responsibil that the king can do no wrong. 1228. with him around the king were also during the minority appointed with its consent and approval. From the great council the earl Marshall received his appointment as "rector regis et regni" in 1216,1 and Ralf Neville the chancellorship in 1226.2 It is therefore probable that to the minority of Ministerial Henry can be traced the beginnings of the constitutional doc- ity, and the trine that the king can do no wrong, and that the ministers doctrine who advise him are responsible to the assembled representatives of the nation who have a consultative voice in their appointment.3 Years, however, elapsed, after Henry's formal emancipation in 1227, before he actually attempted to govern alone. For five years more the real direction of affairs continues in the hands of the justiciar Hubert, who is for a time aided in the difficult task of preserving peace at home and abroad, and in governing England in the interest of the English, by the patriot primate, who died in July, 1228.4 After Langton Langton's death Hubert found himself too weak to stand dies in July, alone against the tide of papal aggression which now began to press upon the realm. Hubert's supposed connection 5 with an organized popular opposition to the collection of a tax imposed for the aid of Gregory IX. in his war with the emperor broke his power with the king, whose dominant impulse was his devotion to the papacy, and led at last to his dismissal in July, 1232.7 After the fall of Hubert, his old rival, Peter des Roches, regained the royal confidence, and Peter des became for a time dominant in the king's councils. But his Roches. power was short-lived. In April, 1234, the king commanded Bishop Peter to confine himself to his spiritual duties; 8 from that time the personal government of the king really begins. Henry, who held with his father that the will of the prince Henry's personal was the law of the land, now attempted to enforce his per- pers sonal rule, unrestrained by the influence of the great ministers of state who had carried on the work of administration since the days of his grandfather, Henry of Anjou. The first 1 W. Coventry, ii. p. 233. 2 M. Paris, pp. 316, 430. 8 Upon this whole subject, see Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. ii. pp. 40, 41, 255-266. M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 302, R. S. 5 Ann. Dunst., p. 129. 6 M. Paris, pp. 335, 361; Ann. Burton, p. 245; Ann. Waverley, p. 305. 7 For the charges brought against Hubert, see M. Paris, p. 377. 8 M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 366, R. S. "Præcepit Petro, Wintoniensi episcopo, ut pergens ad episcopatum suum curis intenderet animarum, et de cetero regiis negotiis non interesset." The justi comes sim ciar be ply the head of a law court. fluences at work. step was to abolish the ancient dignity and power of the justiciar. With the fall of Hubert de Burgh1 the line of great justiciars comes to an end: henceforth the justiciar becomes simply the head of a law court; he is no longer "secundus a rege." Henry's policy was to reduce the dignity and importance of the justiciar, and at the same time to distribute all the other great offices of state among trained administrators wholly dependent upon his personal will. In spite, however, of the king's lofty assumptions, the actual direction of affairs Foreign in soon passed into the hands of the brood of foreign favorites who followed in the train of Eleanor of Provence, to whom he was married in 1236,2 and to the Poictevin kinsmen of the queen mother who came in 1243.3 And about the same time still another and more potent foreign influence was introduced into the personal government of the king. The one power which Henry admitted to be superior to his own was the power of the papacy, whose influence upon English affairs was formally renewed by the arrival in 1237 of the legate Otho, who came upon Henry's secret invitation to carry out projected reforms in church and state. Out of the pressure of the king's personal rule as directed by the interests of the foreign favorites, and by the exactions of the papal court,5 arose that bitter conflict between the English church and nation on the one hand, and the royal and papal authority on the other, which finally resulted, in Henry's latter days, in an open appeal to arms. The dreary waste of years that interchurch and venes between the beginning and the end of the conflict is filled up with endless details which illustrate the growth of the royal and papal exactions on the one hand and the rising spirit of resistance on the other. The history of the conflict can be most clearly traced in the proceedings of the parlia ments which meet to listen to demands for money from pope Conflict be tween the crown and papacy on the one side and the English nation on the other. 1 "Robert Burnell was the first great 2 M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 385, R. S. 4 "Ad reformandum statum ecclesiæ et regni."― M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 398, R. S. 5 Lingard, with his usual frankness, admits that "the history of Henry's transactions with the court of Rome discloses to us a long course of oppression, under which the English clergy, by the united influence of the crown and the tiara, were compelled to submit to the most grievous exactions.". Hist. of England, vol. ii. p. 99. authorized tary debate, form of or king, and, in turn, to concede or reject them. In the proceedings of the parliament of 1242, which were duly recorded Earliest and which survive as the earliest authorized report of a par- report of a liamentary debate,1 we find the representatives of the nation, parliamenafter thoroughly discussing the expediency of a foreign war, 1242. bold enough to oppose it by refusing an aid to the king to carry it on. To the parliament of 1244 the king was forced to appeal with his own mouth for aid out of the difficulties in which he had become involved by attempting to carry on war after a grant had been denied him. To this appeal upon the part of the king the parliament replied that they would grant him no money unless he would first assent to a definite plan The proof reform which contemplated, among other things, the confir- posed remation of the charters, the election by the national assembly 1244. of a justiciar, chancellor, and treasurer, and the establishment of a permanent council which should attend upon him and supervise his administration.2 This demand, though not accepted at the time, defined the basis of later reforms; it foreshadowed the practical expedients which were afterwards employed to force upon the king a faithful observance of the principles which the charter defined. From 1244 to 1254 From 1244 the contest is continuous. The effort upon the part of the king is to obtain from the parliament without conditions money enough to supply his ever-increasing wants; the effort upon the part of the nation is to secure the appointment of the great officers of state in order to control through them the king's improvident administration. To the parliament of 1254-which was convened by the regents for the purpose of obtaining an aid for the king, who was absent on an expedition to Gascony the chosen knights from the Knights of shires are summoned for the first time since the reign of John. The grant which the regents asked was made and the parlia wasted, and at the end of the year the king returned to 1254. 