VOLUME VIII SLICE X Echinoderma to Edward (continued 11)

Two main tendencies distinguish the recent development: on the one hand the tendency to municipalization, or at least to the establishment of public control; on the other hand the tendency (marked especially by the regulations of 1907) to greater elasticity in regard to curricula, and so to the freer encouragement of local initiative and local effort.

In 1907 the government of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman placed greatly increased funds at the disposal of the Board of Education for the purpose of secondary education. The regulations under which the increased grant was administered imposed conditions in respect of freedom from denominational restrictions or requirements, representative local control, and accessibility to all classes of the people, which, like the analogous rules with regard to training colleges, roused considerable controversy. With regard to religious instruction, the requirement was made that no catechism or formulary distinctive of any particular religious denomination might be taught in the school except upon the request in writing of the parent or guardian and at the cost of funds other than grants of public money. Power was at the same time reserved to the board to waive the new conditions in the event of the local education authority passing a resolution that the school was in their view required as part of the secondary school provision for their area, and that the conditions, or one or more of them, might be waived with advantage in view of the educational needs of the area. It will be noticed that one effect of the regulations (as of the training college regulations) was to recognize as a kind of established religion those elements of Christianity which are shared in common by the various Protestant churches, according to the system of Lancaster and the Cowper-Temple compromise. Normally schools are required to provide 25% of free places for scholars from public elementary schools, and, with a view to encouraging the transference of children from the public elementary school at an early age, a grant of £2 was made payable on account of ex-public elementary scholars between ten and twelve years of age. The full scale of grants is £2 for ex-public elementary scholars between ten and twelve, and £5 for scholars between twelve and eighteen. To schools previously recognized and failing to comply with the new conditions, grant may be paid on the lower scale of £2 and £2, 10s. respectively.

Secondary school grants are assessed upon average attendance, and efficiency is guaranteed by inspection and not by individual examination. All recognized schools must provide at least the substantial equivalent of the four-years’ course formerly required, and recognition is withheld or withdrawn if an adequate number of the scholars do not remain at least four years in the school, or do not remain up to sixteen; in rural areas, however, and small towns, a school life of three years and a leaving age of fifteen may be accepted. “The board are now in a position, through their inspectorate, to keep a watch and exercise a guidance which were previously impossible over the planning and working of school curricula. Detailed reports following upon full inspections, and the more constant if less obvious influence exercised through informal visits, conferences, reports and suggestions, may now be relied upon to guard against the risks of one-sided education, of ill-balanced schemes of instruction, and of premature or excessive specialization” (Report of Board of Education, 1906-1907, page 68). The curriculum must provide instruction duly graded and duly continuous, in the English language and literature, in geography and history, in mathematics, science and drawing, and in at least one language other than English. Where two languages other than English are taken, Latin must ordinarily be one. Provision must be made for organized games, physical exercises and manual instruction, and in girls’ schools science and mathematics other than arithmetic may be replaced by an approved scheme of practical housewifery for girls over fifteen. The total number of secondary schools recognized for grant (Statistics, 1907-1908) was 736, of which only 220 were directly provided by local authorities. The number of pupils in attendance was 68,104 boys and 56,359 girls, total 124,463. The government grants for 1907-1908 amounted to £320,873 besides grants from local authorities.

Wales.

Notwithstanding the important differences which exist between the social and especially the religious conditions of England and Wales respectively, Wales continued to be treated as one with England for purposes of educational administration down to quite recent years. Towards the end of the 19th century the striking revival of Welsh nationality, in itself largely an educational and a literary movement, led to a spontaneous demand among the Welsh people for the organization of a national system of higher education. In accordance with the recommendations of a special royal commission the Welsh Intermediate Education Act passed in 1889 provided for the creation in every county in Wales (including Monmouthshire) of joint education committees consisting of three nominees of the county council and two nominees of the lord president of the council. To these committees were entrusted the duties of framing (under the Charity Commissioners) schemes for the establishment of intermediate and technical schools and for the application of endowments, and for administering a ½d. county rate, which was supplemented by a treasury grant not exceeding the amount raised by the rate. Certain supervisory functions were entrusted to a Central Education Board, to which are committed the duties of inspection and examination. The joint education committees have now (except for the purpose of framing schemes for endowments) been superseded by the local education authorities under the act of 1902. The public assistance afforded to secondary education in Wales under the Intermediate Act is supplemented by the grants of the Board of Education, and the Board’s revised Secondary School Regulations were applied to Wales in 1908. There were (1907-1908) 92 county secondary schools in Wales administered under schemes made under the Welsh Intermediate Act, attended by 6235 boys and 6727 girls, total 12,962; and 12 other secondary schools, of which 8 were provided by local authorities. The total attendance at all secondary schools was 13,615, viz. 6819 boys and 6796 girls. The Board of Education grant amounted to £31,090. The expenditure of the local authorities for the year 1906-1907 was £85,242.

The number of scholars on the registers of ordinary public elementary schools in Wales was (Statistics, 1907-1908), in council schools 330,413, and in voluntary schools 100,290, total 430,703. The percentage of average attendance was 86.98. The ordinary parliamentary grant (1906-1907) was £794,161, and the net expenditure of local authorities £561,234.

In 1907 a Welsh department of the Board of Education was established with a permanent secretary and a chief inspector, each responsible directly to the president. A movement was in progress in Wales in 1908-1909 for the creation of a national council of education under an independent minister, but this change could in any case only be effected by legislation; and meanwhile the special religious and social conditions in Wales caused administrative difficulties in working an act (that of 1902) primarily designed to meet those prevailing in England.

(G. B. M. C.)

United States.

History.—The first white settlers who came to North America were typical representatives of those European peoples who had made more progress in civilization than any other in the world. Those settlers, in particular those Beginnings. from England and from Holland, brought with them the most advanced ideas of the time on the subject of education. The conditions of life in the New World emphasized the need of schools and colleges, and among the earliest public acts of the settlers were provisions to establish them. The steps taken between 1619 and 1622 to provide schools for the colony of Virginia were frustrated by the Indian war which broke out in the latter year, and were never successfully renewed during the colonial period. In New York, where the influence of the Dutch was at first predominant, elementary schools were maintained at the public expense, and were intended for the education of all classes of the population. This policy reflected the very advanced views as to public elementary education which were then held in the Netherlands. The assumption of control in the colony of New York by the English was a distinct check to the development of public elementary education, and little or no further progress was made until after the Revolution. The most systematic educational policy was pursued in the colony of Massachusetts. As early as 1635, five years after it was founded, the town of Boston took action to the end that “our brother Philemon Pormort shall be entreated to become schoolmaster for the teaching and nurturing children with us.” The General Court of the colony in 1636 made the first appropriation for what was to become Harvard College, taking its name in honour of the minister, John Harvard, who died in 1638, leaving his library and one-half of his property, having a value of £800, to the new institution. The amount of this appropriation of 1636 (£400) was remarkable in that it was probably equal to the whole colony tax for a year. In 1642 followed a legislative act which, while saying nothing of schools, gave to the selectmen in every town power to oversee both the education and the employment of children. It is made the duty of the selectmen to see that the children can read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of the country, and that they are put to some useful work.

Five years later, in 1647, was enacted the law which is not only the real foundation of the Massachusetts school system, but the type of later legislation throughout the United States. This epoch-making act, the first of its kind in the world, represented the public opinion of a colony of about 20,000 persons, living in thirty towns. It required every town of fifty house-holders to establish a school, the master of which should be paid either by the parents of the children taught or by public tax, as the majority of the town committee might decide; and it further required every town of one hundred families or house-holders to set up a grammar school in which pupils might be prepared for the “University,” as the new institution at Cambridge was designated. Moreover, a penalty was attached to neglect of this legislative requirement, in the form of a fine to be devoted to the maintenance of the nearest school. Horace Mann said of the act of 1647: “It is impossible for us adequately to conceive the boldness of the measure, which aimed at universal education through the establishment of free schools. As a fact it had no precedent in the world’s history; and, as a theory, it could have been refuted and silenced by a more formidable array of argument and experience than was ever marshalled against any other institution of human origin. But time has ratified its soundness. Two centuries of successful operation now proclaim it to be as wise as it was courageous, and as beneficent as it was disinterested.” The significance of these acts of 1642 and 1647 is that they foreshadow the whole American system of education, including elementary schools, secondary schools and colleges, and that they indicate the principles upon which that system rests. These principles as summarized by George H. Martin in his Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System are the following:—(1) The universal education of youth is essential to the well-being of the state. (2) The obligation to furnish this education rests primarily upon the parent. (3) The state has a right to enforce this obligation. (4) The state may fix a standard which shall determine the kind of education and the minimum amount. (5) Public money raised by general tax may be used to provide such education as the state requires. The tax may be general, though the school attendance is not. (6) Education higher than the rudiments may be supplied by the state. Opportunity must be provided at the public expense for youths who wish to be fitted for college. These principles have now found expression in the public acts of every state, and upon them education in the United States is founded.

