A Short History of England

was to prove brilliant at arms

He was to prove brilliant at arms

she arrived as Guinevere in a dress of silk and silver, garnished with 600 rubies and 1,800 pearls, ‘attended by minstrels, huntsmen and grooms’.

Edward revived his father’s campaign to bring the Scots to heel.

she, like many queens of weak English kings, was to be a force in her own right.

Balliol was ritually humiliated, stripped of his crown, sceptre and orb, and taken to England as a prisoner.

Nor were the barons alone in experiencing Edward’s muscle.

Monasteries were commanded to send swans, peacocks, cranes, pike, eel and salmon.

When John’s remaining courtiers caught up with him, they cried at the sight of the pathetic child, ‘this tiny spark of minute beauty, the sole hope of the torn kingdom’.

Clause 39 declared habeas corpus, that ‘no free man shall be arrested or imprisoned or deprived or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined … except by lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land’.