1 M. Paris, pp. 581, 582; Select Charters, p. 368, 2d ed. 2 M. Paris, pp. 640, 641. As to the connection of Simon of Montfort with the joint committee of bishops and barons that drew up the reply to the demand of the king, see Green, Hist. Eng. People, vol. i. p. 275. 3 Report on the Dignity of a Peer, App. i. p. 13, and also vol. i. pp. 94, 95. The Committee say that "it seems to to 1254. the shire reappear in ment of of the become involved in fresh complications. While in Gascony Henry had accepted from his papal overlord, for his second son Edmund, an offer of the Sicilian crown, which was regarded as a papal fief, upon the pledge that England would send an army across the Alps, and also repay the sums which the pope was then borrowing to carry on his war with the house Disclosure of Hohenstaufen.1 In 1257 the pope presented his account king's debts to Henry, showing an indebtedness of 135,000 marks, which was duly laid before the parliament.2 The crisis had now come. The king was so helplessly in debt, and the administration of the kingdom was in such hopeless disorder, that the fact was apparent to all that the point had at last been reached at which it was necessary for the parliament to place the royal authority in commission, and to provide through its own agents for the future government of the state. to the par liament of 1257. The Bar 1258-1272. Simon of The work of reorganizing the system of central adminisons' War, tration which Henry's personal misrule had completely broken down, of freeing the nation from the presence and influence of the foreign favorites whom he had quartered on the crown, and of checking the aggressions of the papal power, naturally devolved upon the barons, who were now aroused to a definite plan of action under the leadership of the great Earl of Leicester, Simon of Montfort. In a parliament which met at London in April, 1258, the king in his helplessness agreed to put himself in the hands of the barons, and to submit himself to a definite plan of reform which they were to unfold in a parliament to be held at Oxford on the 11th of June. At the time appointed, the baronage appeared in arms under the leadership of Leicester and Gloucester, and presented a petition embodying the reforms which they had resolved to carry out. In accordance with the agreement 1 Fœdera, i. pp. 297, 301, 316, 318, 2 Fadera, i. p. 354; M. Paris, p. 946; 8 "It was calculated that since his wasteful days began, he had thrown away 950,000 marks.". Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 71, citing M. Paris, p. 948. 4 The best sketch of the whole career of Earl Simon is perhaps that one contained in Dr. R. Pauli's monograph entitled Simon von Montfort Graf von Leicester, der Schöpfer des Manses der Gemeinen. Trans. by Una M. Goodwin, with introduction by H. Martineau, London, 1876. See, also, Blaauw's Barons' War. 6 M. Paris, pp. 963, 968; Ann. Theokesb., p. 164; Fadera, i. pp. 370, 371 6 M. Paris, p. 970; Pauli, p. 91; Lords' Report, vol. i. p. 126. 7 For the petition of the barons, see Ann. Burton, pp. 339-443. 1258. made at London in April,1 a committee of twenty-four were elected, half by the king and half by the barons, who drew up the articles generally known as the Provisions of Oxford.2 Provisions Under the terms of the Provisions, the royal authority was of Oxford, placed under the control of three committees, who were charged with the task of reforming the entire administration. A council of fifteen were elected by four of the original twenty-four to advise the king in all ordinary matters of government; another committee of twenty-four were appointed to deal only with the negotiation of financial aids;3 a third committee of twelve were chosen by the barons to represent the community in three annual parliaments: while to the original committee of twenty-four was committed the reformation of the church. It was provided that parliament should convene thrice in the year, and that in each parliament the permanent council of fifteen should meet with the body of twelve to be chosen by the barons, to discuss the common business of the whole community. Hugh Bigod, the adherent of both of the baronial leaders, was chosen justiciar; and justiciar, chancellor, and the guardians of the king's castles were sworn to act only with the advice of the permanent council. The provisional government, which went into operation in June, promptly expelled the foreigners, but the work of reform which it undertook to carry out proceeded so slowly that the knighthood openly complained that, while the barons had looked after their own interests, they had kept none of their promises. The result of this outcry was the Provisions additional provisions known as the Provisions of Westmin- minster, ster, which were published in Latin and French in October, 1259. 1 For the king's consent to the scheme of reform, and to the election of the twenty-four, see Fœdera, i. pp. 370, 371. 2 Ann. Burton, pp. 446-453. Upon the whole subject, see Select Charters, pp. 378-400, 2d ed. See, also, Mr. Luard's translation of the Ann. Burton, pp. 501-505. 3 Ann. Burton, p. 450. 4 Ibid., p. 449. 5 Ibid., p. 480. "The complexity of such an arrangement was relieved by the fact that the members of each of these committees were in great part the same persons."-Green, Hist. of the 6 With the further provision "that 7 Ann. Burton, pp. 447-449. A proclamation, the first in the English tongue since the Conquest, was issued by the king commanding the observance of the Provisions. - Fadera, i. p. 378. 8 "Communitas bacheleriæ Angliæ." – Ann. Burton, p. 471; Pauli, pp. 95 of West |