Longshanks
During his father's reign, Edward's attitude towards the struggel between the Barons and the Crown was hesitating, but when the Nobility declared war to the Crown, he fought by his father's side. He won the decisive battle at Evesham in 1265. In 1270 he left England, along with his wife, to join the Seventh Crusade. It is said that while sleeping in his tent, during the Crusade, a man tried to murder Edward, but he could defend himself by kicking the man and heading off the stab. Anyway the assasin wounded him in the arm with a poisoned knife. His wife Eleanor herself sucked the poison from the wound.
He consolidated his authority during the first years of his reign. He reduced corruption in the administration of justice, he restricted the jurisdiccion of the ecclesaistic tribunals exclusively to Church's matters and abolished the influence of the Pope in England.
When in 1276 the Welsh prince, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd refused to submit to the English Crown, he refused to yield homage and money payments owing to the English King under the terms of the Treaty of Mongomery. Llyewelyn intended to disclaim Edward and proclaim himself King of England, based on a suposed prophecy of Merlin that a man named Llywelyn would reign in England. Edward was infuriated and he captured Llywelyn's bride, Eleanor de Montfort, called the Damoiselle,the King's own cousin, who was traveling from France to Wales to join his fiance. Edward kept the Damoiselle as hostage. It was a great whack for Llywelyn but he did not blench on his claimings. In July 1277 Edward invaded Wales and began a war against Llyewelyn, whose brother Davyyd betrayed him and joined the English King. The English army was infinitely superior than the Welsh so Llewelyn had soon to surrender and accept Edward's conditions. Edward released the Damoiselle who joined Llywelyn and married him in Worcester in 1278. The peace in Wales lasted for some years.
On 12 June 1282, the Damoiselle died while giving birth to a girl, Gwenllian, the only child of the marriage . Llywelyn fall into a depression. His traitor brother Davyyd convinced him to rebel again against Edward, who was infuriated when he learned that Llywelyn had broken the treaty of peace. The King started a new war against the Welsh prince. The English army soon defeated the Welsh and on 11 December 1282 Llywelyn was killed in a brief clash with the English forces at Irfon Bridge, near Built Wells. Davyyd was caught after weeks of wandering around the Welsh mountais, and executed. The war ended in 1284 with the annexation of Wales to England.
The Welsh barons came to see Edward, who was by that time at Caernarvon, one of the many castles built by the King in Wales to keep secure the principality, to ask him to give them a Prince of Wales, a prince that had not offended him and that did not speak enflish nor French. The King presented them his new-born son, Edward, and told them that he was their Prince of Wales, that he did not speak English nor French, and he had never offended him. Prince Edward (the future Edward II) was then created Prince of Wales, a title which was since then been reserved exclusively for the heir apparent to the throne of England.
In 1290 King Edward expelled Jews from England. Since the Norman conquest, England had become prosperous which attracted the jews who settled in large numbers throughout the country. They specielized in banking and usurery and his special genius for businnes soon allowed them to become rich. People dislike their ways of making money and because they were infidels who had crucified Christ and during Edward's reign demands that they should be expelled from the country increased. Edward's father, Henry III, had taken little action against them because they had been a source of income and his love for money and the need to satisfy his wife's insatiable demands prevent him to do anything against them. But Edward was much more strongly opposed to them. He did not approve of money lending with high interest rates. He was also very zealous of his religion and disliked all those who were not Christian. The laws against Jews grew more severe during his reing and many of them were forced out of businness. But Jews do not admit defeat so easily and soon they found other ways of making money, one of them was clipping the coin, which was finely extracting the gold and silver from the pieces of money, that was rarely noticeable; this metal extracted form the coins could be sold easily. Edwrad began seriously in expelling the Jews. He discussed the amtter with the barons, headed by the duke of Gloucester, who had married Edward's daughter Joanna. The Templars and the Italian bankers were now finnacially involved in the country's affairs so the bank and financial businness in England were no more exclusively in the hands of the Jews. It was decided that the Jews were expelled; they might take with them their movables end enough money but te King would take a fifteenth part of their goods. Their houses and lands would be property of the King. They must be away form England before the feast of All Saints. By this time, sixteen thousand Jews had left England.
Edward had planned to married his six-year-old son and heir, Prince Edward with the little Queen of Scots, Margaret, called "The Maid of Norway". Margaret was only a year older than her fiance. She was the granddaughter of the late Scotish king, Alexander III, and of Edward I's sister Margaret, whose only surviving child, Margaret, had married King Erik II of Norway and had died of childbirth when the Maid was born. The Maid of Norway had become Queen of Scotland at her grandfather's death, on March 1286, when she was three years old. Since the little girl was recognize by the Scotish barons as their legitiamate, Edward saw in his son's marriage with her a peacefully way for a future annexation of Scotland to England under the rule of a son of the couple. But his plans failed. The Maid died during her voyage from Norway, in her way to marry Prince Edward, on September 26 1290. This would follow an interregnum and three decades of fighting between Scotalnd and England.
France tried to stop the power of Edward in Gascoigne, so he began a war agaisnt the French in 1293. Nevertheless, Edward lost his Gascon possessions and he did not recovered them until 1303.
During his reign, Edward had to confront several rebelions in Scotland. In 1291 he acted as a mediator among the pretenders to the Scotish throne but he put as a previous condition to be recognize by the Scots as overlord in Scotland. In 1292 he chose John Balliol, a son of David I of Scotland's eldest daughter, as king of Scots, among thirteen other pretenders. But then, the Scots rejected Edward as ovelord and Balliol signed an alliance with France. Edward invaded Scotland and won the Battle of Dunbar in 1296. He forced Balliol to abdicate and seized the coronation stone of Scone, proclaiming himself King of Scotland. In 1298 he had to confront another Scotish rebelion, this time leaded by William Wallace, to whom he defeated at the battle of Falkirk.
Edward had a very happy marriage with Queen Eleanor. She gave him sixteen children, most of whom died in infancy. The ones who survived to adulthood were: Eleanor (1264-1297, married first to king Alfonso III of Aragon and then to Henry III comte of Bar); Joan (1272-1307), born at Acre, while her parents were at the Crusade, she married Gilbert de Clare duke of Gloucester, her two daughters Eleanor and Margaret married her brother King Edward II's favourites, Hugh Despenser and Pierce Gaveston respectively; Margaret (1275-1333), married John II duke of Brabant; Mary (1278-1322), nun at Amesbury Abbey, Wiltshire; Elizabeth (1282-1316), married first to John I count of Holland and then to Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, she is the great-grandmother of Mary de Bohun, wife of King Henry IV; and the only surviving son and heir, the future Edward II. Queen Eleanor died in 1290. Edward remained alone until 1299 when he signed the peace with France and married Margaret (1282-1317), sister of the French king, Philip IV, le Bel. Margaret gave him two sons, Thomas of Brotherton, duke of Norfolk (1300-1338), and Edmund of Woodstock, duke of Kent (1301-1330).
To raise cash for government and the army in 1295 Edward called the Model Parliament Representing nobles, Church and commoners, this forshadowed the representative government and decreed that the King needed the Parliament's approval to make laws or raise non-feudal taxes.
The Scotish resistance had continued under Robert the Bruce. Edward, who had become known as "the Hammer of the Scots", initiated another campaign to subdue Robert, but he died on his way to the north, near Carlile, on July 7 1307.