By some scholars the 13th century is called "the greatest of centuries", as it saw cultural highlights of enormous importance. In 1209, Cambridge University was founded as a second English educational centre after Oxford (1169). In the early 1220s the Dominican and Franciscan friars came to England and soon populated the flourishing universities. Within a generation English scholars won great renown in Europe. Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham are typical representatives of English 13th-century intellectual life. The court of Henry III was a centre of fine arts and book illumination.

At the beginning of the century, however, England saw one of her darkest periods under King John. In 1204, he lost Normandy to the French and he was in constant conflict with Pope Innocent III, who excommunicated the English king in 1209 and put the realm under interdict. Finally, John had to pay homage to the Pope in 1213 and held England as a fief of the Roman Church.

The consequence was a serious rebellion by the nobility and great magnates against the king in the next year. With the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 John acknowledged the constitutional framework of his father Henry II which defined the limits of royal prerogatives. After King John's death in 1216, his elder son, a nine year old boy, was crowned as Henry III. The realm was ruled by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke until 1219. The king's minority ended in 1227.

Henry's long reign is overshadowed by his permanent conflict with the barons about royal prerogatives and the acknowledgement of the Magna Carta. In 1258, the so-called Barons' War broke out. Under the leadership of Simon de Monfort, Earl of Leicester, the barons forced the king to sign the Provisions of Oxford during the so-called 'Mad Parliament' in 1258. These constitutional reforms nearly deprived the king of all his prerogatives. No wonder that he revoked the provisions in 1262. Civil War was inevitable: in 1264, the barons won the Battle of Lewes but were decisively defeated at the Battle of Evesham in the next year. Henry III could reign without further intestine conflicts till 1272.

His son Edward I, the 'Hammer of the Scots', had had great influence on royal politics under his father's rule. Soon after his accession to the throne he annexed Wales, 1277-83, and near the end of his reign he had established English overlordship over Scotland in a series of military campaigns, 1296-1306. His success over the Scots was only possible because he acknowledged constitutional rights in the Model Parliament of 1295.

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