Henry III of England

"His life was moral, and he seems to have been a good deal under the influence of his clever and accomplished queen. To Dante, who placed him in the valley where they sat who had been careless of the great reward, and yet had not been unfruitful or evil, he was ‘il Re della simplice vita.’ Nevertheless he was inordinately extravagant, and squandered his subjects' money recklessly in gratifying his private tastes and ambitions, and on his foreign relatives and favourites. Utterly un-English in feeling, he loved to be surrounded by foreigners, and had no sympathy with the tendencies of the nation. His religion was rather that of a Roman than an Englishman, and he did not hesitate to injure the national church by conferring bishoprics and other benefices on foreign adventurers, ignorant of the language of the people, and unfit to be their spiritual guides. Though obstinate, he was infirm of purpose, and no dependence could be placed upon him. The union of pertinacity and weakness in his character rendered him irritable. When crossed or in difficulties he had no self-command, although in ordinary circumstances he was not devoid of wit or courtesy of manner. His nobles did not fear or respect him. Faithful service never won his gratitude; he was incapable of valuing his best and wisest counsellors, and was always ready to believe slanders against them. Physically brave, he was morally a coward, easily frightened, and quick to lean on others for support. Shifty and false, he met open opposition with evasion and secret influence, and the most solemn oaths failed to bind him. He had no talent for administration; in affairs of state he was content with a hand-to-mouth policy, and his campaigns were disgracefully mismanaged. Most of his difficulties were of his own making; some part of them, however, arose from the change which was passing over the spirit of the constitution. If he had been a capable king he might have taken advantage of this state of change, and of the party jealousies and struggles which accompanied it, to found a new despotism. As it was his long reign was a period during which the checks placed on the monarchy in his father's days had time to gather strength, so that when he was succeeded by such an able ruler as Edward I all danger that they might be broken up had passed away."

"Edward I.'s general political outlook was so conservative that his method of choosing his servants differed rather in practice than in theory from that of Henry III. There was, no doubt, all the difference in the world between an orderly mind, loving efficiency and method, and a thriftless, easy-going temperament, desiring chiefly to be surrounded by personal friends and dependents; between the king who was a good Englishman and mainly served by English-born followers, and the king who was surrounded by foreign favourites, both of high and low degree. But father and son shared the same general point of view, the same distrust of the magnates, both in church and state, and the same desire to work through the royal household staff, whose ways were familiar to them through long years of constant intercourse."