Despite the praiseworthy attempts made in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to develop schools and school systems, very little was accomplished in those colonies which was permanent. The sentiment in the more southern Development. colonies was, as a rule, unfriendly to free schools, and nothing of importance was attempted in that section of the country until the time of Thomas Jefferson. Through religious zeal or philanthropy colleges were founded as far south as Virginia, and no fewer than ten of these institutions were in operation in 1776. Their present names and the dates of their foundation are: Harvard University, Massachusetts (1636); College of William and Mary, Virginia (1693); Yale University, Connecticut (1701); Princeton University, New Jersey (1746); Washington and Lee University, Virginia (1749); University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania (1749); Columbia University, New York (1754); Brown University, Rhode Island (1764); Rutgers College, New Jersey (1766); and Dartmouth College, New Hampshire (1769). In the colleges the ecclesiastical spirit was at first almost uniformly dominant. The greater number of their students were preparing for the ministry in some one of the branches of the Protestant Church. These facts caused the grammar schools to take on more and more the character of college-preparatory schools; and when this was brought about they supplied the educational needs of but one portion of the community. As time passed, the interdependence of governmental and ecclesiastical interests began to weaken in the colonies, and there arose among those who represented the new secularizing tendency a distrust of the colleges and their influence. This gave rise to a new and influential type of school, the academy, which took its name from the secondary schools established in England by the dissenting religious bodies during the latter part of the seventeenth century at the suggestion of Milton. These academies were intended to give an education which was thought to be more practical than that offered by the colleges, and they drew their students from the so-called middle classes of society. The older academies were usually endowed institutions, organized under the control of religious organizations or of self-perpetuating boards of trustees. Their programme of studies was less restricted than that of the grammar schools, and they gave new emphasis to the study of the English language and its literature, of mathematics and of the new sciences of nature. For two generations the academies were a most beneficent factor in American education, and they supplied a large number of the better-prepared teachers for work in other schools. These schools were in a sense public in that they were chartered, but they were not directly under public control in their management. Early in the 19th century there arose a well-defined demand for public secondary schools—high schools, as they are popularly known. They were the direct outgrowth of the elementary school system. Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and New York were the first of the large cities to establish schools of this type, and they spread rapidly. These public secondary schools met with opposition, however, springing partly from the friends of the academies, and partly from those who held that governmental agency should be restricted to the field of elementary education. The legal questions raised were settled by a decision of the supreme court of Michigan, which contained these words: “Neither in our state policy, in our constitution, nor in our laws do we find the primary school districts restricted in the branches of knowledge which their officers may cause to be taught, or the grade of instruction that may be given, if their voters consent, in regular form, to bear the expense and raise the taxes for the purpose.” This decision gave marked impetus to the development of public secondary or high schools, and they have increased rapidly in number. The academies have relatively declined, and in the Western states are almost unknown.

Meanwhile the elementary school system had grown rapidly. The school district, the smallest civil division, was created in Connecticut in 1701, in Rhode Island about 1750, and in Massachusetts in 1789. From the point of view of efficient, well-supported schools, it has been felt since the time of Horace Mann that the substitution of the small school district for the town as the unit of school administration was a mistake. Yet the school district has exercised a profound influence for good upon the American people. In New York state, for example, there were in 1900 over eleven thousand school districts, and in Illinois over twelve thousand. The districts are small in extent and often sparsely settled. Their government is as democratic as possible. The resident legal voters, often including women, hold a meeting at least once a year. They elect trustees to represent them in the employment of the teacher and the management of the school. They determine whether a new schoolhouse shall be built, whether repairs shall be made, and what sum of money shall be raised for school purposes. In the rural districts this system has often been itself a school in patriotism and in the conduct of public affairs. Recently the tendency is to merge the school districts into the township, in order that larger and better schools may be maintained, and that educational advantages may be distributed more evenly among the people. Most of the southern states have the county system of school administration. This is because the county, rather than the township, has been the political unit in the south from the beginning. Special laws have been made for the school system in cities, and the form of these laws differs very much. In nearly every city there is a separate board of education, sometimes chosen by the voters, sometimes appointed by the mayor or other official, which board has full control of the schools. The city board of education has as its executive officer a superintendent of schools, who has become a most important factor in American educational administration. He exerts great influence in the selection of teachers, in the choice of text-books, in the arrangement of the programme of studies, and in the determination of questions of policy. Sometimes he is charged by law with the initiative in some or all of these matters. He is usually a trained administrator as well as an experienced teacher. The first superintendent was appointed in 1837 at Buffalo. Providence followed in 1839, New Orleans in 1841, Cleveland in 1844, Baltimore in 1849, Cincinnati in 1850, Boston in 1851, New York, San Francisco and Jersey City in 1852, Newark and Brooklyn in 1853, Chicago and St Louis in 1854, and Philadelphia in 1883. In general, it may be said that the progress of public education in the United States is marked by (1) compulsory schools, (2) compulsory licensing of teachers, (3) compulsory school attendance, and (4) compulsory school supervision, and by the increasingly efficient administration of these provisions. The compulsion comes in each case from the state government, which alone, in the American system, has the power to prescribe it and to enforce it. Each state is therefore an independent educational unit, and there is no single, uniform American system of education in any legal sense. In fact, however, the great mass of the American people are in entire agreement as to the principles which should control public education; and the points in which the policies of the several states are in agreement are greater, both in number and in importance, than those in which they differ. An American educational system exists, therefore, in spirit and in substance, even though not in form.

Neither in the Declaration of Independence nor in the Constitution of the United States is there any mention of education. The founders of the nation were by no means indifferent to education, but they shared the common view of National policy. their time, which was that the real responsibility for the maintenance of schools and the expense of maintaining them should fall upon the several local communities. The relation of government to education was not then a subject of ordinary consideration or discussion. Later, when this question did arise and the power of taxation was involved, the several states assumed control of education, as it was necessary that they should do. Nevertheless, from the very beginning the national government has aided and supported education, while not controlling it. This policy dates from the 13th of July 1787, when there was passed the famous “Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States North-West of the River Ohio,” meaning the territory north and west of the Ohio river now represented by the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the eastern side of Minnesota, embracing more than 265,000 sq. m. of territory. This ordinance contains this declaration: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall for ever be encouraged.” The Ordinance of 1787 also reaffirmed the provisions of the so-called Land Ordinance of 1785, by which section No. 16 in every township (a township consists of 36 numbered sections of 1 sq. m. each), or one thirty-sixth of the entire north-west territory, was set aside for the maintenance of public schools within the township. The funds derived from the sale and lease of these original “school lands” form the major portion of the public school endowment of the states formed out of the north-west territory. The precedent thus established became the policy of the nation. Each state admitted prior to 1848 reserved section No. 16 in every township of public land for common schools. Each state admitted since 1848 (Utah being an exception, and having four sections) has reserved sections No. 16 and No. 36 in every township of public lands for this purpose. In addition, the national government has granted two townships in every state and territory containing public lands for seminaries or universities. A third land grant is that made in 1862 for colleges of agriculture and the mechanical arts. The sum total of these three land grants amounted in 1900 to 78,659,439 acres, to which there must be added various special grants made from time to time to the states and devoted to education. The portion of the public domain so set apart in 1900 amounted in all to 86,138,473 acres, or 134,591 English sq. m. This is an area greater than those of the six New England states, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware added together. It is a portion of the earth’s surface as great as the kingdom of Prussia, about seven-tenths as great as France, and considerably greater than the combined areas of Great Britain (including the Channel Islands) and the kingdom of Holland. Besides the enormous grants of land in aid of education, the national government has maintained since 1802 a military academy at West Point, New York, for the training of officers for the army, and since 1845 a naval academy at Annapolis, Maryland, for the training of officers for the navy. It has also taken charge of the education of the children of uncivilized Indians, and of all children in Alaska. It has voted, by act of 1887, a perpetual endowment of $15,000 a year for each agricultural experiment station connected with a state agricultural college, and, by act of 1890, an additional endowment of $25,000 a year for each of the agricultural colleges themselves. The aggregate value of land and money given by the national government for education in the several states and territories is about $300,000,000.

In 1867 the Congress established a bureau of education, presided over by a commissioner who is under the jurisdiction of the secretary of the interior, the purpose of which is declared to be to collect “such statistics and facts Bureau of education. as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several states and territories, and of diffusing such information respecting the organization and management of school systems and methods of teaching as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the country.” The bureau has therefore no direct power over the educational policy of the several states. It has, however, exercised a potent influence for good in its advisory capacity. Up to 1900 this bureau had published 360 separate volumes and pamphlets, including 31 annual reports, covering from 800 to 2300 pages each; and the number has since been much increased. The annual reports alone of the Commissioner of Education are mines of information. These standard works of reference are distributed gratuitously in large numbers to libraries, school officials and other persons interested, and to foreign governments. The several commissioners of education have been: Henry Barnard, 1867-1870; John Eaton, 1870-1886; Nathaniel H.R. Dawson, 1886-1889; William T. Harris,3 1889-1906; Elmer Ellsworth Brown, 1906- .

