C H A L L E N G I N G R O YA L A U T H O R I T Y
AF TER
Map of Britain
The 13th-century Benedictine monk Matthew Paris
compiled a series of chronicles covering the history
of England in the 1240s and 1250s. His works include
maps, such as this representation of the British Isles.
Civil war erupted as an assembly of
barons declared John deposed and
invited Louis, son of King Philip II of
France, to take over the English throne.
The French prince arrived in Kent in
May 1216, and he and the rebel barons
soon controlled the whole of southeast
England. When John died in October
1216 and his nine-year-old son,
Henry III, succeeded him, it looked
as though the triumph of the rebels
would be complete. The young King
was supported by a group of loyalists
led by William Marshall, Earl of
Pembroke. Marshall secured the
support of the papal legate Guala
Bicchieri and won crucial victories at
Lincoln in May 1217, and at Dover
in August. The barons’ enthusiasm
for rebellion evaporated and a formal
peace was signed in November.
Henry’s regency council acted quickly
to restore royal authority, as the barons
had seized much royal land and the
King’s revenues had collapsed. Under
Marshall’s direction, justices were sent
to the localities to hear all pleas, in the
most comprehensive display of royal
authority since 1176. As a sop to the
barons, the terms of Magna Carta were
reaffirmed in 1216, and again in 1217.
The reign of Henry III
After Henry was declared of age in
1223, and especially after his marriage
to Eleanor of Provence in 1236, he
came to depend on foreign advisors.
The barons, feeling excluded, began
to chafe once more.
Meanwhile, with little sign of the
success in France he craved, Henry
sought prestigious ventures elsewhere,
and in 1255, had his son Edmund
appointed titular King of Sicily by
the Pope. The price that the papacy
demanded for this was exorbitant and
the King was forced into new measures
to raise funds. One means of doing this
was increasing the amount local sheriffs
were expected to exact from their
counties. The sum had increased by
£2,500 in 1258 compared to the start of
his reign and it is no coincidence that
Robin Hood stories started to circulate
during Henry’s reign. The King also
turned to Parliament, the assembly of
barons and advisers that had replaced
the role of the Anglo-Saxon witangemot.
The barons were not cooperative,
£40,000 The sum spent by
Henry III in building
a shrine to Edward the Confessor at
Westminster Abbey—the equivalent of
two years’ revenue.
“You English want to hurl me
from my throne as you did
my father.”
MATTHEW PARIS, QUOTING HENRY III IN CHRONICA MAJORA, .1260
however, and of the 14 assemblies
where Henry asked for new taxation
between 1232 and 1257, Parliament
refused it on 12 occasions.
Growing opposition
The demands of payment for Edmund’s
elevation to the Kingdom of Sicily were
the last straw and on April 12, 1258,
seven magnates took an oath to stand
by each other in opposition to royal
oppression. They included Richard de
Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and Roger
Bigod, Earl of Norfolk. The man who
emerged as their leader was Simon de
Montfort, a former protégé of Henry’s.
By the end of April, many other barons
and knights had taken the oath and on
May 2, Henry was forced to agree to
their demands for radical change.
The Provisions of Oxford covered a
wide range of judicial reforms and
established a council of 15 persons
to administer their implementation.
They were formalized by the Provisions
of Westminster in 1259.
Having agreed, Henry decamped
to France and tried to put off the
reassembly of the Parliament in
February, which in theory could not
take place in his absence. Following the
tactics of his father John, in 1261 Henry
got Pope Alexander to absolve him of
his oath to the barons. With both sides
unwilling to yield, Henry managed to
persuade de Montfort to agree to
The growing complexity of royal
administration and the need to raise money
to pay for it led to an increasing reliance on
Parliament, which was acknowledged as
the only body that could raise the funds.
TAXES AND PARLIAMENT
Henry III died in 1272, and his successor
Edward I summoned at least two Parliaments
every year from 1275–86 to provide funds. He
found new means of taxation, including a levy
on people’s moveable goods, which raised
£117,000 in 1290. In 1297, Edward declared
that a proposed tax had been granted by the
barons of the kingdom, but a group of nobles
denounced this, as no summons to attend
Parliament had gone out to the barons,
knights, and burgesses. Edward had to issue a
Confirmation of the Charters acknowledging
that taxation could only be levied with
Parliament’s approval.
CONSULTING PARLIAMENT
Later kings had to ask Parliament if
they wished to raise taxes, until
Charles I sought to levy taxes
without parliamentary consent
from 1629–40, making use of
archaic royal rights to gather
funds. This was only resolved
by the English Civil War
168–69 ❯❯ and Charles I’s
execution in 1649
170–71 ❯❯.
KING EDWARD I
arbitration by Louis IX of France. At
Amiens in January 1264, the French
King listened to both sides’ cases and
then ignored the barons by declaring
Henry vindicated on all points.
The result was civil war. At Lewes
on May 14, 1264, de Montfort’s forces
crushed the royal army, and Henry III
and Prince Edward were imprisoned.
De Montfort then tried to enlarge his
base of support. He had already
summoned four knights from each
shire to his Parliament of 1264,
widening representation from the
previously dominant baronial class.
In 1265, he summoned burgesses from
the towns as well, so that the London
Parliament resembled for the first time
the later House of Commons.
Prince Edward, however, escaped
from captivity in May 1265 and three
months later, at Evesham, he trapped
de Montfort with a small force. The
baronial leader was killed and the
rebellious barons melted away or were
hunted down. Although their challenge
to the King was temporarily at an end,
Parliament, whose power it had
established, became permanent.
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