The Great Council at Oxford, June 1258
1King Henry III, the son of King John, has called his great council of barons and bishops to Oxford. People have begun to call such a meeting a parliament. Henry has promised the pope a huge sum of money to win the crown of Sicily for his younger son, and he needs the barons to agree to a tax. Many barons have arrived armed.
2Sir Hugh of Ashby, a baron, speaks first. "When this king reissued the Great Charter in 1225, the kingdom granted him a tax in return. That is our custom: the king asks, and the kingdom agrees. Yet he made his promise to the pope without asking this council. The charter also says that no free man may lose his land except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. One of the king's own judges has written that the king must be under God and under the law, because the law makes the king. I propose that a council of fifteen advise the king, and that parliament meet three times a year."
3Master Walter, a royal councillor, answers. "The king's power comes from God and from his crowning. Subjects cannot bind their lord with oaths of their own making. And justice in England does not depend on barons. The king's judges travel from county to county and decide cases by the common law of the whole realm. Any free man may buy a writ, a written royal order, to bring his case before them. A council of fifteen barons would turn the king into a puppet, and barons quarrel among themselves."
4The barons won that day. Henry swore to accept the Provisions of Oxford: a council of fifteen would advise him, and parliament would meet three times a year. In 1261, however, the pope released Henry from his oath, and in 1264 war broke out between the king and the barons. In 1265 the rebel baron Simon de Montfort called a parliament that included knights and townsmen. Later kings called parliaments of nobles, knights and townsmen again and again, mostly when they needed taxes.