In the United States the sovereign powers are not all lodged in one place. Such of those powers as are not granted by the Constitution to the national government are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. The power State governments and education. to levy taxes for the support of public education has been almost universally held to be one of the powers so reserved. The inhabitants of the several local communities, however indisposed they may have been to relinquish absolute control of their own schools, have been compelled to yield to the authority of the state government whenever it has been asserted, for except under such authority no civil division—county, city, township, or school district—possesses the power to levy taxes for school purposes. Moreover, since the exercise of state authority has uniformly improved the quality of the schools, it has usually been welcomed, not resisted. In general, it may be said that the state has used its authority to prescribe a minimum of efficiency which schools and teachers must reach, and it enforces this minimum through inspection and the withholding of its proper share of the state school fund from any locality where schools or teachers are permitted to fall below the required standard. In extreme cases the state authorities have interfered directly to prevent the evil results of local inefficiency or contumacy. In addition, the states, almost without exception, maintain at their own expense schools for the training of teachers, known as normal schools. Many of the states also offer inducements to the cities, towns and districts to exceed the prescribed minimum of efficiency. Through the steady exercise of state supervision the school buildings have improved, the standard for entrance upon the work of teaching has been raised, the programme of studies has been made more effective and more uniform, and the length of the school term has increased. The Constitution of every state now contains some provision as to public education. Each state has an executive officer charged with the enforcement of the state school laws. Sometimes, as in New York, this official has plenary powers; sometimes, as in Massachusetts and Ohio, he is little more than an adviser. In twenty-nine states this official is known as the superintendent of public instruction; in Massachusetts and Connecticut he is called secretary of the state board of education; other titles used are commissioner of public schools, superintendent of common schools, and superintendent of public schools. The schools are administered, on behalf of the taxpayers, by an elected board of school trustees in rural school districts, and by an elected (though sometimes appointed) board of education or school committee in cities and towns. In 836 cities and towns there is a local superintendent of schools, who directs and supervises the educational work and acts as the executive officer of the board of education. The schools in the rural districts are under the direct supervision of a county superintendent of schools or similar official, who is often chosen by the people, but who sometimes is named by the state authorities. The county and city superintendents are often charged with the duty of holding examinations for entrance upon the work of teaching, and of issuing licences to those persons who pass the examinations. This system works best where it is carefully regulated by state law. Thirty states, one territory, and the District of Columbia have enacted compulsory education laws, but the enforcement of them is usually very lax. In fifteen states and territories there are no compulsory education laws, although there are in existence there fully organized school systems free to all children. The usual age during which school attendance is required is from 8 to 14. Provision is made in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota and Michigan, for sending habitual truants to some special institution. Laws forbidding the employment of children under a specified minimum age in any mercantile or manufacturing establishment are in force in twelve states, and are usually administered in connexion with the compulsory education laws.

The universal establishment in America of public secondary schools (high schools), and the existence of state universities in all of the states south and west of Pennsylvania, have brought into existence a system of state education which reaches from the kindergarten and the elementary school to the graduate instruction offered at state colleges and universities. This system includes (1) about 1500 free public kindergartens scattered over fifteen states; (2) free public elementary schools within reach of almost every home in the land; (3) free public secondary schools (high schools) in every considerable city or town and in not a few rural communities; (4) free land grant colleges, supported in large part by the proceeds of the nation’s endowment of public lands, paying particular attention to agriculture and the mechanical arts, in all the states; (5) state universities, free or substantially so, in all the states south and west of Pennsylvania; (6) free public normal schools, for the professional training of teachers, in nearly every state; (7) free schools for the education of defectives in nearly all the states; and (8) the national academies at West Point and Annapolis for the professional training of military and naval officers respectively.

Miss Susan E. Blow, herself the leading exponent of kindergarten principles in the United States, has pointed out that the history of the kindergarten movement reveals four distinct stages in its development: the pioneer stage, having Boston as Kindergartens. its centre; the philanthropic stage, which began in the village of Florence, Mass., and reached its climax at San Francisco, California; the national or strictly educational stage, which began at St Louis; and the so-called maternal stage, which from Chicago as a centre is spreading over the entire country. During the first stage public attention was directed to a few of the most important aspects of Froebel’s teaching. During the second stage the kindergarten was valued largely as a reformatory and redemptive influence. During the third stage the fundamental principles underlying kindergarten training were scientifically studied and expounded, and the kindergarten became part of the public school system of the country. The fourth stage, which, like the third, is fortunately still in existence, aims at making the kindergarten a link between the school and the home, and so to use it to strengthen the foundations and elevate the ideals of family life. By 1898 there were 4363 kindergartens in the United States (1365 of which were public), employing 9937 teachers (2532 in the public kindergartens) and enrolling 189,604 children (95,867 in the public kindergartens). Of the 164 public normal schools, 36 made provision for training kindergarten teachers. The scientific and literary activity of some of the private kindergarten training classes is very great, and they exert a beneficial and stimulating effect on teaching in the elementary schools. It is generally admitted that from the point of view of the children, of the teachers, of the schools, and of the community at large, the kindergarten has been and is an inspiration of incalculable value.

The elementary school course is from six to nine years in length, the ordinary period being eight years. The pupils enter at about six years of age. In the cities the elementary schools are usually in session for five hours daily, Elementary schools. except Saturday and Sunday, beginning at 9 A.M. There is an intermission, usually of an hour, at midday, and short recesses during the sessions. In the small rural schools the pupils are usually ungraded, and are taught singly or in varying groups. In the cities and towns there is a careful gradation of pupils, and promotions from grade to grade are made at intervals of a year or of a half-year. The best schools have the most elastic system of gradation and the most frequent promotions. In a number of states there are laws authorizing the conveyance of children to school at the public expense, when the schoolhouse is unduly distant from the homes of a portion of the school population. Co-education (q.v.) in the elementary school has been the salutary and almost uniform practice in the United States. The programme of studies in the elementary school includes English (reading, writing, spelling, grammar, composition), arithmetic (sometimes elementary algebra also, or plane geometry in the upper grades), geography, history of the United States, and elementary natural science, including human physiology and hygiene. Physical training, vocal music, drawing and manual training are often taught. Sometimes a foreign language (Latin, German or French) and the study of general history are begun. Formal instruction in manners and morals is not often found, but the discipline of the school offers the best possible training in the habits of truthfulness, honesty, obedience, regularity, punctuality and conformity to order. Religious teaching is not permitted, although the exercises of the day are often opened with reading from the Bible, the repetition of the Lord’s Prayer and the singing of a hymn. Corporal punishment is not infrequent, but is forbidden by law in New Jersey, and in many states may be used only under restrictions. Text-books are used as the basis of the instruction given, and the pupils “recite” in class to the teacher, who, by use of illustration and comment, makes clear the subject-matter of the prescribed lesson. The purpose of the recitation method is to make the work of each pupil help that of his companion. Skilfully used, it is the most effectual instrument yet devised for elementary school instruction.

The secondary school course is normally four years in length. The principal subjects studied are Latin, Greek, French, German, algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry, physical geography, physiology, rhetoric, English literature, civics and history. Secondary schools. Although but 11.36% of the students in public high schools and 25.36% of those in private secondary schools are preparing for a college or scientific school, yet the conditions prescribed by the colleges for admission to their courses affect powerfully both the secondary school programme and the methods of teaching. Of late years no educational topic has been more widely discussed than that as to the proper relations of secondary schools and colleges. As a result, special examinations for admission to college are either greatly simplified or entirely abolished, and the secondary studies are much more substantial and better taught than formerly. An increasing proportion of secondary school teachers are college graduates. The most extraordinary characteristic of secondary education in recent years is the rapid increase in the number of students taking Latin as a school subject. Meanwhile the proportion of those studying physics and chemistry has fallen off slightly. The rate of increase in the number of pupils who study Latin is fully twice as great as the rate of increase in the number of secondary school students. Between 1890 and 1896, while the number of students in private secondary schools increased 12%, the number of students in public secondary schools increased 87%. Since 1894 the number of students in private secondary schools has steadily declined.

The American college, although it is the outgrowth of the English colleges of Oxford and of Cambridge, has developed into an institution which has no counterpart in Europe. The college course of study, at first three years in The colleges. length, was soon extended to four years, and the classes are uniformly known as the freshman, the sophomore, the junior and the senior. The traditional degree which crowns the college course is that of Bachelor of Arts (A.B.). The studies ordinarily insisted on in the case of candidates for this degree are Latin, Greek, mathematics, English, philosophy, political economy, history, at least one modern European language (French or German), and at least one natural science. The degrees of Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph.B.), and Bachelor of Letters (B.L.) are often conferred by colleges upon students who have pursued systematic courses of study which do not include Greek or the amount of Latin required for the degree of Bachelor of Arts. The best colleges give instruction which is similar in character to that given in Germany in the three upper classes of the gymnasium and in the introductory courses at the universities, in France in the two upper classes of the lycée and in the first two years of university study, and in England in the upper form of the public schools and during the years of undergraduate residence at Oxford and Cambridge. Since 1870 the colleges have developed enormously. Their resources have multiplied, the number of their students has increased by leaps and bounds, the programme of studies has broadened and deepened, the standards have been raised, and the efficiency of the instruction has greatly increased. Rigidly prescribed courses of study have given way to elective courses, and a knowledge of Greek is no longer required for the degree of A.B. at such influential colleges as Harvard, Columbia, Cornell and Williams. A strong effort is being made to have the leading colleges give but one degree, that of Bachelor of Arts, and to confer that upon those who complete any substantial course of college studies. A marked change has taken place in the attitude of the college authorities toward the students. In 1870 the college president was a paterfamilias. He knew each student and came into direct personal contact with him. The president and the faculty had supervision not only of the studies of the students, but of their moral and religious life as well. The older type of college professor was not always a great scholar, but he was a student of human nature, with keen intuitions and shrewd insight. The new type, which had come into existence at the opening of the 20th century, was more scholarly in some special direction, often regarded teaching as a check upon opportunities for investigation, and disdained troubling himself with a student’s personal concerns or intellectual and moral difficulties. The change was not altogether for the better, and a desirable reaction has been observable. Each college, however small or ill-equipped, exercises a helpful local influence. Ninety per cent of all college students attend an institution not more than one hundred miles from their own homes. Few colleges have a national constituency, and even in these cases an overwhelming preponderance of the students come from the immediate neighbourhood. This explains, in a measure, the powerful influence which the college has exercised in the life of the nation. While hardly more than one in a hundred of the white male youth of the country has had a college education, yet the college graduates have furnished one-half of all the presidents of the United States, most of the justices of the Supreme Court, about one-half of the cabinet officers and United States senators, and nearly one-third of the House of Representatives. Before the Revolution eleven colleges were founded. From 1776 to 1800, twelve more were added; from 1800 to 1830, thirty-three; from 1830 to 1865, one hundred and eighty; from 1865 to 1898, two hundred and thirty-six. Their standards, efficiency and equipment are very diverse, many of the so-called colleges being less effective than some of the better organized secondary schools. Except in New York and Pennsylvania, there is no statutory restriction upon the use of the name “college.” This is an abuse to which public attention has in recent years been increasingly called.4

