200 odd years, 250 years after he died before someone christened him the Hammer of the Scots. It wasn't a contemporary nickname that anyone ever gave him. And I guess you can argue about whether he was the Hammer of the Scots because he certainly kept hammering away at them. But was he ever really as successful as he might have liked to have been is the big question.

Speaker 2:
[51:27] Just so much of this, of what you were just talking about, it just paints him as so brutal. And you talk about how he kind of came up with the hanged drawn and quartered thing. How do you come up with that? Where do you go in your mind? Had he heard of something similar to that, maybe in Europe that made him? Or did he just imagine this himself?

Speaker 3:
[51:50] It might have been something that he'd come across on his travels. I mean, it might have existed before he does it. It might have been happening on an ad hoc basis. But Dapheth is the first person that we have definitely recorded as undergoing this form of execution. And yeah, you might imagine that he's drawing together some of the worst things that he's seen on his travels and in his life and the worst things that he's encountered and thinking, you know, for a king, as horrible and as brutal as those things undoubtedly are, for a king, this is about ensuring people understand there are consequences for treason and for betrayal. And the more gruesome and the more unwanted those consequences are, you would hope that the less likely people are to risk them, to betray you. So I think Edward would argue that what he's doing here is bringing security in this manner. But we would definitely look at it and think, but this is horrible, horrible ways to kill people. People will always tell you that being hand drawn and quartered is designed to be the worst possible way to die. And it also plays into this medieval thing of humiliation too. Lots of medieval justice is about embarrassing or humiliating the person. That's why you see people in the pillory or in the stocks. It's the idea of social embarrassment for the things that you've done. It's where you get things like the Skuld's bridle, the idea that a woman who nags a husband too much can be forced to wear those helmets to suppress her tongue and you have to walk around in those things. The ideas of doing penance and stuff like that, there's always this public element to it that is designed to embarrass you. Being hanged in public is designed to be embarrassing, but this is like taking that steps and steps further. Because you undergo the hanging bit, but you're cut down alive. Technically, it should also go drawn, hanged and quartered, but it just doesn't seem to scan that way. Because the drawn bit is about being pulled on a hurdle, on a wooden frame behind a horse, through the town to the place of execution. This is an opportunity for everybody to see you and for you to be utterly embarrassed and mortified that everybody knows what you've done, and that they're all there jeering at you and maybe throwing things at you. Then you're hanged but cut down while you're still alive. Then you are cut open, disemboweled. They tended to pull your insides out and throw them onto a brazier, a fire next to you. One of the last things that you're going to smell while you're still conscious and alive is your own insides burning beside you. Quite often cut off genitals as well and threw them into the fire. So it's that element of emasculation in public, in front of an audience as well. And the idea was to keep this person alive and conscious to act as much of this as they possibly could. So obviously at some point shock is going to set in to your body. There's only so much that it can take. And once they died from these various elements of torture, then the head would be cut off and usually the body would be quartered. The head would tend to be put on London Bridge. They covered it in tar and put it on London Bridge and it might stay there for years and years, just rotting away as a constant reminder to everybody of what happens. And again, your public embarrassment is continuing even if you don't care about it anymore. And the bodies could then be quartered and sent to various places. So when William Wallace is executed, his body is quartered and sent to four corners of Scotland as a reminder to everyone that this is what happens to you if you oppose Edward. So he has come up with something brutal and terrifying. And I think, not that I'm looking to defend, hang and draw and court people, please don't try this at home. I think he would probably try to argue that it's meant to be an effective way to maintain control in a rebellious time.

Speaker 2:
[55:53] I was just going to say, do you think in the endgame that it worked, it served its purpose for what he was trying to do?

Speaker 3:
[56:02] It's hard to say, isn't it? Lots of people get hang, drawn, and courted over the centuries that follow. Is it an effective deterrent? I'm not sure that it is, but how many other people might have tried their luck if they didn't think that that might have happened to them? It's a really hard thing to measure. Nobody's going to want that, and I think there is a definite deterrent to it. If I thought I was going to get hang, drawn, and courted if I did something, it really would make me think twice whether I was going to do it or not. You want to be pretty sure you're going to succeed if you try it. So yeah, Edward ends up with this kind of reputation that is really, really complex. It's easy to say, he's just a horrible, bad guy, nasty, terrible person. He definitely has brutal elements to what he does, but he's also a medieval 13th century king. Show me one that isn't overly brutal, apart from maybe his dad, Henry III.

