In his old age he was quick to discover the value of the English archery and to employ it as a means of victory at Falkirk.

But master as he was of the art of war, and forced from time to time to show his mastery in great campaigns, in no single instance was he the assailant.

He fought only when he was forced to fight; and when fighting was over he turned back quietly to the work of administration and the making of laws.
[Sidenote: His Political Genius] War in fact was with Edward simply a means of carrying out the ends of statesmanship, and it was in the character of his statesmanship that his real greatness made itself felt.

His policy was an English policy; he was firm to retain what was left of the French dominion of his race, but he abandoned from the first all dreams of recovering the wider dominions which his grandfather had lost.

His mind was not on that side of the Channel, but on this.