In the United States the title “university” is used indiscriminately of institutions which are in reality universities, of institutions which are colleges, and of institutions which are so ill-equipped as not to take rank with The universities. good secondary schools. Only time and a greatly increased capacity to distinguish the various types of higher schools will remedy this error. Putting aside tentative and unsuccessful attempts to develop genuine university instruction much earlier, it may safely be said that the opening of the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore in 1876 began the present movement to organize carefully advanced study and research, requiring a college education of those who wish to enter upon it. This is university instruction properly so called, and though found elsewhere, it is given chiefly at fourteen institutions: California University, Catholic University of America, Chicago University, Clark University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Michigan University, Pennsylvania University, Princeton University, Leland Stanford Jr. University, Wisconsin University and Yale University. All of these institutions, except the Catholic University of America, are also colleges. The combination of collegiate and university instruction under one corporation and one executive administration is distinctive of higher education in the United States, and its chief source of strength. The crowning honour of the university student is the degree of Ph.D., although that of A.M.—obtainable in less time and much easier conditions—is also sought. The minimum period of study accepted for the degree of Ph.D. is two years after obtaining the bachelor’s degree; but in practice, three, and even four, years of study are found necessary. In addition to carrying on an investigation in the field of his main subject of study, the candidate for the degree of Ph.D. is usually required to pass examinations on one or two subordinate subjects, to possess a reading knowledge of French and German (often of Latin as well), and to submit—usually in printed form—the dissertation which embodies the results of his researches. The methods of instruction in the universities are the lecture, discussion and work in laboratory or seminary—the latter transplanted from the German universities. The degree of Master of Arts is conferred upon students who, after one year of university residence and study, pass certain prescribed examinations. This degree, like those of D.D., S.T.D. and LL.D., is often conferred by colleges and universities as a purely honorary distinction. The degree of Ph.D. is not so conferred any longer by the best universities. Not a few of the universities maintain schools of law and medicine. Harvard and Yale universities maintain schools of theology as well. The learned publications issued by the universities, or under the direction of university professors, are of great importance, and constitute an imposing body of scientific literature. The national and state governments make increasing use of university officials for public service requiring special training or expert knowledge. In 1871-1872 there were only 198 resident graduate (or university) students in the United States. In 1887 this number had risen to 1237, and in 1897 to 4392. These figures are exclusive of professional students, and include only those who are studying in what would be called, in Germany, the philosophical faculty. (See also Universities.)

Most extensive provision is made in America for professional, technical and special education of all kinds, and for the care and training of the dependent and defective classes (see Blindness and Deaf and Dumb), as well as for the education of the Indian (see Indians, North American), and—in the Southern states—of the negro (q.v.).

(N. M. B.)

Statistics.—Details as to education in each state of the American Union are given in the articles under state headings. But a more comprehensive view may be obtained here from the general statistics. The introduction to the statistical tables in vol. ii. of the Commissioner of Education’s Report for 1907 may usefully be quoted. Mr Edward L. Thorndike, of the Teachers’ College, Columbia University, there summarizes the national account as follows:—

“We use in formal school education a material plant valued at from twelve to thirteen hundred million dollars, the labour of 550,000 teachers or other educational officers, and more or less of the time of some eighteen million students.... We pay for the labour of these teachers, many of whom work for only part of the normal city-school year, about $300,000,000. We pay for fuel, light, janitorial services, repairs, depreciation of books, school supplies, insurance and the like, about $90,000,000. For depreciation of the plant not so charged we should properly provide during the year a sinking fund of perhaps $25,000,000. Adding an interest charge of 5% on the investment in the plant, our annual bill for formal school education comes to over $475,000,000. Additions to the plant were made [in 1906-1907] to the extent of from ninety to a hundred million dollars. As a partial estimate of the returns from this investment we may take the number of students whose education has been carried to a specified standard of accomplishment and power. Thus I estimate that, in 1907, 3000 students reached the standard denoted by three years or more of academic, technical or professional study in advance of a reputable college degree; that 25,000 students reached the standard denoted by at least three and not over four years of such study in advance of a four-year high-school course; than an eighth of a million students reached the standard denoted by at least three and not over four years of study in advance of an eight-year elementary-school course; and that three-quarters of a million students reached the standard of completion of an elementary-school course of seven or eight years or its equivalent.... Roughly, nine-tenths of elementary education and the education of teachers, over two-thirds of secondary education, and over a third of college and higher technical education are provided and controlled by the public. Professional education, other than the training of teachers and engineers, is still largely a function of private provision and control.

“The following rough comparison may serve to define further the status of education in the country at large. The plant used for formal education is valued at 1% of our entire national wealth, or twice the value of our telephone systems, or ten times the value of our Pullman and private cars, or one-tenth the value of our railroads. The number of teachers is approximately that of the clergymen, engineers, lawyers and physicians together, five times that of the regular army and navy, and about twice that of the saloon-keepers and bar-tenders and their assistants. The annual expenditure for education, exclusive of additions to the plant, is somewhat over twice the expenditure for the war and navy departments of the national government. It is three and a half times the expenditure of the national government in 1907 for pensions. It is about one and a fourth times the cost (New York wholesale prices) of the sugar and coffee we consume annually.”

The above comparison indicates perhaps, not inadequately, the “business” conception of the value of education prevailing in the United States, where its practical advantages are realized as in no other country, not even Germany.

From the same report the following statistics may be cited for 1906-1907.

Common Schools (including Elementary and Secondary Public Schools only).

Total number of pupils of all ages 16,820,3865

Average number of days schools open 151.2

Average number of days attended by each pupil 106.2

Number of male teachers 105,773

Number of female teachers 369,465

Number of school houses 259,115

Average monthly wage of male teachers $56.10

Average monthly wage of female teachers $43.67

Value of all school property $843,309,410

Income from permanent funds and rents $16,579,551

Income from State taxes $46,281,501

Income from local taxes $230,424,554

Income from other sources $50,317,132

Expenditure on sites, buildings, furniture, libraries and apparatus $65,817,870

Expenditure on salaries $196,980,919

Expenditure on other purposes $67,882,012

Expenditure per head of population $3.90

Expenditure per pupil $27.98

The Bureau of Education in 1907 received reports from 606 universities, colleges and technological schools; they had a teaching force of 24,679, and an enrolment of 293,343 students. The number of public and private normal schools reporting was 259, with an enrolment of 70,439 students in the regular training courses for teachers, 12,541 graduates and 3660 instructors. There were 148 manual and industrial training schools (independently of the manual training taught in the public schools and in 66 Indian schools), with 1692 teachers and an enrolment of 68,427 students; and 445 independent commercial and business schools, with 2856 instructors and 137,364 students.

(X.)

Bibliography.—For the study of education as an aspect of religious, social, moral and intellectual development, the material is practically inexhaustible, and much of the most valuable does not treat specifically of the education given in schools and colleges. The most useful guide is E.P. Cubberley’s Syllabus of Lectures on the History of Education (1902), which consists of an analytic outline of topics with copious and detailed references to authorities. See also W.S. Monroe’s Bibliography of Education (1897). The best general history in English is P. Monroe’s Text-Book in the History of Education (1905), which, like Davidson’s much briefer History of Education, treats the subject broadly and in relation to other aspects of life. Williams’s History of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Education is a useful statement of the main facts of educational progress taken somewhat by itself. In German the standard work is K.A. Schmid’s Geschichte der Erziehung, a comprehensive and detailed treatment in which each period is dealt with by a specialist. Ziegler’s Geschichte der Pädagogik is a good short history. In French, Letourneau’s L’Évolution de l’éducation is especially good on ancient and non-European education. Draper’s Intellectual Development of Europe is vigorous and interesting, but marred by its depreciation of the work of the Church. Guizot’s History of Civilization is still of value, as are parts of Hallam’s Literary History. Lecky’s History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe, and Buckle’s History of Civilization in England, contain much that is of value. The best encyclopaedias are W. Rein’s Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik, and F. Buisson’s Dictionnaire de pédagogie, première partie. Sir Henry Craik’s The State and Education (1883) is an excellent text-book on national education.

Of books dealing with special periods and topics, S. Laurie’s Historical Sketch of Pre-Christian Education, Freeman’s Schools of Hellas, Girard’s L’Éducation athénienne au Ve et au IVe siècle avant J.-C., Davidson’s Education of the Greek People, Mahaffy’s Old Greek Education and Greek Life and Thought, Nettleship’s article on “Education in Plato’s Republic” in Hellenica, Capes’s University Life in Athens, Hobhouse’s Theory and Practice of Ancient Education, Grasberger’s Erziehung und Unterricht im classischen Alterthum, Wilkin’s Roman Education, and Clarke’s Education of Children at Rome, are valuable for classical times.

