Edward, King of England, eldest son of Henry the Third by Eleanor, daughter of the Count of Provence, had completed thirty-three years and five months of his life on the day when he succeeded his deceased father on the throne. He was a man of experience and prudence in affairs, devoted from boyhood to the exercise of arms, in which in different parts he had gained such fame as a warrior that he easily excelled the Princes of his time throughout the whole Christian world. In build he was elegant and of commanding stature, towering head and shoulders above the people; his hair, which in boyhood turned from a colour wellnigh silver to yellow, and in youth became black, beautified his old age with its snowy whiteness. His forehead, like the rest of his face, was broad, though the drooping of the left eyelid recalled his father's expression. He spoke with a lisp, but yet did not lack a ready power of persuasion in argument. His arms were supple, in proportion to his body, and supremely fitted in the strength of their sinews for the use of the sword. His girth was greatest round the chest. The length of his lower limbs enabled him to keep a firm seat in riding and leaping with spirited horses. When not engaged in feats of arms, Edward indulged in hawking and hunting, especially the hunting of deer, which he used to pursue on a fleet racehorse, and when he had come up with them, to pierce with a sword instead of a hunting-spear.... In spirit he was magnanimous, intolerant of insult, and apt to forget the presence of danger in his desire for revenge, though his passions cooled easily on the culprit showing sorrow at his presumption. For example, when on one occasion he was engaged in the sport of falconry near a riverbank, he reproved one of his companions for carelessness regarding a falcon which had caught a duck amidst the willows; but the other, seeing that there was neither bridge nor ford near, lightly replied "that it was sufficient for him to have the river between them"; whereat the King's son, exasperated, entered the water on his horse, though he knew not the depth, forced the animal to swim across, and, ascending with difficulty the steep opposite bank, hollowed out by the rush of the waters, drew his sword and pursued his companion, who had now mounted and ridden off. Finally, the latter, giving up all hope of escape, wheeled his horse round, bared his head, and offered his neck to Edward's will. The King's son, however, softened by this surrender, replaced his sword in its sheath, and the two returned together peacefully, to attend to the needs of the abandoned falcon. THE ACQUISITION OF WALES (1277). +Source.+--_Matthew of Westminster_, vol. ii., pp. 471-472. (Bohn's Libraries.)