itations were imposed that restricted the barons « arbitrary treatment of the knights, measures were introduced to consolidate the positions of the merchants and knights in their commercial activities, of the towns, foreign merchants, etc.insisting on the freedom of merchants from arbitrary taxation the Charter marked the alliance between the barons and the citizens of London, but it excluded from any benefit the overwhelming mass of the people who were still in the villeinage.Henry III the barons and bishops had grounds to protest against the way the king violated the stipulations of the Charter. The knights and the top of the burgesses, the petty and middle clergy also showed their dissatisfaction. So the feudal magnates met in Oxford in 1258 to work out a new system of governing the state. Since they were armed, and accompanied by armed knights, the sort of parliament speeches that were heard, made the gathering a wild parliament indeed. But the complex system of state machinery they devised (Oxford provisions) implied only unlimited baronial power and left the knights stranded, so the Westminster provisions devised by the knights, in their turn, limited the barons » privileges with reference to their vassals. When a number of barons agreed to that, a compromise was achieved between those strata of the ruling class. It found political expression in the Parliament that Simon de Montfort convened in 1265. It included two barons from each county and two townsmen from each town. It was the beginning of the division of the English Parliament into two houses: the House of Lords (the upper chamber, composed of the representatives of aristocracy and the Church) and the House of Commons (the lower chamber, composed of the representatives of common people). For a long time, the upper chamber had more power, but with the decline of feudalism the influence of the House of Commons was growing. When Simon de Montfort and his army were defeated and Henry III reassumed power, both he and his son Edward I convened Parliament in the pre-Montfort baronial form but in 1295 Edward had to include the wider representation of knights and burgesses which confirmed the status of England as feudal monarchy with class representation.the course of the 14 th century Parliament split into two houses. The development of Parliament at this time showed the beginnings of a new relationship between the middle class and the king. The alliance between esquires and merchants made Parliament more powerful, and separated the Commons more and more from the Lords. During the Tudor period (1485-1603) the changes in government, society and the economy of England were more far-reaching than they had been for centuries. The Tudor monarchs did not like governing through Parliament. Henry VII had used Parliament only for law making. Tudor monarchs were certainly not more democratic than earlier kings, but by using Parliament to strengthen their policy, they actually increased Parliament «s authority. In the early 16 th century Parliament only met when the monarch ordered it. Sometimes it met twice in one year, but then it might not meet again for six years. In the first forty-four years of Tudor rule Parliament met only twenty times. During the century power moved from the House of Lords to the House of Commons. The reason for this was simple. The Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Commons represented richer and more influential classes than the Lords. Un...