For the somewhat obscure transition centuries there is much of value in Taylor’s Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages, Dill’s Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, especially the chapter on “Culture in the 4th and 5th centuries,” Boissier’s La Fin du paganisme, and Hatch’s Influence of Greek Thought upon the Christian Church.

The best general account of medieval education is in Drane’s Christian Schools and Scholars; and J.B. Mullinger’s Schools of Charles the Great treats well of the Carolingian Revival. G.B. Adams’s Civilization during the Middle Ages is excellent; and Sandys’s History of Classical Scholarship is a valuable book of reference. On the scholastic philosophy Turner’s History of Philosophy, and Hauréau’s Histoire de la philosophie scolastique, are useful. Medieval schools are described in Furnivall’s preface to The Babees Book, which deals with “Education in Early England,” and in Leach’s Old Yorkshire Schools and History of Winchester College. The most important books on the universities are Rashdall’s Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, Jourdain’s Histoire de l’université de Paris aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, Lyte’s History of the University of Oxford to 1530, and Mullinger’s History of the University of Cambridge to the Accession of Charles I. Paulsen’s Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitäten is the best history of education in Germany.

On the Renaissance in Italy, Villari’s Introduction to his Life and Times of Machiavelli, and Burckhardt’s Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (translated into English), are of the first importance. Other valuable books are the first volume of the Cambridge Modern History and Symonds’s great work on The Renaissance in Italy, especially the volume on The Revival of Learning. Dealing more specifically with education are Woodward’s excellent monographs on Education during the Renaissance, Vittorino da Feltre and Erasmus. Janssen’s Geschichte des deutschen Volkes (translated into English) gives a good account of the social and intellectual condition of Germany in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. Christie’s Life of Étienne Dolet is of value for the Renaissance in France. For the movement in England Seebohm’s Oxford Reformers, Gasquet’s Eve of the Reformation in England, Einstein’s The Italian Renaissance in England, and Leach’s English Schools at the Reformation, 1546-1548, are particularly important.

For later times the material is chiefly in the form of monographs, of which the following, among others, are of value: Adamson’s Pioneers of Modern Education, Laas’s Die Pädagogik des Johannes Sturm, Beard’s Port Royal, vol. ii., Kuno Fischer’s Fr. Bacon und seine Nachfolger, Laurie’s John Amos Comenius, Morley’s Rousseau, Pinloche’s La Réforme de l’éducation en Allemagne au dix-huitième siècle, Biedermann’s Deutschlands geistige, sittliche, und gesellige Zustände im XVIII. Jahrhundert.

For the 19th century and after, the best sources of information are the official Reports, such as those of the Royal Commissions on the English Universities, the Public Schools, and the other English secondary schools; the “Special Reports,” issued by the English Board of Education; the encyclopaedic annual Reports of the American Commissioner of Education (dealing not only with the United States, but with progress in other countries); monographs in the French Musée pédagogique, and various German Reports.

For education in the United States, see also Boone’s History of Education in U.S.A. (1889); N.M. Butler (editor), Education in the U.S.A. (1900), a series of monographs prepared for the Paris Exposition; E.G. Dexter’s History of Education in the United States (1904); and the Proceedings of the National Educational Association.

On the leading writers on education the monographs in the Great Educator Series are useful, and editions and translations of the best known of these writers are available. The greatest systematic collection is the Monumenta Germaniae paedagogica. On the development of the means of education, Montmorency’s two books on State Intervention in English Education from the Earliest Times to 1833, and The Progress of Education in England, Balfour’s Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland, Allain’s L’Instruction primaire en France avant la Révolution, Lantoine’s Histoire de l’enseignement secondaire en France au XVIIIe et au début du XVIIIe siècle, and Konrad Fischer’s Geschichte des deutschen Volkschullehrerstands, may be mentioned.

(J. Wn.)

1 For the evolution of the school as such from early times see Schools.

2 See especially Das öffentliche Unterrichtswesen Deutschlands, by Dr Paul Stötzner (Leipzig, 1901).

3 A valuable bibliography of Mr Harris’s contributions to educational literature is given in the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1907 (Washington, 1908).

4 See especially the second Annual Report of the President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (pp. 76-80), quoted in the Report for 1907 of the Commissioner of Education.

5 In private schools there were also 1,304,547 pupils.

EDWARD, “The Elder” (d. 924), king of the Angles and Saxons, was the second son of Alfred the Great, and with his sister Æthelflæd was carefully educated at the court of his father. During his father’s lifetime he took an active part in the campaigns against the Danes, especially in that of 894, and as early as 898 he signs a charter as “rex,” showing that he was definitely associated with his father in the kingship. He succeeded his father in October 899,1 but not without opposition. The Ætheling Æthelwold, son of Alfred’s elder brother Æthelred, seized Wimborne and Christchurch. Edward advanced against him, and Æthelwold took refuge among the Danes in Northumbria. In 904 Æthelwold landed in Essex, and in the next year he enticed the East Anglian Danes to revolt. They ravaged all southern Mercia and, in spite of Edward’s activity, returned home victorious, though Æthelwold fell in the battle of the Holme. In 905 or 906 Edward made a peace with the East Anglian and Northumbrian Danes at “Yttingaford,” near Linslade in Buckinghamshire, perhaps the peace known as “the Laws of Edward and Guthrum.” In 909 and 910 fresh campaigns took place owing to southerly raids by the Danes, and victories were won at Tettenhall and Wednesfield in Staffordshire.2 From 907 onwards Edward and his sister Æthelflæd, the Lady of the Mercians, were busy strengthening their hold on Mercia and Wessex. Forts were built at Lincoln (907), “Bremesbyrig” (910), “Scergeat” and Bridgenorth (912), and when in the year 911 Æthelflæd’s husband Æthelred died, Edward took over from Mercia the government of London and Oxford, with the lands belonging to them, i.e. probably Oxfordshire and Middlesex. The policy of constructing “burhs” or fortified towns was continued. Hertford was fortified in 911, Witham in 912, while Æthelflæd fortified Cherbury in Shropshire, “Weardbyrig” and Runcorn (all in 915). In 913 the Danes in Eastern Mercia gave considerable trouble, and in 914 a fresh horde of pirates, coming from Brittany, sailed up the Severn. They raided southern Wales, but were hemmed in by the English forces and besieged until they promised to leave the king’s territory. Edward watched the southern shores of the Bristol Channel so carefully that the Danes failed to secure a hold there, and were ultimately forced to sail to Ireland. In the same year Edward fortified Buckingham and received the submission of the jarls and chief men of Bedford. In 915 he fortified Bedford itself, Maldon in 916, and Towcester and “Wigingamere” in 917. In the last-mentioned year Edward captured and destroyed the Danish stronghold of Tempsford, and later in the year he took Colchester. An attack by the Danes on Maldon failed, and in 915 Edward went to Passenham and received the submission of the men of the “borough” of Northampton. The Danish strongholds of Huntingdon and Colchester were now restored and repaired, and Edward received the submission of the whole of the East Anglian Danes. Before midsummer of this year Edward had fortified Stamford, and on the death of his sister he received the submission of the Mercians at Tamworth. There also three kings of the North Welsh took Edward as their lord. Nottingham was now fortified; Thelwall in Cheshire (919) and Manchester soon followed; Nottingham was strengthened by a second fort; Bakewell was fortified and garrisoned, and then came the greatest triumph of Edward’s reign. He was “chosen as father and lord” by the Scottish king and nation, by Rægenald, the Norwegian king of Northumbria, by Ealdred of Bamborough, and by the English, Danes or Norwegians in Northumbria, and by the Strathclyde Welsh.

With the conclusion of his wars Edward’s activity ceased, and we hear no more of him until in 924 he died at Farndon in Cheshire and was buried in the “New Minster” at Winchester. He was thrice married: (1) to Ecgwyn, a lady of rank, by whom he had a son Æthelstan, who succeeded him, and a daughter Eadgyth, who married Sihtric of Northumbria in 924. This marriage was probably an irregular one. (2) To Ælflæd, by whom he had two sons—Ælfweard, who died a fortnight after his father, and Eadwine, who was drowned in 933—and six daughters, Æthelflæd and Æthelhild nuns, and four others (see Æthelstan). (3) To Eadgifu, the mother of Kings Edmund and Edred, and of two daughters.

Authorities.—Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ed. Plummer and Earle, Oxford); Florence of Worcester (Mon. Hist. Brit.); William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum (Rolls Series); Simeon of Durham (Rolls Series); Ethelweard (Mon. Hist. Brit.); Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, Nos. 588-635; D.N.B., s.v.

(A. Mw.)

1 See Stevenson’s article in Eng. Hist. Rev. vol. xiii. pp. 71-77. The whole chronology of this reign is very difficult and certainly is often impossible of attainment.

