Edward I (1272–1307), named after his father’s favourite saint Edward the Confessor, was a popular king and a brave soldier, who, though sharing his father’s strong belief in the sanctity of kings, cooperated actively with Parliament. He liked to discuss taxes with the knights and borough representatives and depended on them to explain his royal policies to the people. His consultations with parliamentary representatives were embodied in what were called statutes, which became a new means of making law, eventually leading to modern statute law. By means of these statutes the king was able to settle grievances over land ownership and preserve law and order in the land. Yet his major policies aimed at uniting the island under one sovereign by conquering first Wales and then Scotland.
Unlike England, Wales was a very poor, backward country divided into several princedoms which only occasionally came together under one single ruler. The Welsh proved no match for the English. As a result, by 1295, the principality of Wales had ceased to exist. New counties were created on the Welsh territory and English administration was introduced. English people were encouraged to settle in Wales. Edward also built a series of castles in Wales, ten in all, most of which still stand. These castles were unrivalled in their time as marvels of military engineering, and the grandest of them all was Caernarfon.
Scotland was to be a very different story. By the close of the 13th century it had already developed a kingdom of its own, directly modelled on the Anglo-Norman one. Consequently, Edward’s plan to make Scotland part of his kingdom, to build castles and introduce English officials, administration and law met with resistance. At first the Scots were defeated (1296), but they didn’t give up and a major campaign was fought every summer, so that eventually Edward I died still fighting for control. The task of subjugating the Scots wasn’t fulfilled.
Edward II (1307–1327) was a weak and lazy king who left the work of government to incompetent favourites. Soon a party of lords was formed against him. Parliament approved of their plans, which demanded the public appointment of all the king’s household as well as of the state officials. The king was soon in trouble in other ways too. His father-in-law, the French king, attacked the lands around Bordeaux. When Edward led a campaign against the Scots, his army was routed at Bannockburn. Finally even his queen, Isabella, turned against him. She and her lover, Roger Mortimer, seized Edward with the help of foreign soldiers, and Parliament forced him to hand over the crown to his son. A few months later he was murdered in Berkeley Castle.
Legend has it that the founding of the Order of the Garter is a direct result of the king’s passion for chivalrous behaviour. Edward is said to have picked up a garter dropped by a court lady at a ball and tied it round his leg saying ‘Honi soi qui mal y pense.’ However, the most plausible theory of why the garter was chosen as the emblem of the new Order is that it was a badge which the English knights adopted during the French campaign. The colours of the new Knights, deep blue and gold, were the colours of the French royal arms. From the start the Order included 26 Knights Companion, including the king. Many of them took part in the king’s French campaigns. Their patron saint, as of England itself, was St. George, a supposed officer of the Roman army. The original Knights were all young warriors, the military companions of the king and his son. Over subsequent centuries, however, the character of the knights changed, and they came to be drawn from the ranks of the leading nobles and statesmen, as well as foreign monarchs. The ceremonies of the Order increased in splendour, with glorious music, procession of heralds and a great feast taking place every year on St. George’s Day in April, when the whole court moved to Windsor. The court still is ‘in residence’ at Windsor in April each year, but the annual Garter celebration now takes place in June.