Henry III died on November 16, 1272, and Edward I—then on crusade in the Holy Land—was proclaimed king in absentia by the barons of England, an unusual arrangement that reflected growing confidence in orderly succession. Edward would not return to England for nearly two years, ruling by proxy through his council. His reign later brought sweeping legal reforms and the conquest of Wales.
When Henry III died at Westminster on November 16, 1272, his eldest son Edward was thousands of miles away, fighting on the Ninth Crusade near Acre. Rather than plunging into the succession crises that had plagued earlier English transitions, the barons and officials of the realm simply proclaimed Edward king on the spot, dating his reign from his father's death rather than from any coronation. It was the first time an English monarch's reign began this way, a quiet sign that the machinery of government had grown sturdy enough to function without a king physically present.
Edward, nicknamed 'Longshanks' for his height, did not hurry home. He toured Sicily, France, and Gascony, tending to political business and grieving his young son Henry, who died during the journey, before finally landing in England in August 1274. His coronation at Westminster Abbey was a lavish affair; legend holds that the fountains ran with wine. He would go on to hammer Wales into submission, expel the Jews from England in 1290, and earn the epithet 'Hammer of the Scots' for his brutal campaigns against William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.