What was left of the reign of Henry III, already stretched beyond its time, is all but negligible. The position of Simon de Montfort was too favorable to keep him clear of jealous rivals. War speedily started up again and in an early battle, that of Evesham, the great earl was slain. Two years thereafter, the royalist party managed to get the upper hand and the war came to an end. Henry was wise enough, or old enough, not to tempt Providence; he continued his reign according to the dictates of law and of good policy. By the statute of Marlborough in 1267 were granted most of the measures of reform which had been demanded nine years previously in the Mad Parliament of Oxford. With the affairs of state running thus smoothly, Henry moved tranquilly down the long slope of his last years.
In October, 1269, there occurred an incident which, if indeed the report be well founded, sums up the attainments of his reign. Henry brought together a great assembly in honor of Saint Edward, an assembly of magnates lay and clerical, and likewise numbering certain representatives of the cities and boroughs.[122] After the conclusion of the ceremony, Henry convened the barons as a Parliament, and received from it a grant of a twentieth of lay movables. Whether or not the burgesses and citizens participated in the offering to the king is unknown. But if that be the truth, enveloped as it is in the mist, then we can see the newly-made legislators actually participating in the most important of legislative functions, and we are assured that the work of Simon de Montfort had indeed borne early fruit.
IV
LAW OF PARLIAMENTARY TAXATION
1272-1297
Henry died the 16th November, 1272, with his son, the great Edward, away on the crusade. But there was no question as to the succession; the most powerful of the barons swore fealty to Edward Edward I, 1272-1307 four days after his father’s death, and when he returned to England in the middle of 1274, he was crowned King of England. In the interim, the government was in the hands of the Archbishop of York; the barons still resting after their struggle with Henry III engaged in no warfare other than their usual petty tumults. The regular income of the crown sufficed for the expenses of government.
The young king whose way to the throne was thus paved for him, was one of the greatest, if indeed he was not in truth the greatest, figure which ever graced the English throne. He is credited with being a lover of truth and purity, honorable and contented with frugal living; he was wary and at the same time determined; an able councillor, ingenious in working out the details of a plan, he was yet most sure in accomplishment. Edward was by instinct a legislator, and equally instinctive was his love of arbitrary power. Yet his wisdom kept him short of tyranny and showed him that the fittest means of conserving his own advantage was to allow Parliament reasonable leeway and scrupulously to regard the forms of its enactments. Edward was, however, capable of utilizing the letter of the law to the prejudice of its spirit. And therein lay the chief defect in his generally ascribed character of perfect monarch; he was not above using the law to contravene the purposes for which the law itself was designed.
Representation, which had “ripened in the hand of Simon de Montfort,” Edward I made the common fruit of the people. Edward had the conception that the nation, if it be strong enough to live in the face of dangers, must act as the united backing of a strong king. The relation, as he intended it, between king and people is reciprocal; the strength of the one is the strength of the other, and neither must predominate. That was precisely the relation which such a Parliament as that called by Edward I in 1295, was capable of bringing about; in it each of the three estates had an essential share in the carrying on of the government.
The early part of his reign is of importance secondary to that of the decade ending with 1297. But an understanding of the supremely important crisis which brought about the Confirmation of the Charters is only to be built upon a knowledge of the various events which preceded it.