ABSTRACT
The personal antipathies and rival interests of great men dictated the course of events through most of the long, sad reign of Edward II. Nevertheless, issues of general importance to the people at large were all the time involved. As we have seen, Edward II’s difficulties had their origins in the later years of his father’s reign, when the king and his magnates were divided on issues that were far from being merely personal. Two crucial problems were directly raised by the troubles of that time, the limit of the king’s prerogative power, and the means of redress available to the subject against oppressive acts of the king and his officials. The second of these problems was bound to raise sooner or later a third issue, the question of the subject’s right, in extreme circumstances, to resist the king’s government. The events of the early years of Edward II brought this third issue squarely into the foreground. The period from 1290 to 1330 was in consequence a most important one in constitutional as well as political history.