2 It is possible that these battles are one and the same; the places are within 2 to 3 m. of each other.

EDWARD, “The Martyr” (c. 926-978), king of the English, was the son of Edgar by his wife Æthelflæd. Edward’s brief reign was marked by an anti-monastic reaction. Ælfhere, earl of Mercia, once more expelled many of the monks whom Bishop Æthelwold had installed. There seems also to have been some change in administrative policy, perhaps with regard to the Danes, for Earl Oslac, whom Edgar had appointed to Northumbria, was driven from his province. In ecclesiastical matters there were two parties in the kingdom, the monastic, which had its chief hold in Essex and East Anglia, and the anti-monastic, led by Ælfhere of Mercia. Conferences were held at Kirtlington in Oxfordshire and at Calne in Wiltshire in 977 and 978, but nothing definite seems to have been decided. On the 18th of March 978 Edward’s reign was suddenly cut short by his assassination at Corfe Castle in Dorsetshire. The crime was probably inspired by his stepmother, Ælfthryth, who was anxious to secure the succession of her son Ælthelred. The body was hastily interred at Wareham and remained there till 980, when Archbishop Dunstan and Ælfhere of Mercia united in transferring it with great ceremony to Shaftesbury. Edward seems to have been personally popular, and the poem on his death in the chronicle calls his murder the worst deed in English history. Very shortly after his death he was popularly esteemed to be both saint and martyr.

See Saxon Chronicle; Vita S. Oswaldi (Hist. of Ch. of York, Rolls Series); Memorials of St Dunstan (ed. Stubbs, Rolls Series).

(A. Mw.)

EDWARD, “The Confessor” (d. 1066), so called on account of his reputation for sanctity, king of the English, was the son of Æthelred II. and Emma, daughter of Richard, duke of Normandy, and was born at Islip in Oxfordshire. On the recognition of Sweyn as king of England in 1013, Æthelred, with his wife and family, took refuge in Normandy, and Edward continued to reside at the Norman court until he was recalled in 1041 by Hardicanute. He appears to have been formally recognized as heir to the throne, if not actually associated in the kingship, and on the death of Hardicanute in 1042 “all folk received him to be king,” though his actual coronation was delayed until Easter 1043. A few months later Edward, in conjunction with the three great earls of the kingdom, made a raid on the queen-mother Ælfgifu, or Emma, seized all her possessions and compelled her to live in retirement.

In the earlier years of the reign the influence of Earl Godwine was predominant, though not unopposed. His daughter Edith or Eadgyth became Edward’s queen in 1045. But the king’s personal tastes inclined much more to foreigners than to Englishmen, and he fell more and more into the hands of favourites from beyond the sea. Between Godwine, representing the spirit of nationalism, and these favourites (especially their leader Robert of Jumièges, successively bishop of London and archbishop of Canterbury) there was war to the knife. In 1046 Magnus, king of Norway, who had succeeded Hardicanute in Denmark and claimed to succeed him in England as well, threatened an invasion, but the necessity of defending Denmark against his rival Sweyn Estrithson prevented him from carrying it into effect. In 1049, Godwine’s son Sweyn, who had been outlawed for the seduction of the abbess of Leominster, returned and demanded his restoration. This was refused and Sweyn returned into exile, but not before he had with foulest treachery murdered his young kinsman Beorn. He was, however, inlawed next year. The influence of Godwine, already shaken, received a severe blow in 1051 in the appointment of Robert of Jumièges to the archbishopric of Canterbury, and the same year saw the triumph of the foreigners for the moment complete. Edward, indignant at the resistance offered by the men of Dover to the insolence of his brother-in-law Eustace of Boulogne and his French followers, ordered Godwine to punish the town. Godwine refused. The king at the prompting of the archbishop then summoned a meeting of the witan, at which the old charge against Godwine of complicity in the murder of the Ætheling Alfred was to be revived. About the same time came news of a fresh outrage by the foreigners. Godwine gathered his forces and demanded redress, while the earls Leofric of Mercia and Siward of Northumbria hastened to the side of the king. Civil war seemed imminent, but at length a compromise was effected by which the matter was referred to a meeting of the witan to be held at London. At the appointed time Godwine presented himself at Southwark. But his followers were rapidly deserting him, nor would the king give hostages for his security. Alarmed for his safety, he fled to Flanders, while his son Harold went to Ireland. But their exile was brief. The tale of Godwine excited universal sympathy, for it was realized that he represented the cause of national independence. Encouraged by assurances from England, he sailed thither, and joining forces with Harold sailed along the south coast and up the Thames. The king would have resisted but found no support. Yielding to circumstances, he allowed himself to be reconciled, and Godwine and his house were restored to their old position. The queen at the same time was brought back from the monastery of Wherwell, whither she had been despatched after her father’s flight. The foreigners had already ignominiously fled the country, and henceforth the influence of Godwine, and, after his death, of Harold, was supreme. In 1063 Harold made a great expedition into Wales, in which he crushed the power of King Gruffyd, who was killed by his own people. But despite his prowess and his power, he was the minister of the king rather than his personal favourite. This latter position belonged to his younger brother Tostig, who on the death of Siward in 1055 was appointed earl of Northumbria. Here his severity and arbitrary temper rendered him intensely unpopular, and in 1065 his subjects broke into revolt. They elected Morkere as their earl, then marching south demanded Tostig’s banishment. Edward desired to crush the revolt by force of arms, but he was overborne and forced to submit. The election of Morkere was recognized, and Tostig went into exile. Intensely mortified at this humiliation, the king fell sick, and henceforth his health failed rapidly. He was unable to gratify his intense desire to be present at the consecration of his new abbey of Westminster, the foundation of which had been the chief interest of his closing years, and on the 5th of January 1066 he died.

The virtues of Edward were monkish rather than kingly. In the qualities of a ruler he was conspicuously deficient; always dependent on others, he ever inclined to the unworthier master. But the charm of his character for the monastic biographer, and the natural tendency to glorify the days before the Norman oppression began, combined to cast about his figure a halo which had not attached to it in life. Allowed to keep her property by William the Conqueror, his widow, Edith, passed the remainder of her life at Winchester, dying on the 19th of December 1075.

Sources.—A number of lives of Edward are brought together in a volume of the Rolls Series entitled Lives of Edward the Confessor, and edited by Dr H.R. Luard (London, 1858). Of these by far the most valuable is the contemporary Vita Edwardi, which would appear from internal evidence to have been written by an unknown writer soon after the Norman Conquest—some time between 1066 and 1074. The other chief authorities for the reign are (1) the Saxon Chronicle, (C. Plummer, Oxford, 1892-1899); (2) Florence of Worcester, ed. B. Thorpe, English Historical Society (London, 1848-1849). Reference may also be made to J.M. Kemble, Codex diplomaticus aevi Saxonici (London, 1839-1848).

(C. S. P.*)

EDWARD I. (1239-1307), king of England, born at Westminster on the 17th of June 1239, was the eldest son of Henry III. and Eleanor of Provence. He was baptized Edward after Edward the Confessor, for whom Henry had special veneration, and among his godfathers was Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, his aunt Eleanor’s husband. His political career begins when the conclusion of a treaty with Alphonso X. of Castile, by which he was to marry the Spanish king’s half sister Eleanor, necessitated the conferring on him of an adequate establishment. His father granted him the duchy of Gascony, the earldom of Chester, the king’s lands in Wales and much else. The provision made was so liberal that Henry’s subjects declared he was left no better than a mutilated king. In May 1254 Edward went to Gascony to take possession of his inheritance. He then crossed the Pyrenees, and in October was dubbed knight by Alphonso and married to Eleanor at the Cistercian convent of Las Huelgas, near Burgos. He remained in Gascony till November 1255, but his father was too jealous to allow him a free hand in its administration. After his return, the attempts of his agents to establish English laws in his Welsh possessions brought Edward into hostile relations with the Welsh. Here also his father would give him no help, and his first campaign brought him little result. Edward became extremely unpopular through his association with his Lusignan kinsfolk, his pride and violence, and the disorders of his household. In 1258 his strenuous opposition to the Provisions of Oxford further weakened his position, but, after the banishment of the foreigners, he began to take up a wiser line. In 1259 he led the young nobles who insisted that the triumphant oligarchy should carry out the reforms to which it was pledged. For a moment it looked as if Edward and Leicester might make common cause, but Edward remained an enemy of Montfort, though he strove to infuse his father’s party with a more liberal and national spirit. He was the soul of the reconstituted royalist party formed about 1263. In 1264 he took a prominent part in the fighting between the king and the barons. At the battle of Lewes his rash pursuit of the Londoners contributed to his father’s defeat. Two days later Edward surrendered to Leicester as a hostage for the good behaviour of his allies. He was forced to give up his earldom of Chester to Leicester, but at Whitsuntide 1265 he escaped from his custodians, and joined the lords of the Welsh march who were still in arms. With their aid he defeated and slew Leicester at Evesham on the 4th of August 1265.

For the rest of Henry III.’s reign Edward controlled his father’s policy and appropriated enough of Leicester’s ideals to make the royalist restoration no mere reaction. So peaceful became the outlook of affairs that in 1268 Edward took the cross, hoping to join the new crusade of St Louis. Want of money delayed his departure till 1270, by which time St Louis was dead, and a truce concluded with the infidel. Refusing to be a party to such treason to Christendom, Edward went with his personal followers to Acre, where he abode from May 1271 to August 1272. Despite his energy and valour he could do little to prop up the decaying crusading kingdom and he narrowly escaped assassination. At last the declining health of his father induced him to return to the West. He learned in Sicily the death of Henry III. on the 16th of November 1272. On the 20th of November, the day of Henry’s funeral, he was recognized as king by the English barons, and from that day his regnal years were subsequently computed. Affairs in England were so peaceful that Edward did not hurry home. After a slow journey through Italy and France he did homage to his cousin Philip III. at Paris, on the 26th of July 1273. He then went to Gascony, where he stayed nearly a year. At last he landed at Dover on the 2nd of August 1274, and was crowned at Westminster on the 18th of the same month.

