Editing Robert Burnell (section)

==Foreign service==
Burnell was active in the king's foreign policy, especially towards France, Scotland and Wales, and undertook a number of diplomatic missions to those countries. Burnell served as the royal spokesman on several of these occasions, one of them being at Paris in 1286 when he made a speech detailing the history of English–French relations since the [[Treaty of Paris (1259)|Treaty of Paris of 1259]]. The speech was a prelude to discussions, successfully concluded, involving the [[Homage (feudal)|homage]] that Edward owed to King [[Philip IV of France]], for Edward's land in France.<ref name=Edward323>Prestwich ''Edward I'' p. 323</ref> Burnell was employed in Gascony during the late 1280s, helping to administer that duchy and to reorganise its government. He showed himself sensitive to the Gascon desire for independence and did not attempt to impose the same systems of government that were used in England. The historian [[Michael Prestwich]] therefore argues that the first half of Edward's reign was the period when Gascony enjoyed its most successful government under the [[House of Plantagenet|Plantagenet]]s.<ref name=Edward311>Prestwich ''Edward I'' p. 311</ref> Later, in June 1291, Burnell gave two speeches at the great council of English and [[Peerage of Scotland|Scottish nobles]] in [[Norham]] to decide the succession to the Scottish crown. Edward had been asked to mediate an end to the crisis over the succession, or the [[Competitors for the Crown of Scotland|Great Cause]] as it was known in England.<ref name=Edward365>Prestwich ''Edward I'' p. 365</ref>

In Welsh affairs, Burnell attended a number of councils dealing with [[Llywelyn ap Gruffudd]], Prince of Wales, and in 1277 he escorted Llywelyn to Westminster, where Llywelyn pledged homage to Edward. Burnell was present during Edward's [[Wales in the Late Middle Ages|conquest of Wales]] in the 1280s; he witnessed documents in Rhuddlan in 1282, and subsequently at Conwy and Caernarfon.<ref name=DNB/>

Sometime before 1290 Burnell vowed to go on crusade to help reinforce the crusader city of [[Acre, Israel|Acre]], which was threatened by Muslims in the late 1280s, but he never fulfilled his obligation.<ref name=Tyerman236>Tyerman ''England and the Crusades'' p. 236</ref>