King Edward s Parliament

King Edward s Parliament. After his father s death in 1272 Edward becomes the king of England.

He found it easy to keep his barons in order, for he had most of the qualities needed by the successful ruler in the Middle Ages. He was tall, silver-haired and dignified.

Only a drooping eye-lid spoiled his handsome appearance.

He had courage, determination, and a cool judgement in time of danger. He was a typical English monarch that looked very much like Henry II as they say. He really tried to live up to his motto of I keep my promises. Most important, Edward had the intelligence to see that the barons would remain loyal, if it were in their interest to do so. He therefore agreed to stand by the terms of the Great Charter.

His laws were often as helpful to the barons as to himself. It is true that he ordered an inquiry into the rights of barons to hold their courts. Some could not prove their right and were no longer allowed to act as judges. Yet Edward was wise enough to take no action in such a case as that of William de Warenne, who drew his old rusty sword as the proof that he based his rights on his ancestors who had fought with the Conqueror in 1066. Edward also realized that the power that barons conclude might be used in a profitable direction conquer wars. Edward started a row of wars. First he conquers Wales, declares of its autonomy and nominates his son as the Prince of Wales and his earth as Principality of Wales. In AD 1288 Edward defeats Scotland.

Like Simon de Monfort before him, the king came to believe that England was like a body in which all the parts must be made to work together. To help them to agree it was useful to have meetings of the council at which complaints could be heard, laws passed, and taxes approved.

These came to be called parliaments from the French word parler, to speak. Edward copied Earl Simon in inviting not only the leading barons, but also knights and citizens to his parliaments. In this way he was able to persuade the wealthy merchant class, who were profiting from increasing sales of English wool to Flanders, to pay higher taxes. Later, in 1343, parliament became so big that it was easier for the barons and bishops Lords. Spiritual and Temporal to meet in one part of the Palace of Westminster and the knights and townsmen Representatives Of Community Commons in another.

So began the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Besides there appeared a very good opportunity to summon the parliament the conflict between Edward and the king of France concerning the right to own Gascony. On this account Edward I summons two archbishops, eighteen bishops, seventy abbots, and seven earls and forty-one barons.

In his summons to Spiritual Lords representatives of the Church the king said the king of France fraudulently and craftily deprives us of our land of Gascony, by withholding it unjustly from us.what affects all, by all should be approvedWe command you, strictly enjoining you in the fidelity and love in which you are bound to us, that on the Lord s day next after the feast of St. Martin, in the approaching winter, you be present in person at Westminster bringing the dean and chapter of your church, the achdeacons and all the clergy of your dioceseto ordain and provide, along with us and with the rest of the prelates and principal men and other inhabitants of our kingdom, how the dangers and threatened evils of this kind are to be met. Similar summons were sent to barons and to the representatives of shires and towns we strictly require you to cause two knights from your county, two citizens from each city of the same county, and two burgesses from each borough, of those who are especially discreet and capable of laboring, to be elected without delay On one of the first sessions of the brand new institute of authority the first statute of British unwritten constitution was fixed.

Very important step was made on the way of achieving advanced level of the government s system.

However some historians say that establishing Parliament was a premature action and avoiding it would have prevented the country from various conflicts. Edward I, also on one of the first sessions, declared and emphasized on it that only the king of the Holy Land possesses the power to create laws and that Parliament controls and supervises the treasury and approves scutage and aids. And, actually, these early parliaments, as well as a bit later ones looked nothing like the institution we can observe nowadays.

What does it look like What are its main functions To this and other questions I m trying to give answers in the upcoming chapter.