tion of the state of the king and the kingdom’ in a different sense. In the
summer of 1258 the barons embarked on ‘great and difficult arrange-
ments’ for the reform of the state of ‘the Lord Edward’s household (de
statu hospicii ipsius) and the household of the lord king’, and the
Provisions of Oxford prescribed thrice-yearly meetings of parliaments
‘to review the state of the realm and to deal with the common needs of
the realm and of the king together’.^38 But in April 1261 Henry obtained
a papal bull absolving himself and others from the oaths they had taken
to the provisions ‘under the pretext of reforming the state of the realm’:
to rational minds it was absurd, said Pope Alexander, that princes, who
were the lords of laws, should be constrained by the will of their
subjects—it was as though a woodsman was turned on by his own
axe.^39 Inevitably, King Louis decided in January 1264 that Henry
should be restored to ‘unbridled authority’ (liberum regimen) and ‘that
same state and fullness of power... that he enjoyed before this time’.^40
In June 1264, after their capture of Henry and Edward at the battle of
Lewes, Simon de Montfort and his allies made one more attempt ad
reformationem status regni Anglie, compelling the king to accept the
advice of a baronial council on the appointment of the justiciar,
chancellor, and treasurer, and of officials great and small ‘for all those
things which concern the government of the court and of the realm
(regimen curie et regni)’. In March 1265 Henry swore for the last time
to observe the peace made with the barons super nostro et regni nostri
statu.^41 In August de Montfort’s defeat and death at the battle of
Evesham brought the baronial attempt to control the king to an end.
The bill revolution and parlement
The inquiries into the abuses of royal officials focused the realm upon
the ruler in a new way and spurred the emergence of the new high courts
called parliaments. Arrangements for the central determination of
causas querelanciumwere included in Frederick II’s constitutio pacisof
1235,^42 but in Germany there were neither the imperial officials in the
localities nor the travelling royal inquisitors to provide the constituent
elements of a judicial system. In France and England, however, the
inquiries of 1247 and 1258 marked a permanent change in the way
justice was administered.
Kings continued to mount special inquests into the conduct of their
administrators. The inquiry of 1261 into the behaviour of Matthew de
160 New High Courts and Reform of the Regime
(^38) Documents of the Baronial Movement, 94–5, 111.
(^39) Ibid.218–19, 236–7, 240–7. (^40) Ibid.288–9.
(^41) Ibid.294–301, 308–9. (^42) See above, p. 97.