Edward – the son of Henry III – was the first king of England for 200 years to have an Anglo-Saxon name and to have spoken English as his mother tongue. Nicknamed 'Longshanks' because of his height, he was married as a 15-year-old to Eleanor of Castile, who was only 12.
In the baronial civil war during his father's reign, when Henry's authority was seriously put under pressure by Simon de Montfort, Edward changed sides several times, eventually opting to back the king. He staged an audacious raid in 1263, stealing gold from the Templars in London to pay for troops. He was captured by de Montfort's forces at Lewes in 1264 but escaped and was responsible for de Montfort's fatal defeat at Evesham the following year.
In 1270-2, the prince and Eleanor went on crusade, where he was wounded in a knife attack. It was said later that Eleanor had sucked out the poison. They heard of Henry's death while they were on their way home.
Once he became king, Edward forgave the nobles who had acted against his father, replenishing his coffers by allowing them to buy back their estates. He set up an enquiry into local government corruption, which made him look good to the population at large. This led to the first of a stream of statutes (1275-90) that reformed many aspects of the law.
One of the first of these statutes was one forbidding Jews from lending money at interest – a source of finance that had proved invaluable to his father. Edward had found that he could employ instead a new banking system in which Italian financiers advanced cash. In 1287, he imprisoned some 3,000 Jews and offered them for ransom. Then, when this was paid, he issued an edict expelling all Jews from England.
By 1284, after Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, self-styled 'prince of Wales', refused to pay Edward homage, the king conquered Wales and built huge castles to remind the Welsh of their subjection. The principality was governed from London and colonised by English settlers. In 1301, the king's son, the future Edward II, was invested as prince of Wales – in Lincoln.
Once Wales was under the king's thumb, chance brought Scotland within his realm of influence. In 1292, the Scots were faced with a succession crisis and asked Edward to arbitrate between the various claimants. Having chosen John Balliol, he treated the new king as a subject rather than an equal. When the Scots sought an alliance with France, Edward invaded. He captured Balliol and carried the Stone of Scone (or of Destiny), the coronation seat of Scottish kings, off to London.
In 1297, his army was defeated at Stirling Bridge by rebel leader William Wallace, who, eight years later, was captured and hanged, drawn and quartered. After Robert Bruce declared himself king, Edward attacked him in 1307 but died while doing so. In the 16th century, an inscription was added to Edward's tomb, labelling him 'Hammer of the Scots'.
In 1294, Edward also had a fight in Aquitaine, when it was invaded by Philip IV of France. Edward taxed his subjects heavily to pay for his military campaigns. To ensure that the money would be forthcoming, he summoned representatives of the towns and shires to Parliament to get their consent – these members came to be known as the Commons.
Although Edward could be ruthless and hot-tempered, he seems genuinely to have loved his family. He was distraught when his first wife Eleanor – by whom he had 16 children – died in 1290, and he had elaborate stone crosses erected along the route of her funeral procession.
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 Edward I of England
www.ebroadcast.com.au/lookup/encyclopedi
a/ed/Edward_I_of_England.html
Good biography of the king, with lots of internal links to take you further.
Battle of Lewes
www.wargames.co.uk/Library/ArticlesH/Lew
es.html
Detailed account from The Art of War in the Middle Ages by Sir Charles Oman.
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd
www.castlewales.com/llywel2.html
Account of the life of 'Llywelyn the Last' – the last native prince of Wales – and his conflicts with Edward I. Part of a website celebrating Welsh castles, with articles on the Welsh Wars for Independence and photographs.
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Edward I by Michael Prestwich (Yale University Press, 1997)
A king who pioneered legal and parliamentary change, conquered Wales and came close to conquering Scotland, Edward also governed Gascony in south-west France and played a major part in European diplomacy and war. Examining the full range of manuscript sources, this book reveals a capable monarch facing complex simultaneous challenges.
Get this book
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 Stirling Bridge
About 21 miles north-east of Glasgow, on the banks of the river Forth, near the junction of the A80 and M9. Original wooden bridge stood about 200 metres (660 feet) upstream of present stone bridge (built in 15th century).
The site – in 1297 – of the first battle in Europe in which an army of common soldiers with spears (led by William Wallace) defeated armed and mounted knights (led by Edward I's commander John de Warenne), when the myth of English invincibility was finally destroyed. The episode is the centrepiece of the film Braveheart (which was filmed in Ireland). Wallace is said to have watched the approach of the English army from the hill on which the 19th-century Wallace Monument now stands.
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