EDWARD THE FIRST 1272-1307 [Sidenote: Edward's Temper] In his own day and among his own subjects Edward the First was the object of an almost boundless admiration.

He was in the truest sense a national king.

At the moment when the last trace of foreign conquest passed away, when the descendants of those who won and those who lost at Senlac blended for ever into an English people, England saw in her ruler no stranger but an Englishman.

The national tradition returned in more than the golden hair or the English name which linked him to our earlier kings.

Edward's very temper was English to the core.