Edwards on the Throne

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22391, 11 April 1936, Page 9 (Supplement)

Edwards on the Throne

is a thrilling name on our roll of kings, and a good name, too. In its original Saxon it means Guardian of Prosperity —and not only prosperity but happiness. Alfred's brave son and two other Saxon kings were Edwards. Indeed the best - known Edwards began with the Edward who rebuilt the old Abbey at Westminster, London. The first of the Saxon Edwards was Alfred's son. who shared the Throne with Alfred and carried on his father's task for 25 years after his death. He launched his father's fleet, our first British navy, and drove the Danish pirates from England's shores. One chronicler refers to him as our Unconquered King, and another tells us that he was the first who ruled Angles

and Saxons as one people, while both tbe Scots and the "Welsh kings owned him as their lord. Dane and Saxon lived at peace when Edward the Confessor was chosen king. He was a feeble ruley, encouraging Norman favourites at the expense of his follow countrymen; yet he won the halo of a saint (because he rebuilt tho Abbey) and the fame of a law-giver. Some 200 years after his death Henry the Third again rebuilt the Abbey, and set within it a golden shrine in the Confessor's memory. Edwqrd the First, Henry's son, was equally enthusiastic about the Abbey, fompleted the rebuilding, and set up in it exquisite tombs for his father and Queen Eleanor. Happy in his English name, Edward was the first ruler since the Conquest to speak English. No wonder he became a national figure. His youth was spent in strife with barons who resented hia father's follies. Having settled their quarrels, he went on a Crusade, was wounded at Acre, and returned to find the Throne waiting for him. He set to work to fashion a new England, tho constiutional England of to-aay. Ho made every class do its duty. H<» dismissed corrupt judges and reorganised courts and assizes. He forced reluctant clerics to share the national burdens. "That which touches all should be approved by all," he said, in establishing his model Parliament, in which knights sat with plain townsmen. So he secured tho House of Commons for ever. He subdued a hostile Wales with one hand and with the other gave it tho first Prince of Wales. Edward the second failed because he lacked the moral purpose of his father, but his son Edward the Third did inherit many of the great qualities of his own grandfather. At 18 he overthrew his tyrannous guardians, summoned Parliament. and in four splendid years restored his ruined land. Even Scotland yielded to his perseverance when France assailed England's coasts. Edward pitted the seamen and the yoemen of a democratic country against the French nobles and their retainers.

LONG LINE OF FAMOUS KINGS

The battlefields of Crecy and Poitiers proved their prowess and secured for England trade as well as respect abroad. Amid the welter of the Wars of the Roses our fourth Edward seized the Throne for the House of York. A virile but merciless warrior, he was handsome and charming. A wealthy despot, he freed the Crown from the power of the Peers, whom he shocked by his marriage to the widow of a knight. He encouraged commerce, avoided wars, and patronised Caxton; but he was selfindulgent and died at 40, leaving a son Edward too young to withstand the ambition of his notorious uncle Richard Crookback, who had the little prince suffocated in the Tower. Edward the Sixth stands even more than his tumultuous father for the establishment of Protestant worship in Britain's churches. Cranmer crowned him as a boy of nine and prepared his first English Prayer Book. In his reign England became a safe refuge for men persecuted for their religion. Influenced by Bishop Ridley ? this studious boy-king established hospitals and schools, the Bluecoat School among them. Edward the Seventh all the world remembers. He helped the cause of peace in a world already becoming restless. He recognised his constitutional powers and limitations, and so saved the Throne for Britain by setting a precedent for his son King George to follow. He signed the Act which united Briton and Boer in a self-governing Dominion, did his best to curb tho pretensions of the Peers, brought the idea of peace into the forefront of world politics, and stands in history by the name he bore at his death, Edward the Peacemaker And now we have his grandson as our eighth King Edward, and long and gloriously may he reign.