The wanton breaches of good faith, by
which he sometimes strove to win back what he had lightly conceded, were
regarded as efforts to save the sovereign's dignity, rather than as
insidious attempts to restore the prerogative. Unjust as was the very
basis of his French pretensions, they were backed up by a show of legal
claim that satisfied the conscience of king and subject, and to
contemporaries Edward seemed a king regardful of his honour and mindful
of his plighted word. If his generosity verged on extravagance, and his
affectation of popular manners and graciousness on unreality, Englishmen
of the fourteenth century were no severe critics of a crowned king. It
was only when in his later years Edward laid aside the soldier's life,
and abandoned himself to the frivolous distractions and degrading
amours[2] which provoked the censure even of his admirers, that the
self-indulgent traits inherited from his unhappy father stood revealed.
[1] The _Speculum regis Edwardi_ (ed. Moisant) was written
before 1333, and the attribution of its composition to
Archbishop Islip and the inferences drawn in Stubbs' _Const.
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