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摘要
摘要
This is the first major biography for a generation of a truly formidable king, a man born to rule England, who believed that it was his right to rule all of Britain. As a consequence, his reign was one of the most dramatic and important of the entire Middle Ages, leading to war and conquest on an unprecedented scale.
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Marc Morris is an historian and broadcaster. He studied and taught history at the universities of London and Oxford, and his doctorate on the thirteenth-century earls of Norfolk was published in 2005. In 2003 he presented the highly-acclaimed television series Castle , and wrote its accompanying book.
评论 (5)
出版社周刊评论
In an age of chivalry and ever-shifting political boundaries, Edward I typified the ideal medieval monarch in his significant military conquests, construction of notable castles and towns, and participation in the Crusades. Morris (The Norman Conquest) expertly puts Edward's achievements, such as the Model Parliament, into historical context while laying bare-and making interesting-the king's struggles. The account primarily centers on Edward's role as monarch; there's comparatively little development of his personal relationships with his much-loved wife and tragedy-prone children. Edward's flaws (expelling the Jews, throwing temper tantrums, and levying heavy taxes) receive clear analysis; Morris wryly notes that an aging Edward benefited from outliving many of his detractors. Descriptions of Edward waging war in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and even Gascony maintain a level of excitement as Morris cleverly builds anticipation, never dropping a narrative thread. In Morris' able hands, readers accompany Edward Longshanks as he earns his legendary status as the larger-than-life warrior king who defeated Scotland's William Wallace, held on to his French lands, and built a reputation nearly impossible for later Plantagenet rulers to duplicate. Illus. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Guardian 书评
In the royal roll-call of English history since 1066, Henrys and Edwards have had a tendency to follow one another with apparently remorseless inevitability. But, as Marc Morris points out, to the French-speaking aristocrats of 13th-century England Edward was a name every bit as unfamiliar, in its Anglo-Saxon ungainliness, as Egfric. Henry III's idiosyncratic decision to name his eldest son after his favourite saint, the pre-conquest king Edward the Confessor, was both an act of piety and an acknowledgment of England's Anglo-Saxon heritage - a canny piece of political rebranding for a dynasty that had lost its Norman homeland to the resurgent French in 1204. Much more disconcerting to modern readers is the discovery that, from 1274 to 1284, Edward's heir was his son Alfonso, who had been named for his maternal uncle, the king of Castile. Morris makes little of it, but the haunting presence of this phantom monarch, kept from the throne by an early death, emphasises an underlying theme of the narrative: that the complexities of Edward's reign cannot be fully understood unless we lay aside the teleological certainties of little Englandism. When Henry III died in 1272, Edward was 1,000 miles away in Sicily, on the way back from a crusade. For the next 30 years he dreamed of returning to the Holy Land, only to find his ambition thwarted by warfare closer to home. As ruler of both England and Gascony, Edward shared the continental preoccupations of his Norman and Angevin forebears; but, however much instinct might direct his gaze across the Channel, it was to the west and the north that fortune pushed him. The Hammer of the Scots began by hammering the Welsh - a wild and barbarous people, according to their English neighbours. When their native princes tried to throw off English overlordship, Edward responded with a war of conquest. Scotland, initially, was a different matter: an independent kingdom, its monarchs were allies and relations by marriage of the English crown. But an unexpected succession crisis gave Edward the chance to act as arbiter between the rival claims of Bruce and Balliol. Indefatigable to the last, it was on his way to hunt Bruce down that Edward died, just outside Carlisle, at the age of 68 (declaring, legend has it, that the flesh should be boiled from his body so that his bones could be carried at the head of his troops). This implacable warrior - hard to love by modern standards, easy to admire by medieval ones - was equally unyielding in his treatment of his English subjects. For 20 years he demonstrated how powerful a king could be who understood that royal rights were underpinned by the provision of good government to his people. But when in the 1290s war loomed simultaneously on three fronts - against Welsh rebels, Scottish resistance and a French king determined to annex Gascony - his hard-pressed subjects were for the first time driven into outright opposition by Edward's obdurate insistence on advancing in all directions at once. Morris tells Edward's story fluently and conveys a compelling sense of the reality, and the contingency, of personal rule; but we rarely see the king in intimate close-up. We know that the man nicknamed "Longshanks" was uncommonly tall, a fearsome presence despite a slight lisp, and - disappointingly, for readers in search of intrigue - a devotedly faithful husband to his wife, Eleanor of Castile, who bore him 15 children. It is on the subject of the "forging of Britain" that Morris is most consistently thought-provoking. Edward would be delighted to know that his conquest of Wales was never reversed, despite its legacy of deep cultural scars. He would be much less amused by the irony that Scotland - driven into the arms of France for the next 300 years by his aggression - was eventually united with England under Robert Bruce's bloodline, rather than his own. Helen Castor's Blood and Roses is published by Faber. To order A Great and Terrible King for pounds 18 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 836 0875. Caption: article-edward.1 The Hammer of the Scots began by hammering the Welsh - a wild and barbarous people, according to their English neighbours. When their native princes tried to throw off English overlordship, [Edward] responded with a war of conquest. Scotland, initially, was a different matter: an independent kingdom, its monarchs were allies and relations by marriage of the English crown. But an unexpected succession crisis gave Edward the chance to act as arbiter between the rival claims of [Robert Bruce] and Balliol. Indefatigable to the last, it was on his way to hunt Bruce down that Edward died, just outside Carlisle, at the age of 68 (declaring, legend has it, that the flesh should be boiled from his body so that his bones could be carried at the head of his troops). This implacable warrior - hard to love by modern standards, easy to admire by medieval ones - was equally unyielding in his treatment of his English subjects. For 20 years he demonstrated how powerful a king could be who understood that royal rights were underpinned by the provision of good government to his people. - Helen Castor.
