Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 26.djvu/18

 outlines have been preserved to our own day. It was through his “constitutions” and his “assizes” that it came to pass that all over the world the English-speaking races are governed by English and not by Roman law. It was by his genius for government that the servants of the royal household became transformed into ministers of state. It was he who gave England a foreign policy which decided our continental relations for seven hundred years.’ ‘Indirectly and unconsciously, his policy did more than that of all his predecessors to prepare England for the unity and freedom which the fall of his house was to reveal.’



HENRY III (1207–1272), called, king of England, elder son of [q. v.] by his queen [q. v.] of Angoulême, was born at Winchester on 1 Oct. 1207, and was named after his grandfather, Henry II (, iii. 219; Ann. Winton. p. 80). In 1209 his father caused an oath of fealty to be taken to him throughout England. When John lay on his deathbed at Newark in October 1216 he again declared him his heir, and all present took an oath to him. John's death on the 18th completely changed the position of the two contending parties in England [see under, king]. The king's adherents may be said to have become the constitutional party, while the barons of the opposition ceased to appear as the upholders of the national cause against an intolerable tyrant, and were committed to an attempt to deprive an innocent child of his inheritance, and to place a foreign prince, Louis of France, on the throne. A similar change was effected