How England Bound Its Crown: Parliamentary Documents from 1258 to 1707, and the Irish Treaty of 1921

The Provisions of Oxford of 1258 came out of a dispute between Henry III and his barons. A council of fifteen barons was chosen to advise and control the king and oversee his ministers, and Parliament was to meet three times a year.

Enacted under Edward I and written in Norman French, this is one of the earliest English statutes to survive as originally enacted. It restated common law on free elections, the rights of the church, excessive fines and criminal procedure, and parts of it stayed on the statute book for centuries.

Passed on 7 June 1628, the Petition of Right set out specific protections for individuals against the state. It belongs to the conflict between Parliament and the Stuart monarchy that led to the wars of 1639 to 1653.

Passed under Charles II by what became known as the Habeas Corpus Parliament, this act strengthened the ancient writ that makes a court examine whether a prisoner is lawfully detained, guarding against arbitrary imprisonment.

Royal assent came on 16 December 1689. The act set out certain basic civil rights and changed the succession to the English Crown, and it remains a foundational statute of English constitutional law.

This 1701 act settled the succession on Sophia of Hanover and reaffirmed the exclusion of Catholics from the throne. Sophia died two months before Anne, so her son became George I and began the Hanoverian dynasty.

Two acts, one from the Scottish Parliament and one from the English, put the Treaty of Union of 22 July 1706 into effect. They took effect on 1 May 1707 and joined England and Scotland as Great Britain under Queen Anne.

Concluding the Irish War of Independence, the 1921 treaty provided for an Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion with the status of Canada. Northern Ireland was given the option to opt out, and its Parliament exercised it.