The WARRIOR KING
“The medieval chronicler Peter Langtoft, a contemporary of King Edward I, forecast that people would talk about the ‘handsome and great’ monarch for as long as the world lasts, ‘For he had no equal as a knight in armour/For vigour and valour, neither present nor future.’
Edward certainly has a long-lived reputation, resonating down the centuries through his many famous nicknames: the English Justinian, the Lawgiver, the Father of the Mother of Parliaments, Flower of Chivalry, Hammer of the Scots and, more informally, Longshanks – at six-feet two-inches tall he towered over his subjects, both physically and metaphorically.
In the 750th anniversary year of his accession to the English throne in 1272, it’s the perfect time to ‘speak of King Edward and of his memory’ to consider how his deeds measure up to his dazzling image.
Born in 1239, the eldest son of Henry
