Provisions of Oxford
Like the earlier Magna Carta, the Provisions of Oxford demonstrated the ability of the barons to press their concerns in opposition to the English monarchy.
After the death of Marshal, the government was led by a succession of chief ministers, first Hubert de Burgh (1219–1232) and then Peter des Roches (1232–1234).
[2] Appointing ministers was traditionally a royal prerogative, but a precedent had been established by Henry's regency government of seeking the consent of Parliament.
[3] With their links to the magnates and established traditions and procedures, the great offices had functioned as a check on royal power.
With the great seal in Henry's custody, "the king was relieved of all constraint save such as the more elastic methods of his domestic clerks might impose".
[5] There was also opposition to the King's demands for taxation to pay off his debts and to the so-called Sicilian business, Henry's unrealistic plans to conquer the Kingdom of Sicily for his second son, Edmund Crouchback.
[6][7] In the spring of 1258, Henry sought financial aid from Parliament and was confronted by a group of barons who insisted on reforms.
The new justiciar would be an ex officio member of the king's council and have authority over the judiciary, including the right to hear appeals from all other courts, whether royal or baronial.
According to historian George Sayles, "[t]his was a most serious departure from previous practice, for it placed at the head of the judiciary a minister virtually independent of the king.
[20] A written confirmation of the agreement was sent to the sheriffs of all the counties of England in three languages:[21][page needed] Latin, French and, significantly, Middle English.
[24] The Provisions of Oxford were overthrown by Henry, helped by a papal bull, in 1261, seeding the start of the Second Barons' War (1263–1267).
The king was defeated at the Battle of Lewes in 1264, and Simon de Montfort became the real ruler of England for the next twelve months.
The Parliament held in June 1264 approved the appointment of three electors (Montfort; Stephen Bersted, Bishop of Chichester; and Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester).
[25] Ultimately, the war was won by the king and his royalist supporters, and the Provisions of Oxford were annulled for the last time in 1266 by the Dictum of Kenilworth.
Legal scholar Ann Lyon reflected that the provisions "have the feel, as with many of the first fumblings towards constitutional change which occur in the medieval period, and indeed much later, of being incompletely thought through.
