Her own people had no time for him, seeing only a despot and conqueror who betrayed his own chivalrous ideals with acts of cruelty and barbarism. But the English had a different view of their ultimate liege-lord. They regarded him as a great war-leader, but also as a font of justice. Any man, it was said, no matter how base, could approach King Edward and beseech him person-to-person. The king had reformed the entire legal system in England in favour of the lower classes. He'd installed a parlement at Westminster as a permanent institution. Clearly there were huge contradictions in his character. He was a pious Christian who'd already ridden on crusade once and apparently planned to do so again. He regularly sought diplomatic solutions to international crises; in the 1280s he was known as 'the peace-maker of Europe'. But he notoriously detested the enemies of his countrymen, and when he waged war against them it was a ghastly form of total war, designed to terrorise their populace into subservience.
