Edward the Elder

“ Some day he would begin it; he would tell it to her and make it so beautiful she would consent.
All this time the elder lady thought, listened and knitted. She was one of those gentle natures not made for contentions, but for soothing. She was never idle. Edward found himself watching the busy needles as they fought for the endless thread, and marveled. What patience! What continuity! What endurance!
The needles of good women preach as they labor. ”

“ Only fourteen years old when he was crowned king, young Edward had already impressed all those who came in contact with him. Men saw in him a worthy successor of Edward I., whose great qualities stood out in shining contrast after the second Edward's disastrous reign. He was strong, he was brave; he, like his grandfather, passionately loved justice and passionately loved England. Nothing could have been more unfortunate than his boyhood or his early education. ”

“ King Edward now himself assumed the reins of government; he was still very young, but in the middle ages men ripened quick if they died early, and Edward at nineteen was thought both by others and himself old enough to take charge of the policy of the realm. He was in his youth a very well-served and well-loved sovereign, for he had all the qualities that attract popularity—a handsome person, pleasant and affable manners, a fluent tongue, and an energy that contrasted most happily with the listless indolence of his miserable father. ”

“ There was an Arden, child, whose blood is in your veins, who fought and fell at Barnet, crying shrill and fierce, 'Edward my King, St. George and victory!' And the young Edward, near him as he fell, called to a knight to lay hand to his heart, for Edward knew and loved him well, and had received of him money for a long-forgotten debt which young Edward's father would not press. So Edward called to a knight to lay hand upon his heart. ”

“ The tall and kingly-looking youth now striding up the great hall of Kenilworth, greeting first his uncle the Earl and then the Countess his aunt, was none other than the King's eldest son—that Prince Edward who was to play so great a part in the history of the English nation. ”

“ The dust of ages lies unfortunately on many of our facts, and though we might, it is true, take up a duster and wipe the dust of ages off, there is a pleasure in the imaginative which the actual could never realise.
Edward having been duped by his allies in France, on some matters almost of a private character, took the deception so much to heart, that he put himself into a violent passion, and died of it with wondrous rapidity. Instead of a raging fever, he caught the fever of rage, and died on the 6th of April, 1483, in the forty-first year of his age, and twenty-first of his reign. ”

“ Some chroniclers say that Edward dashed his gauntleted hand in the face of his young cousin. Others assert that he merely flung a sign to those around him. Either action was well understood. Hastings, the King's faithful servant, and Thomas Grey, his step-son, the affianced of Anne of Exeter, hurried Prince Edward out of his presence to the next tent, where the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester were standing. ”

“ Edward takes his daily walks in his perambulator upon the sea-front of his native town. His free-and-easy way has secured him a large circle of acquaintance there. Elderly gentlemen stop and speak to him, which he likes, so long as they do not pat his cheek, a habit far too prevalent among elderly gentlemen. Mothers of other babies are loud in his praises, though in their hearts they are probably comparing him unfavourably with their own offspring. Altogether Edward has a cheery life. ”

“ His realm was in such profound peace that he could safely leave it. Accordingly in May, 1286, he took ship for France. With him went his wife Eleanor of Castile, his chancellor Bishop Burnell, and a large number of his nobles. He entrusted the regency to his cousin, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, the son and successor of Earl Richard; and England saw him no more until August, 1289. Edward first made his way to Amiens, where he met the new King of France, Philip the Fair. The two kings went together to Paris, where Edward spent two months. ”

“ Interested in music, and devoted to play-acting, he was badly educated, taking the coronation oath in the French form provided for a king ignorant of Latin. Vain, irritable, and easily moved to outbursts of childish wrath, he was half-conscious of the weakness of his will, and was never without a favourite, whose affection compensated him for his subjects' contempt. The household of so careless a master was disorderly beyond the ordinary measure of the time. While Edward irritated the nobles by his neglect of their counsel, he vexed the commons by the exactions of his purveyors. ”

“ He can hardly have borne to look back upon his own youth, with its shameful memories. He had seen his father, Edward II., by his dissipated life and his slavish devotion to his favourites, alienate the affection of his subjects, and provoke the Barons to rise against him. Then, when peace had for awhile been restored, he had gone with his mother to France. He had seen her refuse to return to England at the King's demand; he had watched the growth of the disgraceful intimacy between her and Roger Mortimer, one of the rebel earls. ”

“ His position was strengthened by his personal qualities which made him the hero of the younger generation; and his influence began to modify the policy of Edward the king's son, who, since the flight of his Poitevin kinsmen, was gradually arriving at broader views of national policy. Even before his father's journey to France, Edward took up a line of his own. In the October parliament of 1259, he listened to a petition presented to the 108council by the younger nobles [1] who complained that, though the king had performed all his promises, the barons had not fulfilled any of theirs. ”

“ King Edward was fond of children—most indulgent to his own, and kind to all little ones, who, attracted by the sweetness which his stern, grave, beautiful countenance would assume when he looked at them—always made friends with him readily. ”

“ It may be added that the surviving children of King Edward and Queen Alexandra at the time of the King's death were his successor—George Frederick Ernest Albert, Prince of Wales; Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife, who was born in 1867 and married in 1889; Princess Victoria, who was born in 1868 and was unmarried; Princess Maud, Queen of Norway, who was born in 1869 and married in 1896 to Charles, then Crown Prince of Denmark. King Edward's only surviving brother was H. R. H., the Duke of Connaught, who was born in 1850. ”

“ While these thoughts were passing through the mind of that crafty man, Edward remained in his chair, supporting his head with one hand, while the other still lay caressingly, and half buried amid the bright ringlets of the kneeling culprit, who gathered the royal robe between his small hands, and kissed the glowing velvet with grateful eagerness, while his bright face was again deluged with tears—such tears as can only know their birth in a warm, wayward, and affectionate nature. ”

