Edward I was not a pleasant character as a result of his notoriously terrible temper and violent personality. On a positive note, he might have created the world’s first clean air act.
Until the 12th century people in London had burnt wood for fuel. However, as the city’s population grew and the forests shrank, wood became scarce and increasingly expensive. Coal was then used for fuel.
Coal was plentiful on the northeast coast of England and the the sea-coal found there was cheap. The problem was that burning this coal gave off little heat but produced clouds of vile, sulphurous smoke; this meant that more coal was burnt, creating even thicker smoke. When the smoke combined with natural fog it often settled as a dense smog over the city for days.
For Edward I this brought a family problem. His mother, Eleanor of Provence, became so ill from the smoke surrounding her castle at Nottingham that she fled the town. It was 710 years ago, in 1306, that Edward passed legislation banning the burning of sea-coal, backed by a group of prominent noblemen and clerics. By act of parliament, anyone who sold and burnt the outlawed coal could be punished by torture or hanging. Despite the king’s commands and the dire penalties, the law was widely ignored. One offender was seized and executed, yet people continued burning coal. The king could not execute his whole kingdom and so the law became redundant.
Further monarchs attempted to ban the burning of coal, including Richard II and Henry V, whose palace at Westminster was permeated by the smell. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I the nobility objected strongly to the use of coal and well-bred ladies would not even enter rooms where coal had been burnt. The queen was also reported to be “greatly grieved and annoyed with the taste and smoke of sea-coales”, and “noiyssome smells” and tried to get it banned, again without success.