ENGLAND'S GREATEST KINGS.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 68, 19 September 1901, Page 2

ENGLAND'S GREATEST KINGS.

THE SEVEN EDWARDS. . «. A POPULAR NAME. BY "HISTORICUS." p WHEN His Majesty met his Privy Council for the first time after the death of Queen Victoria, he announced with an evident sense of satisfaction that he had caused himself to be proclaimed as Edward VII., taking the name of the most illustrious of his ancestors. That particular Christian name had not of course been conferred upon the King to specially mark his Plantagenet descent, as its baptismal explanation is more readily found in the late Queen's affection for the memory of her father, Edward, Duke of Kent. But the incident is an interesting one, as evincing the high respect in which the King holds the popular desires and prejudices of the English nation, and his careful avoidance of all cause of friction even in the style and title under which he elects that his reign shall be known. There can be no doubt that the late Queen, from her unparalleled devotion to her husband, would have liked to perpetuate the name of Albert in connection with the kingly office in England to the end of time, buther strong common-sense, and her intimate knowledge of the disinclination of the British people to the practice of having thorough English names superseded by those of foreign extraction, would have preserved her from the danger of irritating her .subjects by the preference of Albert to Edward. Indeed, the Queen herself followed the bent of her own disposition in similar fashion. Her front name was Alexandrina, and to Queen Alexandria the members of her Parliament swore allegiance, but to the first public document presented to her she attached the signature Victoria, and by that name she was distinguished throughout her illustrious rule. Similarly her son has exercised a discretion which all will admit to be a wise and prudent one and, without the faintest trace of unfilial disregard of |g®lfS w m©i'it3-*'i- im~ -hbm© adopted the name of Edward as a concession to the sympathies of the '■ people whose sovereign chief he now is. While thus passing in hasty review the motives which impelled His Majesty to the choice of a name which is cherished with some degree of national regard, it may be instructive to take a hurried glance at the lives and characters 'of the other occupants of the same throne who have borne the name of Edward. We shall find . that they have not all been of blameless reputation, but on the whole, after making due allowance for the ferocity or the tumult of the age in which they respectively lived, they were with one exception monarchs of whom the country has no reason to feel ashamed. EDWARD 1.—1272-1307. As so much of the measure of popular esteem depends upon contrast and comparison, it was not wholly a misfortune that Edward I. was the son of a weak and worthless father. Fifty-six years of misrule by Henry 111. had goaded the people to madness, and they were glad enough to welcome the accession of his son, who had already earned considerable renown by his bravery in the Holy Land, where he had joined the ninth Crusade. His wife Eleanor, daughter of Ferdinand 111. of Castile, had accompanied him to the war, and a touching story is told of the Prince being struck with a poisoned dagger in the arm, when the heroic woman sucked the poison from the wound. It may be mentioned, since emphasis has been laid on the fact of the English fondness for the name, that in public documents this king is sometimes styled Edward IV.—the three Saxon monarchs who bore that name being reckoned—viz., Edward the Elder (901-925); Edward the Martyr (975978); Edward the Confessor (10421066). But it has been usual with historians to call him Edward I. He was a soldier of dauntless courage and intrepidity, and he waged relentless war, first with the 'Welsh and then with the Scots. During his military operations in Wales his eldest son was born at Carnarvon Castle, and became the first English Prince of Wales. He gave the crown of Scotland to his vassal Baliol, an act of usurpation against which the Scottish people revolted, and under Sir William Wallace gained a victory over the English at Stirling. This brave man, taken prisoner by treachery, was cruelly executed on Tower Hill. It was not alonß in the science of war that Edward achieved distinction. He was endowed with high discriminating powers, and had great capacity for useful legislation; he was religious, truthful, and strictly just in dealing with the disputes of his subjects, and the extensive improvements he made