Edward was thirty-five years old when he became king, and the rude schooling of his youth had developed his character and suggested the main lines of the policy which he was to carry out as monarch. He was a tall, well-proportioned and handsome man, extravagantly devoted to military exercises, tournaments and the rougher and more dangerous forms of hunting. He had learned to restrain the hot temper of his youth, and was proud of his love of justice and strict regard to his plighted word. His domestic life was unstained, he was devoted to his friends, and loyal to his subordinates. Without any great originality either as soldier or statesman, he was competent enough to appropriate the best ideas of the time and make them his own. His defects were a hardness of disposition which sometimes approached cruelty and a narrow and pedantic temper, which caused him to regard the letter rather than the spirit of his promises. His effectiveness and love of strong government stand in strong contrast to his father’s weakness. Though he loved power, and never willingly surrendered it, he saw that to be successful he must make his policy popular. Thus he continued the system which Montfort had formed with the object of restraining the monarchy, because he saw in a close alliance with his people the best means of consolidating the power of the crown.

The first years of Edward’s reign were mainly occupied by his efforts to establish a really effective administration. In carrying out this task he derived great help from his chancellor, Robert Burnell, bishop of Bath and Wells. Administrative reform soon involved legislation, and from 1275 to 1290 nearly every year was marked by an important law. Few of these contained anything that was very new or original. They rather illustrate that policy which caused Dr Stubbs to describe his reign as a “period of definition.” Yet the results of his conservative legislation were almost revolutionary. In particular he left the impress of his policy on the land laws of England, notably by the clause De Donis of the Westminster statute of 1285, and the statute Quia Emptores of 1290. The general effect of his work was to eliminate feudalism from political life. At first he aimed at abolishing all franchises whose holders could not produce written warranty for them. This was the policy of the statute of Gloucester of 1278, but the baronial opposition was so resolute that Edward was forced to permit many immunities to remain. Though the most orthodox of churchmen, his dislike of authority not emanating from himself threatened to involve him in constant conflict with the Church, and notably with John Peckham, the Franciscan friar, who was archbishop of Canterbury from 1279 to 1292. The statute of Mortmain of 1279, which forbade the further grant of lands to ecclesiastical corporations without the royal consent, and the writ Circumspecte Agatis of 1285, which limited the church courts to strictly ecclesiastical business, both provoked strong clerical opposition. However, Peckham gave way to some extent, and Edward prudently acquiesced in many clerical assumptions which he disliked. He was strong enough to refuse to pay the tribute to Rome which John had promised, and his reign saw the end of that papal overlordship over England which had greatly complicated the situation under his father.

Besides administration and legislation, the other great event of the first fifteen years of Edward’s reign was the conquest of the principality of Wales. It was part of Edward’s policy of reconciliation after the battle of Evesham that in the treaty of Shrewsbury of 1267 he had fully recognized the great position which Llewelyn ab Gruffyd, prince of Wales, had gained as the ally of Simon de Montfort. However, Llewelyn’s early successes had blinded the Welsh prince to the limitations of his power, and he profited by Edward’s early absences from England to delay in performing his feudal obligations to the new king. Even after Edward’s return Llewelyn continued to evade doing homage. At last Edward lost patience, and in 1277 invaded north Wales. He conducted his campaign like a great siege, blocking all the avenues to Snowdon, and forcing Llewelyn to surrender from lack of supplies. He thereupon reduced the Welsh prince to the position of a petty north Welsh chieftain strictly dependent on the English. For the next five years Edward did his best to set up the English system of government in the ceded districts. The Welsh resentment of this soon gave Llewelyn another chance, and compelled Edward to devote the years 1282-1283 to completing his conquest. In 1284 he issued the statute of Wales, which provided for a scheme for the future government of the principality. Edward is often called the conqueror of Wales, but in truth he only effected the conquest of Llewelyn’s dominions. The march of Wales was only indirectly affected by his legislation, and remained subject to its feudal marcher lords until the 16th century.

Edward was very careful in his foreign policy. Though preserving nominal peace with his cousin Philip III. of France, his relations with that country were constantly strained. After Philip III.’s death in 1285, Edward crossed the Channel in 1286, to perform homage to his successor, Philip the Fair. He remained abroad till 1289, busied in attempts to improve the administration of Gascony, and making repeated and finally successful efforts to end by his mediation the still continuing struggle between the houses of Anjou and Aragon. His long absence threw the government of England into confusion, and on his return in 1289 he was compelled to dismiss most of his judges and ministers for corruption. In 1290 he expelled all Jews from England.

The affairs of Scotland furnished Edward with his chief preoccupation for the rest of his reign. After the death of Alexander III., in 1286, Scotland was governed in the name of his granddaughter Margaret, the Maid of Norway. The English king had suggested that Edward of Carnarvon, his eldest surviving son, should marry the little queen of Scots, and thus bring about the union of the two countries. Unluckily the death of Margaret in 1290 frustrated the scheme. The Scottish throne was now disputed by many claimants, and the Scots asked Edward to arbitrate between them. Edward accepted the position, but insisted that, before he acted, the Scots should recognize him as their overlord. The claimants set the example of submission, and soon the chief Scots nobles followed. Thereupon Edward undertook the arbitration, and in 1292 adjudged the throne to John Baliol. The new king did homage to Edward, but his subjects soon began to resent the claims of jurisdiction over Scotland, which Edward declared were the natural results of his feudal supremacy. At last the Scots deprived John of nearly all his power, repudiated Edward’s claims, and made an alliance with the French. During the years of the Scottish arbitration Edward had slowly been drifting into war with France. The chronic difficulties caused by French attempts to confine Edward’s power in Gascony were now accentuated by the quarrels between the sailors and merchants of the two countries. In 1293 Edward was persuaded by his brother, Edmund, earl of Lancaster, to yield up Gascony temporarily to Philip the Fair. But Philip refused to restore the duchy, and Edward, seeing that he had been tricked, declared war against France, at the very moment when the Scottish resistance gave the French a firm ally in Britain. To make matters worse, the Welsh rose in rebellion. It was therefore quite impossible for Edward to recover Gascony.

The most critical years of Edward’s reign now began. He saw that he could only meet his difficulties by throwing himself on the support of his own subjects, and convoked, in 1295, a representative parliament of the three estates, which has been called in later times the Model Parliament, because it first illustrated the type which was to be perpetuated in all subsequent parliaments. “What touches all,” ran Edward’s writ of summons, “should be approved of all, and it is also clear that common dangers should be met by measures agreed upon in common.” The parliamentary constitution of England was established as the result of Edward’s action.

Secure of his subjects’ allegiance, Edward put down the Welsh revolt, and conquered Scotland in 1296. When quiet was restored to Britain, he hoped to throw all his energy into the recovery of Gascony, but new troubles arose at home which once more diverted him from his supreme purpose. Led by Archbishop Winchelsea, Peckham’s successor, the clergy refused to pay taxes in obedience to the bull of Pope Boniface VIII., called Clericis Laicos. Edward declared that if the clergy would not contribute to support the state, the state could afford them no protection. But the clerical opposition was soon joined by a baronial opposition. Headed by the earls of Hereford and Norfolk, many of the barons declined to join in an expedition to Gascony, and Edward was forced to sail to the French war, leaving them behind. Thereupon the recalcitrant barons forced upon the regency a fresh confirmation of the charters, to which new articles were added, safeguarding the people from arbitrary taxation. Edward at Ghent reluctantly accepted this Confirmatio Cariarum, but even his submission did not end the crisis. In the same year (1297), all Scotland rose in revolt under the popular hero William Wallace, and next year (1298), Edward was forced to undertake its reconquest. The battle of Falkirk, won on the 22nd of July, was the greatest of Edward’s military triumphs; but, though it destroyed the power of Wallace, it did not put an end to Scottish resistance. Bitter experience taught Edward that he could not fight the French and the Scots at the same time, and in 1299 he made peace with Philip, and, Eleanor having died in November 1290, he married the French king’s sister Margaret (c. 1282-1318), and some years later obtained the restitution of Gascony. In the same spirit he strove to destroy the clerical and baronial opposition. He did not succeed in the former task until a complacent pope arose in his own subject, Clement V., who abandoned Winchelsea to his anger, and suffered the archbishop to be driven into exile. The baronial leaders could not be wholly overthrown by force, and Edward was compelled to make them fresh concessions.

It was not until 1303 that Edward was able to undertake seriously the conquest of Scotland. By 1305 the land was subdued, and Wallace beheaded as a traitor. But Edward had hardly organized the government of his new conquest when a fresh revolt broke out under Robert Bruce, grandson of the chief rival of Baliol in 1290. Bruce was soon crowned king of Scots, and at the age of seventy Edward had to face the prospect of conquering Scotland for the third time. He resolved to take the field in person; but the effort was too great, and on the 7th of July 1307 he died at Burgh-on-Sands, near Carlisle. His death destroyed the last faint hope of conquering Scotland, and showed that the chief ambition of his life was a failure. Yet his conquest of Wales, his legislation, his triumph over his barons, his ecclesiastics, and the greatest of French medieval kings indicate the strength and permanence of his work. He was buried at Westminster under a plain slab on which was inscribed Edwardus primus Scottorum malleus hic est. Pactum serva.

By Eleanor of Castile Edward had four sons, his successor Edward II. and three who died young, and nine daughters, including Joan, or Joanna (1272-1307), the wife of Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester (d. 1295), and then of Ralph de Monthermer; Margaret (1275-1318), the wife of John II., duke of Brabant; and Eleanor (1282-1316), who married John I., count of Holland, and then Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford (d. 1322). By Margaret of France the king had two sons: Thomas of Brotherton, earl of Norfolk, and Edmund of Woodstock, earl of Kent.