Speaker 2:
[57:00] Right, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[57:01] I'm answering my own question there. But we, and again, we can balance against this, his interest in the law and in codifying things, and making sure all of that. He has a huge interest in Arthurian myth and legend. He holds Arthurian tournaments at Winchester and places like that. It's during his reign that he has the bodies, so I think we talked a bit when we're talking about Henry II and Richard the Lionheart, about them finding the grave of King Arthur at Glastonbury. Yeah. Then Richard gives away Excalibur, the sword that was found in there. During Edward's reign, he has the bodies of Arthur and Guinevere ceremonially reburied at Glastonbury, at the high altar. He's making a big spectacle of his interest in Arthurian myth and legend. Also, he's definitely leveraging that same thing that Henry II had done of taking the Welsh connection to Arthur, this once and future king and saying, not only is he dead, he's also English. Shut up, he's not coming to save you. I think we end up with a man who is very complex, who definitely is brutal, definitely has unpleasant views to our minds today, but may well have been applauded for some of those views by his contemporaries in England, who would have seen a militarily successful king, who was sharing the wider Christian sense that Jews shouldn't be in England, in European countries at this time. He definitely has this imperialist drive. He wants to conquer the British Isles and make himself superior to all of it. That kind of aggression overseas is not something that we would tend to applaud today. It's not what we want from our leaders now. There are things that he does that are problematic to us, but I would question whether they were as problematic to his contemporaries, whether they actually applauded him, whether this is what they wanted and expected from their king. If you're Scottish and Welsh, you will tend to hate Edward I with a burning passion, which I completely understand. But I think if we take a step back, we're left with this kind of really complex man whose reputation is contested, whose actions are filled with problems, but who also does interesting things that aren't as bad as some of those terrible things that he's accused of as well. We can see an imperialist, but we can also see someone who is interested in the law and standardizing all of that kind of thing. I just think we sometimes have to stop dividing historical figures into ones that we love and hate, and think of them in more dimensions than that. Let's give them at least three dimensions. Edward is just a complex figure, and we need to recognize that, I think.

Speaker 2:
[60:12] Yeah, for sure. One of the things I always think about when we talk about these figures from the past is we so often want to imagine what it was like to live during this. But I think it's almost impossible for us in modern day to be able to comprehend how different life was then versus now.

Speaker 3:
[60:35] Yeah. And I think one of the key things that we can look at to help us work those things out is what contemporaries are saying about people like Edward. And this is, I think his reputation is similar to Richard the Lionheart, perhaps. And it's striking how infrequently you see people like that criticized by their contemporaries, because they tend to be behaving in a way that their contemporaries think is good. The job of a king is to make war on his enemies and to be victorious. And in many ways, Richard and Edward tick those boxes. But in 2026, we would say that they are being ruthlessly brutal to the point of cruelty. And I think that extends to Henry V. When we get to Henry V and his campaigns in France, we can see similar accusations being thrown at him today, that he committed war crimes. But it's interesting that with Henry V., you don't get a single French chronicler who criticizes Henry for the way he behaves during those campaigns. Because they recognize that he's acting within their expected and accepted norms of war. So I think quite often we can accept that the lack of criticism of some of these people means that they're not behaving in a way, sorry. The lack of criticism of some of these people means that they're not behaving in a way that their times found as unacceptable as we find them today.

Speaker 2:
[62:10] Yeah, that's so true. Well, this has been quite the journey about Edward I today. I'm always just, I love these episodes. Love listening to you talk about these figures in history. Out of curiosity, I feel like I always have to ask this question. No, this one should be pretty easy. But out of curiosity, if you were to summarize Edward I in one word, what would it be?

Speaker 3:
[62:40] Scary.

Speaker 2:
[62:42] There you go.

Speaker 3:
[62:43] Wherever you're coming from, whether you're Scottish, whether you're Welsh, whether you're on good terms with him, bad terms with him, I think he's one of those people that even if you were friends, you'd always have a side eye on him and be waiting for his temper to break, his fuse to reach its end. Anyone who can cause someone to drop dead simply by standing in front of them and thinking about disagreeing with them is pretty scary. I think he's a man who knows what he wants, and he's going to do everything that he possibly can to make sure that he gets it.

Speaker 2:
[63:18] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[63:18] It's pretty scary.

Speaker 2:
[63:20] In the end, I guess that would make him a pretty successful monarch.

Speaker 3:
[63:24] Yeah. Apart from the fact that he never really cements his grip on Scotland, I think there's a couple of occasions where he might legitimately have thought job done in Scotland, but he doesn't manage to put that to bed. I mean, in fairness to him, he's 68 by the time this comes to an end. Yeah. I think you can also say that he leaves his son with a really, really tricky situation trapped in really expensive wars that are becoming increasingly unwinnable. That's not the best legacy for a king to leave behind either. Edward II, I don't think is the best legacy any king ever left behind. But for the most part, he's very successful and very good at what he does.

Speaker 2:
[64:07] Matt, thank you so much for coming back again and teaching us all about Edward I today.

Speaker 3:
[64:13] That's a pleasure. Thank you for having me again.

Speaker 1:
[64:15] Thanks for listening to Tudors Dynasty & Beyond. If you enjoyed the episode, please take a moment to follow or subscribe wherever you're listening, so you never miss a new release. If you loved it, leave a quick review. It helps more history lovers find the show. Want to support the podcast and get bonus content? Head to patreon.com/tudorsdynasty. You can also find the link in the show notes of this episode. Join the conversation with Rebecca on social media at Tudors Dynasty. Until next time.