[ in the English law, and his action in sending judges to hold courts of assize in the country, have deservedly gained for him the name of the British Justinian. There is a tradition that the original yard measure was taken from the length of this lung's arm, but the story is dismissed by sober historians as a groundless fiction, His death occurred through an attack of dysentery at Burgh-upon-Sands, in Cumberland, when on his way to Scotland, which was again in a blaze of insurrection, and he enjoined, with his dying breath, that his remains should be carried before his army until Scotland was subdued. EDWARD 11.—1307-1327. It is an uncomfortable experience to" have to turn from the brilliant record of an illustrious father to the dismal catalogue of evils which flowed from the inglorious reign of a weak and incapable son. Some indulgence has been extended to the faults and vices of Edward 11. on account of the miseries of his tragic end. In like manner many persons haA r e been inclined to condone the tyrannical acts of Charles 1., in admiration of the cool courage with which he confronted his judges. Yet the stern fact must be stated that for twenty years England was afflicted with the misgovernment of one of the most contemptible creatures whom the accident of birth ever foisted upon a throne. Edward 11., of Carnarvon, so styled from the place of his birth, was an obstinate, idle, careless and frivolous man, who was contemptuously indifferent to the dying injunction of his father, and discontinued the war against Scotland. By the light of subsequent events, and the perfect agreement that has long subsisted between the two countries, it seems a pity that the peace between England and Scotland WfaS ever again disturbed. However, the war was renewed in 1314, with the result that the English sustained a disastrous defeat at Bannockburn by the Scots under the able generalship of Robert Bruce. Edward exasperated the nobles by his partiality for foreign favourites, whose presumption was offensive to the pride of Englishmen, and his weakness in this respect accentuates the force of the maxim that a king's best friends may be a nation's worst enemies. The first of these minions, Piers Gaveston, a native of Gascony, was seized by the barons, and hurried to the block without a trial, but the foolish king quickly transferred his dangerous affections to the two Despensers, who vainly endeavoured to free their royal patron from the control of the barons. Thereupon Queen Isabella, "the handsome," daughter of Philip IV. of France, made common cause with the barons against her husband, and suc•g®!Q§sSa<sian having him murdered. It is a melancholy chapter in English history. The miserable king, clad in a sombre suit of black, was compelled to sit and listen to the reading of an instrument of authority drawn up by the barons, by which the powers of administration were transferred to certain persons styled Lords Ordainers, and Edward was ordered to be detained as a prisoner in Berkeley Castle. There are many examples to show that dethroned and caged sovereigns do not live long. Middleaged people will be able to call to mind several Sultans whose removal from their thrones was quickly followed by the announcement of their death. On the night of September 21,1327, the residents in the vicinity of Berkeley Castle were alarmed by the sound of unearthly shrieks, and in the morning the news spread that the King was dead. Sir Ernest Maltravers, at the instigation of Queen Isabella, had taken a pack of ruffians into the Castle, and they had put the wretched man to death by introducing hot irons into his intestines, so that the features o.f the face should betray no signs of violence. It is a horrible picture, and gladly may we turn from the sorrowful account of the life and death of this impotent and misguided sovereign, to contemplate with some degree of gratified pride the reign of his illustrious son. EDWARD 111.—1327-1377. For the next fifty years the reins of government were in strong hands—at first in hands that were rather too strong, for as the young King was only sixteen years of age, his mother, aided by Mortimer, exercised the authority of Regent. But the nation grew so dissatisfied with their rule, that after three years of it Mortimer was executed and Queen Isabella was deprived of her office. There is some sense of contentment in the knowledge that retribution overtook this cruel woman, and that she spent twentyeight years of her life in confinement at different English castles. Though we have called Edward 111. "illustrious," it must be understood that his renown is confined to that particular class of glory which arises from the prosecution of successful wars. He was by nature and inclination a warrior, but in the acts of peace—so wrapped up was he in questions of foreign policy—that in the real needs of his people, he manifested no interest whatever. He was selfish, ambitious and unscrupulous, and was never seen to advantage as a great king except in the field of battle. There he was the incarnation of courage and chivalry, undismayed by the presence of a formidable foe, and undoubting as to the certain triumph of his own arms. Thus, when a timorous knight apprised him of the vastly superior force of the French at Crecy (1346), Edward coolly remarked that there were enough men to be killed, enough to be

taken prisoners, and there would be enough left to run away. ' And when his son, the Black Prince, was so hard pressed that a courier earnestly solicited reinforcements, the King positively refused to send a single soldier, adding to his refusal the remark—" Let the boy win his spurs." The royal judgment was not at fault, and the French were mowed down by the English archers, the best and bravest infantry in the world. The fortune of war threw into Edward's hands two independent sovereigns, taken prisoners in pitched battles. At Neville's Cross, fought the same year as Crecy, when the troops were led by Queen Philippa, David 11., King of Scots, was defeated and fell into the hands of his victors. He remained a captive in England for eleven years. Ten years later, at the battle of Poitiers, John, King of France, and his son Philip, were taken prisoners. After a long confinement it was stipulated that the King should pay a large ransom, and he went to France for the purpose of raising it, but failing in his object he returned to England and surrendered himself again. When the wars of the reign have been enumerated, all has been said that can be said in praise of the character of one who is reckoned among the greatest monarchs of England. The annals of the people include both grievous woes and signs of industrial advance. The population of the country was reduced from four millions to two millions by the ravages of the pestilence known as the "black death." On the other hand encouragement was given to Flemish woolworkers to settle in the eastern counties, and the settlement at Worsted, in Norfolk, indicates how a particular manufacture acquired its name; while the looms of Thomas Blanket sufficiently explain the origin of the weaving of a certain class of woollen cloths. The Order of the Garter was instituted by Edward 111.,. and in view of the Royal visit to these colonies it may be interesting to note that it was in 1337 that the Prince of Wales was created Duke of Cornwall. The first three Edwards, whose reigns were in consecutive order, may be conveniently included in one group. In our next we shall continue and conclude the historical record with a sketch of each of the four remaining kings who have borne the name of Edward—that is from the accession of Edward IV., in 1461, to the present year of grace under His Majesty Edward VII.