The principal modern authorities for this reign are: W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, vol. ii. chaps. xiv. and xv. (1896); T.F. Tout, Edward I. (1893), and Political History of England, 1216-1377, pp. 136-235 (1905); R.B. Seeley, Life and Reign of Edward I. (1872); R. Pauli, Geschichte von England, iv. pp. 1-198 (Hamburg, 1864-1875); W. Hunt, article on “Edward I.” in Dictionary of National Biography; J.E. Morris, Welsh Wars of Edward I. (Oxford, 1901); and C.V. Langlois’s Philippe le Hardi (Paris, 1887).

(T. F. T.)

EDWARD II. (1284-1327), “of Carnarvon,” king of England, the fourth son of Edward I. by his first wife Eleanor of Castile, was born at Carnarvon Castle on the 25th of April 1284. The story that the king presented the new-born child to the Welsh as their future native prince is quite unfounded, for Edward was only made prince of Wales in the Lincoln parliament of 1301. When a few months old, he became by his elder brother’s death the heir to the throne, and Edward I. took great pains to train him in warfare and statecraft. He took part in several Scots campaigns, but all his father’s efforts could not prevent his acquiring the habits of extravagance and frivolity which he retained all through his life. The old king attributed his son’s defects to the bad influence of his friend, the Gascon knight Piers Gaveston, and drove the favourite into exile. When Edward I. died, on the 7th of July 1307, the first act of the prince, now Edward II., was to recall Gaveston. His next was to abandon the Scots campaign on which his father had set his heart.

The new king was physically almost as fine a man as Edward I. He was, however, destitute of any serious purpose, and was, as Dr Stubbs says, “the first king after the Conquest who was not a man of business.” He cared for nothing but amusing himself, and found his chief delight in athletics and in the practice of mechanical crafts. He was not so much vicious as foolish, and wanting in all serious interests. He had so little confidence in himself that he was always in the hands of some favourite who possessed a stronger will than his own. In the early years of his reign Gaveston held this role, acting as regent when Edward went to France—where, on the 25th of January 1308, he married Isabella, the daughter of Philip the Fair—and receiving the earldom of Cornwall with the hand of the king’s niece, Margaret of Gloucester. The barons soon grew indignant at Edward’s devotion to his “brother Piers,” and twice insisted on his banishment. On each occasion Edward soon recalled his friend, whereupon the barons, headed by the king’s cousin Thomas, earl of Lancaster, went to war against king and favourite, and in 1312 treacherously put Gaveston to death. Edward was not strong enough even to avenge his loss. He was forced to stand aside and suffer the realm to be governed by the baronial committee of twenty-one lords ordainers, who, in 1311, had drawn up a series of ordinances, whose effect was to substitute ordainers for the king as the effective government of the country. But in all the ordinances nothing was said about the commons and lower clergy. Parliament meant to the new rulers an assembly of barons just as it had done to the opponents of Henry III. in 1258. The effect of their triumph was to change England from a monarchy to a narrow oligarchy.

During the quarrels between Edward and the ordainers, Robert Bruce was steadily conquering Scotland. His progress was so great that he had occupied all the fortresses save Stirling, which he closely besieged. The danger of losing Stirling shamed Edward and the barons into an attempt to retrieve their lost ground. In June 1314 Edward led a great army into Scotland in the hope of relieving Stirling. On the 24th of June his ill-disciplined and badly led host was completely defeated by Robert Bruce at Bannockburn. Henceforth Bruce was sure of his position as king of Scots, and his pitiless devastation of the northern counties of England was his wild vengeance for the sufferings his land had previously experienced from the English. Edward’s disgraceful defeat made him more dependent on his barons than ever. His kinsman, Thomas of Lancaster, had now an opportunity of saving England from the consequences of the king’s incompetence. He had shown some capacity as a leader of opposition, but though he had great wealth, and was lord of five earldoms, he had small ability and no constructive power. In his desire to keep the king weak, he was suspected to have made a secret understanding with Robert Bruce. Before long the opposition split up under his incompetent guidance into fiercely contending factions. Under Aymer of Valence, earl of Pembroke, a middle party arose, which hated Lancaster so much that it supported the king to put an end to Lancaster’s rule. After 1318 the effect of its influence was to restore Edward to some portion of his authority. However, the king hated Pembroke almost as much as Lancaster. He now found a competent adviser in Hugh le Despenser, a baron of great experience. What was more important to him, he had in Despenser’s son, Hugh le Despenser the younger, a personal friend and favourite, who was able in some measure to replace Gaveston. The fierce hatred which the barons manifested to the Despensers showed that they could hate a deserter as bitterly as they had hated the Gascon adventurer. They were indignant at the favours which Edward lavished upon the favourite and his father, and were especially alarmed when the younger Despenser strove to procure for himself the earldom of Gloucester in right of his wife, Edward’s niece.

At last, in 1321, the barons met in parliament, and under Lancaster’s guidance procured the banishment of the Despensers. The disasters of his friends inspired Edward to unwonted activity. In 1322 he recalled them from exile, and waged war against the barons on their behalf. Triumph crowned his exertions. Lancaster, defeated at Boroughbridge, was executed at Pontefract. For the next five years the Despensers ruled England. Unlike the ordainers, they took pains to get the Commons on their side, and a parliament held at York in 1322 revoked the ordinances because they trenched upon the rights of the crown, and were drawn up by the barons only. From this time no statute was technically valid unless the Commons had agreed to it. This marks the most important step forward in Edward II.’s reign. But the rule of the Despensers soon fell away from this wise beginning. They thought only of heaping up wealth for themselves, and soon stirred up universal indignation. In particular, they excited the ill-will of the queen, Isabella of France. Craftily dissembling her indignation, Isabella kept silence until 1325, when she went to France in company with her eldest son, Edward of Windsor, who was sent to do homage for Aquitaine to her brother, the new French king. When her business was over, Isabella declined to return to her husband as long as the Despensers remained his favourites. She formed a criminal connexion with Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, one of the baronial exiles, and in September 1326 landed in Essex accompanied by Mortimer and her son, declaring that she was come to avenge the murder of Lancaster, and to expel the Despensers. Edward’s followers deserted him, and on the 2nd of October he fled from London to the west, where he took refuge in the younger Despenser’s estates in Glamorgan. His wife followed him, put to death both the Despensers, and, after a futile effort to escape by sea, Edward was captured on the 16th of November. He was imprisoned at Kenilworth Castle, and a parliament met at Westminster in January 1327, which chose his son to be king as Edward III. It was thought prudent to compel the captive king to resign the crown, and on the 20th of January Edward was forced to renounce his office before a committee of the estates. The government of Isabella and Mortimer was so weakly established that it dared not leave the deposed king alive. On the 3rd of April he was secretly removed from Kenilworth and entrusted to the custody of two dependants of Mortimer. After various wanderings he was imprisoned at Berkeley Castle in Gloucestershire. Every indignity was inflicted upon him, and he was systematically ill-treated in the hope that he would die of disease. When his strong constitution seemed likely to prevail over the ill-treatment of his enemies he was cruelly put to death on the 21st of September. It was announced that he had died a natural death, and he was buried in St Peter’s Abbey at Gloucester, now the cathedral, where his son afterwards erected a magnificent tomb.

Edward’s wife, Isabella (c. 1292-1358), bore him two sons, Edward III. and John of Eltham, earl of Cornwall (1316-1336), and two daughters, Isabella and Joanna (1321-1362), wife of David II., king of Scotland. After the execution of her paramour, Roger Mortimer, in 1330, Isabella retired from public life; she died at Hertford on the 23rd of August 1358.

See R. Pauli, Geschichte von England, iv. pp. 199-306; T.F. Tout, Political History of England, 1216-1307, pp. 236-304, and article in Dictionary of National Biography; W. Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. ii. pp. 319-386, and Introductions to Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I. and Edward II. in Rolls series.

(T. F. T.)

EDWARD III. (1312-1377), “of Windsor,” king of England, eldest son of Edward II. and Isabella of France, was born at Windsor on the 13th of November 1312. In 1320 he was made earl of Chester, and in 1325 duke of Aquitaine, but he never received the title of prince of Wales. Immediately after his appointment to Aquitaine, he was sent to France to do homage to his uncle Charles IV., and remained abroad until he accompanied his mother and Mortimer in their expedition to England. To raise funds for this he was betrothed to Philippa, daughter of the count of Hainaut. On the 26th of October 1326, after the fall of Bristol, he was proclaimed warden of the kingdom during his father’s absence. On the 13th of January 1327 parliament recognized him as king, and he was crowned on the 29th of the same month.

For the next four years Isabella and Mortimer governed in his name, though nominally his guardian was Henry, earl of Lancaster. In the summer he took part in an abortive campaign against the Scots, and was married to Philippa at York on the 24th of January 1328. On the 15th of June 1330 his eldest child, Edward, the Black Prince, was born. Soon after, Edward made a successful effort to throw off his degrading dependence on his mother and her paramour. In October 1330 he entered Nottingham Castle by night, through a subterranean passage, and took Mortimer prisoner. On the 29th of November the execution of the favourite at Tyburn completed the young king’s emancipation. Edward discreetly drew a veil over his mother’s relations with Mortimer, and treated her with every respect. There is no truth in the stories that henceforth he kept her in honourable confinement, but her political influence was at an end.