“ The accession of a Prince so universally beloved to the throne of his ancestors amid the deeply-felt joy of a great and free people is an inspiring spectacle. Perhaps, however, it is not fully realised how much King Edward, in the years of his public life as Prince of Wales, shared in the duties of the British Crown. ”

“ He was one of those happily constituted, thrifty philosophers who hold that even misfortune should not be wasted, and that no evil is so great but the alchemy of common sense can transmute some part of it into good. So he coined the smiles which the king shed upon his wife—he being powerless to prevent, for Edward smiled where he listed, and listed nearly everywhere—into nobles, crowns and pounds sterling, and left a glorious fortune to his son and to his son's son, unto about the fourth generation, which was a ripe old age for a fortune, I think. ”

“ The conduct of Prince Edward at the battles of Crecy and of Poictiers, in both which contests the English fought against an immense superiority of numbers, and the great eclat of such an achievement as capturing the French king, and conducting him a prisoner to London, joined to the noble generosity which he displayed in his treatment of his prisoners, made his name celebrated throughout the world. ”

“ All this time Queen Victoria was living in the strictest retirement, and the great shadow of the Prince Consort’s death had thrown scarcely less gloom over the life of his eldest son. King Edward mourned deeply for his father, and it is significant that he never lost an opportunity of testifying in his public speeches to the high purpose and noble aims which had distinguished Prince Albert’s life. ”

“ A monument was raised over his grave, and his effigy was carved on it—a robed and crowned figure, with hands meekly folded, and a face of such exquisite, appealing sweetness, dignity, and melancholy, that it is hardly possible to look at it without tears, or to help believing that even thus might Edward have looked when, in all the nobleness of patience, he stood forgiving his persecutors, as they crowned him in scorn with grass, and derided his misfortunes. A weak and frivolous man, cruelly sinned against, Edward of Caernarvon was laid in his untimely grave in the forty-third year of his age. ”

“ In the United States, which King Edward always regarded with an admiration which the enterprise and energy of its people so well deserved, he in turn received a degree of respect and regard which did not at one time seem probable. ”

“ King Edward the Seventh, in a sixty years' tenure of the difficult position of Heir to the British Throne, built into the history of his country and Empire a record of which he and his people had every reason to be proud. He had for many years the responsibilities of a Royal position without the actual power; the public functions of a great ruler without the resources usually available; the knowledge, experience and statecraft of a wise Sovereign without Regal environment. ”

“ The hand of a strong man was still needed to keep the peace in the newly-constituted realm of all England, and the evils of a minority were not long in showing themselves. One section of the magnates had possession of the thirteen-year-old king Edward, and used his name to cover their ambitions. The other was led by his step-mother Ælfthryth, who was set on pushing the claims of her son, the child Æthelred. After much factious strife, and many stormy meetings of the Witan, Edward was murdered at Corfe in 978 by some thegns of the party of the queen-dowager. ”

“ Had those who aspired to canonise him after death been a little more friendly to him in life, it would have been a state of things much more to his advantage. But this is human nature. We worry our friend into his grave, and then we call him poor dear So-and-so, and wear his portrait in a locket.
All these facts tended to make Edward's throne an uneasy seat, and caused him to be very anxious to get hold of young Richmond. His grandmother, the Duchess of Somerset, had returned to her allegiance: but his mother, the Countess of Richmond and Wiltshire, made no sign. ”

“ Probably no wiser monarch ever reigned over a nation." To the New Brunswick press the local Premier, Hon. Douglas Hazen, said: "King Edward's reign was a comparatively short one, but the verdict of history will undoubtedly be that he was one of the wisest and greatest rulers that ever sat upon a throne. He took a most keen and active interest in all his country's institutions, endeavouring at all times to promote the well-being of his subjects and to show his appreciation of the British Dominions beyond the Seas." ”

“ One striking feature in the conduct of Edward the Second is the remarkable meekness and submission with which he bore his father’s angry outbursts and severe punishments—often administered for mere youthful follies, such as most fathers would think amply punished by a strong lecture, and perhaps a few strokes of the cane. Edward the First seems to have been one of those men who entirely forget their own childhood, and are never able in after life to enter into the feelings of a child. ”

“ And when outraged honour and insulted pride made him desert the Yorkist cause, which he had served and supported for years, and range himself with those whom he had most injured and who most hated him, he fell as easy a victim to the same man’s charmed sword. And Edward did prove himself strong enough to reign alone. No man was better fitted for his age and his circumstances; and this is shown by his popularity, vigorous even during Warwick’s life and while growing under his shade. Victor everywhere and at all times, Edward had won the heart of the nation even before he gained the throne. ”

“ After the homage of the Heir Apparent each Peer of the realm should have followed the traditionary form in the order of his rank and touched the Crown and kissed the King's cheek. This was modified, however, so as to enable each grade of the nobility to perform the function through its representative of oldest patent—the Duke of Norfolk, the Marquess of Winchester, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Viscount Hereford and the Baron de Ros. After this had been done the trumpets once more sounded their acclaims and the audience joined in shouting "God save King Edward." ”

“ Write a similar analysis, reducing to one or two main qualities or characteristics, the American Civil War, the French Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the Romantic Movement in Literature, the Celtic Spirit, the Puritan Spirit, Socialism, Culture.
Now, King Edward is, above everything else, a very human man. He is not deceived by the pomp and circumstance in the midst of which it has been his lot to live, for he has no illusions. He is eminently sane. He was cast for a part in the piece of life from his cradle, and he plays it industriously and thoroughly ”