Kirkus评论
Richly contextual treatment of a pivotal Medieval English monarch who consolidated the British Isles, but at violent cost and future retribution. In his age of chivalry and crusade, Edward I (1239-1307) had all the qualities of a successful, memorable leadereloquence, decisiveness, piety, courage in battle, luck in marriage and health, and a keenness for building projectsbut was he a good king? English historian Morris (The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England, 2013, etc.) gives Edward all the benefit of the doubt as the author sifts chronologically through the king's significant legacy. The first Edward since the Norman Conquest, named by his father after his patron saint, Edward the Confessor, young Edward was pulled into his father's political wrangling with insurgencies in Wales, Scotland and Gascony (Aquitaine) and inculcated with the importance of securing the rights of the crown against the resentments of the powerful earls. In 1258, he and his father were essentially shackled by the Provisions of Oxford, through which the earls had restrained the oppressive government. One earl, Simon of Montfort, nearly toppled the kingdom before Edward and his fellow royalists caught up with Simon at the slaughter of Evesham in 1265. Acceding to the crown in his mid-30s, Edward reaped the poisonous policy of disinheriting the vanquished. The dispossessed Welsh leader Llywelyn ap Gruffudd would prove the bane of Edward's own early reign, while the policy of repression in Ireland and Scotland, as well as forced revenue for holy crusading and war with France, would continue to haunt him, causing enormous dislocation and lawlessness. Moreover, Edward has the dubious distinction of being the first European leader to expel the Jews from his kingdom, in 1290. In the end, Morris sees Edward's legacy as one of "profound and lasting division." An elucidating though occasionally long-winded biography. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
《书目》(Booklist)书评
Arguably, Edward I was the first truly English monarch since the Norman Conquest. That is, he comfortably conversed in English, unlike his predecessors, who spoke Norman French. He also concentrated most of his political and military energies on Britain rather than his feudal possessions in France. Morris, a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, presents a conventional biography that covers the major events and achievements in Edward's life in chronological order. Even before he became king, Edward distinguished himself as an effective and ferocious warrior on behalf of his father, Henry III, in defeating the Second Barons' War. As king, he ruthlessly followed an expansionist policy within Britain. Combining savvy political machinations and relentless military pressure, Edward destroyed Welsh hopes for independence. He was less successful against the Scots, and his failure there meant Scotland would frequently be a thorn in the side of his successors. Internally, Edward consolidated royal power, but in an act of appalling cynicism, he expelled the entire, prosperous Jewish community. This is an informative and easily digestible account of the life of an important if often unattractive medieval monarch.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2010 Booklist
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
Best known by the sobriquet "Longshanks," Edward I had a pivotal role in medieval Britain as the king who, through ceaseless conflict, consolidated England, Wales, and Scotland under a single crown. Historian Morris (The Norman Conquest) is precise in his selection of the title for this work, for, as he explains, Edward was, indeed, both great and terrible. Inspired by Arthurian legend, he was great in his pursuit of personal glory (including a Crusade to the Holy Land) and in his successfully realized ambition to amalgamate his realm but often terrible in his methods. Chronically desperate for funds to support his unending wars, he ruthlessly taxed his subjects and is infamous for having expelled the Jews from England to further his confiscations. The crisp and occasionally emotional narration by Ralph Lister is superlative. VERDICT Beautifully written and based on exhaustive research from primary sources including contemporary chroniclers and surviving correspondence, this work does an outstanding job illustrating medieval society and politics. For history buffs. ["Highly recommended for scholars and generalists alike interested in the Middle Ages": LJ 2/1/15 starred review of the Pegasus hc.]-Forrest Link, Coll. of New Jersey, Ewing © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.