f his people by his bravery,
justice, and good government. He joined freely in the national sports
and pastimes, and kept the Christmas festival with great splendour.
There was much of the chivalric in his character, and he shared to the
full his people's love of hard fighting. He was invested with the
honour of knighthood and went to foreign courts to display his
prowess. Matthew of Westminster states that while Edward was
travelling in France, he heard that a lord of Burgundy was continually
committing outrages on the persons and property of his neighbours. In
the true spirit of chivalry Edward attacked the castle of the
uncourteous baron. His prowess asserted the cause of justice, and he
bestowed the domains which he had won upon a nobler lord. For the sake
of acquiring military fame he exposed himself to great dangers in the
Holy Land, and, during his journey homeward, saved his life by sheer
fighting in a tournament at Challon. At his "Round Table of
Kenilworth" a hundred lords and ladies "clad all in silk" renewed the
faded glories of Arthur's Court, and kept Christmas with great
magnificence. In 1277, Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, bidden from his
mountain fastnesses "with a kiss of peace," sat a guest at the
Christmas feast of Edward, but he was soon to fall the last defender
of his weeping country's independence in unequal battle with the
English King. In 1281-2, Edward kept his feast of Christmas at
Worcester, and there was "such a frost and snow as no man living could
remember the like." Rivers were frozen over, even including the Thames
and Severn; fish in ponds, and birds in woods died for want of food;
and on the breaking up of the ice five of the arches of old London
bridge were carried away by the stream, and the like happened to many
other bridges. In 1286 Edward kept his Christmas at Oxford, but the
honour was accompanied by an unpleasant episode in the hanging of the
Mayor by the King's command. In 1290, 1292, and 1303, Edward the
First kept Royal Christmases in the great hall at Westminster. On
his way to Scotland, in the year 1299, the King witnessed the
Christmas ceremonial of the Boy Bishop. He permitted one of the
boy bishops to say vespers before him in his chapel at Heton, near
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and made a present to the performers of forty
shillings, no inconsiderable sum in those days. During his Scotch
wars, in 1301, Edward, on the approach of winter, took up his quarters
in Linlithgow, wher