Edward I of England

Edward I (1239–1307), called Longshanks and later the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The eldest son of Henry III, he joined the Ninth Crusade in 1270 and was crowned in 1274. At 6 ft 2 in he towered over his contemporaries.

War overtook his legal reforms. After risings in 1276–1277 and 1282–1283 he conquered Wales, and the Statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 brought it under English administration. When Eleanor of Castile died in 1290, he raised twelve crosses where her procession stopped each night, and that year expelled England's Jews.

Asked to arbitrate the Scottish succession, he claimed overlordship of Scotland and invaded, beating William Wallace at Falkirk in 1298. When Robert the Bruce was crowned in 1306, the ill king marched north and died of dysentery at Burgh by Sands on 7 July 1307. The war outlived him.