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Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England, episode 99, year one of a hundred.

Lastly, we've got to the point where Edward had suffered something of the fickleness of the

Goddess Fortuna with his Scottish Wars. What had looked like a complete and incontrovertible

victory had turned into a hard slog. This week, let's look at how trouble in the north

turned into over a hundred years of war across the channel. But before we get onto that,

the main point of today's podcast, I'm going to surprise and delight you all with a look at the

administrative setup under Edward, and have a quick run over the main offices of state.

Partly, just because I want to, it's my podcast, and I'll bore the life out of you if I want to.

Secondly, because there's a slim chance you are wondering how much things have changed,

and thirdly, to finish the story of the early and mid-thirteen-thirties. Because another point

I would like to make about much, if not all, of Edward's first ten years,

is that really very little happens by way of administrative reform on development.

He's interested in war, glory, and women with silver chains, really not adjusting the

administrative balance and its functions. Once again, war would then prove to be an agent for change.

He'd begin to engage with this once he'd ended up needing to squeeze more money out of the

state machinery in order to pursue his wars. So let's start with a very brief summary of the

main bodies of government at the time. I want you to think about three main groups.

Number one, administrative. Number two, financial, and number three, legal.

Starting with administration, then, the most important department was the chancery, run

...