The breadth of Edward’s ambitions hindered their complete accomplishment.  Like Edward I., he undertook more than he could carry through, and, though his panegyrists praise his patience in adversity no less than his moderation in prosperity, his merely animal courage and vigour broke down under the weight of misfortune.  Thus the glorious king, who in his youth vied with his grandfather, seemed in his old age to have nearly approached the fate of his wretched father.  In early life he won the love of his subjects.  It was only in the first years of his reign that the violence and greed of his disorderly household, which inherited the evil traditions of the previous generation, bore so heavily upon the people that Englishmen fled at his approach in dread of the purveyors, who confiscated every man’s goods for the royal use.[1] The somewhat shallow opportunism which abandoned, with little attempt at resistance, every royal right that stood in the way of his receiving the full support of his parliament, at least had the merit of keeping Edward in general touch with his estates.  The wanton breaches of good faith, by which he sometimes strove to win back what he had lightly conceded, were regarded as efforts to save the sovereign’s dignity, rather than as insidious attempts to restore the prerogative.  Unjust as was the very basis of his French pretensions, they were backed up by a show of legal claim that satisfied the conscience of king and subject, and to contemporaries Edward seemed a king regardful of his honour and mindful of his plighted word.  If his generosity verged on extravagance, and his affectation of popular manners and graciousness on unreality, Englishmen of the fourteenth century were no severe critics of a crowned king.  It was only when in his later years Edward laid aside the soldier’s life, and abandoned himself to the frivolous distractions and degrading amours[2] which provoked the censure even of his admirers, that the self-indulgent traits inherited from his unhappy father stood revealed.

[1] The Speculum regis Edwardi (ed.  Moisant) was written before 1333, and the attribution of its composition to Archbishop Islip and the inferences drawn in Stubbs’ Const.  Hist., ii., 394, are therefore unwarranted; see Professor Tait’s note in Engl.  Hist.  Review, xvi. (1901), 110-15.

    [2] Chron.  Anglia, 1328-1388, p. 401.

Edward was before all things a soldier.  He was not only the consummate knight, the mirror of chivalry, but a capable tactician with a general’s eye that took in the essential points of the situation at a glance.  His restless energy ensured the rapidity of movement and alertness of action which won him many a triumph over less mobile and less highly trained antagonists; while they inspired his followers with faith in their cause and with the courage which succeeds against desperate odds.  Yet the victor of Crecy cannot be numbered among the consummate generals