Portal:England/Selected biography/02 2008

Edward I (17 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), popularly known as Longshanks, also as "Edward the Lawgiver" or "the English Justinian" because of his legal reforms, and as "Hammer of the Scots", achieved fame as the monarch who conquered Wales and tried to do the same to Scotland. He reigned from 1272 to 1307, ascending the throne of England on 20 November 1272 after the death of his father, King Henry III. At the time of the death of Henry III, Edward was on the Crusades. He was crowned on his return on 19 August 1274. His mother was queen consort Eleanor of Provence. He was voted the 92nd greatest Briton in the 2002 poll of 100 Greatest Britons.

Edward was born at the Palace of Westminster on the evening of 17 June 1239. He was an older brother of Beatrice of England, Margaret of England and Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster. He was named after Edward the Confessor. From 1239 to 1246 Edward was in the care of Hugh Giffard (the son of Godfrey Giffard) and his wife, Sybil, who had been one of the midwives at Edward's birth. In 1255, Edward and Eleanor both returned to England. The chronicler Matthew Paris tells of a row between Edward and his father over Gascon affairs; Edward and Henry's policies continued to diverge, and on 9 September 1256, without his father's knowledge, Edward signed a treaty with Gaillard de Soler, the ruler of one of the Bordeaux factions. Edward's freedom to manoeuver was limited, however, since the seneschal of Gascony, Stephen Longespée, held Henry's authority in Gascony. Edward had been granted much other land, including Wales and Ireland, but for various reasons had less involvement in their administration.