The Three Edwards Read Free Page A

embodied all of his recommendations. It would be followed by many other enactments over the years, each directed at some specific reform. In the end they would add up to a completecode, combining the best measures of the past with the new provisions that the spirit of the times made essential. In addition Edward would succeed in converting Parliament, which had been for two centuries a Normanized version of the Anglo-Saxon Witanagemot, into a House of Commons.
    The strength of Edward was not in innovation but in his genius for adaptation and his appreciation of the need to define and codify. He would in the years ahead of him earn the title of the English Justinian.
    Edward did not rest his case, nor indeed rest his labors, with the Statute of Westminster I. It was the first of many enactments, each carrying on to a further point the refinement and amendment of laws old and new. In 1285 he placed before Parliament a series of declarations that were embodied in the Statute of Westminster II, which is described in the
Annals of Osney
as follows: “He stirred up the ancient laws that had slumbered during the disturbances of the realm; some of which have been corrupted by abuses he recalled to their due form; some which were less evident and clear of interpretation he declared; some new ones, useful and honorable, he added.”
    The points covered had largely to do with land laws, with dower rights, and with advowson (the right to present to ecclesiastical offices). The holding of assizes at stated periods to permit of itinerant justices was remodeled to fit the changes in conditions since Henry II began the system. Manorial justice was sharply restricted. The second Westminster enactment deserves, in fact, to be ranked in importance with the first. The two, placed together, form an almost complete code bearing on the practice and extent of manorial jurisprudence.
    A third enactment, called the Statute of Westminster, which was made law by parliamentary sanction the same year as the second from Westminster, moved backward in point of time to restate, define, and amend the old laws relating to popular action. The obligations of the Hundred in regard to enforcement of justice and the defense of the realm were adjusted. The term “hundred” referred to divisions of land in a township (some variations being “ward” and “wapentake”) and generally meant as much land as made up a hundred “hides,” a hide in turn being as much land as could be tilled annually by a single plow. The Hue and Cry, a regulation by which all men were obligated to join in the pursuit and apprehension of offenders against the law, came under consideration and was amended, removing among other things all traces of the obnoxious
presentment of Englishry
.
    It was on these amendments that Edward’s reputation as a wise lawgiver rests.
2
    While Edward labored thus to establish order in the land, his queen was equally active. She was finding some difficulty in settling down with her family. To begin with, she had no liking for the Tower of London as a home. This was not strange. It was too bleak, too grim, and too busy. The White Tower, which contained the royal apartments, was ninety feet high, with walls varying in thickness from twelve to fifteen feet. It had been built by a Norman architect, a monk of Bee named Gundulf, who was called the Weeper, and in accordance with Norman ideas he had been concerned only with its strength and durability. The White Tower was built for the ages, but it was square and graceless and cold. It developed also that Master Gundulf the Weeper had been guilty of a curious error: he had forgotten that the people who lived there would need to move about.
    There was only one entrance to this towering block of masonry, a door so narrow that no more than one person could go through it at one time. Inside there was only a single well-stair, which began in the dark and damp vaults, where prisoners were kept, and continued on up to