Raises up new men. Strengthens jurisdiction and Hun power equal, if not superior, to that which the Conqueror had enjoyed. In the redistribution of the forfeited lands and jurisdictions he carried out his father's policy of keeping within moderate limits the possessions of any one vassal. As a further check to the still formidable nobility of the Conquest, he raised to the baronage a number of new men, whom he placed on an equality with the proudest of their fellow-barons.1 During the late reign the feudal nobles appear to have extended of County their local hereditary franchises to the detriment of the national dred Courts. Courts of the shire and the hundred. Henry restored the jurisdiction of these courts to its ancient vigour by ordering that they should be held at the same places and during the same terms as in the time of King Edward. All suits respecting lands between tenants-in-chief of the Crown were to be determined in the King's court, but like suits between vassals of different mesne lords were to be heard in the County court. The proper jurisdiction of the baronial court over the disputes of two or more tenants of the same lord was not interfered with. Charters to boroughs. tised. The King also granted charters to several boroughs confirming and augmenting their ancient privileges. His charter to the citizens of London is remarkable for the amount of municipal independence and self-government which it accorded. But London had always held an exceptional position; and its privileges were far in advance of those as yet granted to the other towns of the Kingdom.3 Royal ad- At the same time that Henry strengthened the local courts of the ministration centralised shire, the hundred, and the borough, as a check to the feudal nobility and systema- from below, he endeavoured to curb them from above by centralising and systematising the Royal administration. Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, having served as Chancellor from 1101 to 1103, was appointed in 1107, Chief Justiciar. Under his direction, during his thirty-two ex quo Rodbertum de Belismo vicisti et de finibus regni tui expulisti."'—Eccl. Hist. xi. 3. Plerosque illustres pro temeritate sua de sublimi potestatis culmine praecipitavit, et haereditario jure irrecuperabiliter spoliatos condemnavit. Alios contra favorabiliter illi obsequentes de ignobili stirpe illustravit, de pulvere, ut ita dicam, extulit, dataque multiplici facultate super consules et illustres, oppidanos exaltavit. -Ord. Vit. Eccl. Hist. xi. c. 2; Select Chart. 94. 2 See the charter in Rymer, i. 12, and in Select Chart. 99. The address 'Henricus Rex Anglorum Samsoni episcopo et Ursoni de Abetot et omnibus baronibus suis Francis et Anglis de Wirecestrescira salutem,' is remarkable for two reasons: (1) The Bishop of the diocese is joined with the Sheriff, in the ancient form, notwithstanding the separation of the spiritual and temporal jurisdictions decreed by the Conqueror; (2) English barons are mentioned. 3 Compare the charter to London with those to Beverley and Newcastle-onTyne.-Select Chart. 102-108. tion of years' tenure of this high office, the administration of the Curia Regis (Organisawas organised for judicial and financial purposes. A regular routine Curia of business was established. The annual courts were still held de Regis.] more, during the great festivals, at Gloucester, Winchester, and Westminster; but as these were found inadequate for the increasing business of the nation, the Chief Justiciar, accomparied by some of the other Justices of the King's court, began, towards the end of Henry's reign, to make occasional circuits round the kingdom, Occasional principally for fiscal but partly also for judicial purposes. The local the Justices. courts were thus brought into closer connexion with the supreme national tribunal. By introducing order and system into the administration of law and government, Henry prepared the way for the important reforms which the reign of his grandson will present to our notice. circuits of law. The severity with which Henry punished offences against the laws Severity in caused him to be popularly regarded as the Lion of Justice offences , punishing described in the prophecies of Merlin. William Rufus had reintro- against the duced the punishment of death for offences against the Forest laws; by Henry it was extended to ordinary crimes. In the year 1124 no less than forty-four thieves were hanged in Leicestershire at one time. No man,' says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, durst misdo against another in his time. He made peace for man and beast. Whoso bare his burden of gold or silver, no man durst say to him aught but good. By severe punishments he effectually checked the malpractices of the moneyers, which had caused a general depreciation of the coinage. He also checked the abuse of the Royal right of purveyance by the officers of his court. But the expenses of his foreign wars and home administration necessitated the imposition of heavy and regular taxation, of which the contemporary chroniclers complain in bitter terms.3 1 [Towards the close of the reign of William Rufus, in 1096, we find two itinerant commissioners, Bishop Walkelin and Flambard, despatched to Exeter and to Cornwall to hold royal pleas. Cf. Placita Anglo-Norm., p. 69. It is probable that no practice of the kind had as yet been established, and that this journey was on some special business. Gneist, Const. Hist. Engl., p. 223, remarks: 'The administration of the counties by the Vice-comites had from the first suffered from grave abuses. For this reason, even under Henry I. the Vice-comites had begun to be relieved of certain judicial business by commissioners sent from the royal Court,' and refers to the Pipe Roll, 31 Henry J. (1131), as showing that at that date the commission of itinerant justices had become an institution. It is probable that their duties were originally financial, but sitting as they did in the Shire Courts, they gradually came to discharge judicial business also. Cf. Hannis Taylor, Origin of Engl. Const. p. 316, seq., and Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 393.ED.] Ang.-Sax. Chron. ad ann. 1135; Select Chart. 95. • Non facile potest narrari miseria quam sustinuit isto tempore terra Anglorum propter exactiones regias.-Flor. Wigorn. s. a. 1104. See also A.-Sax. Chron. sub ann. 1104, 1105, 1110, 1118, 1124. Question of STEPHEN, 1135-1154. His first charter. His second charter, 1136. After the triumph of Henry over the feudal baronage, the only class in the State strong enough to offer any resistance to the Royal power consisted of the clergy. The contest between the King and Archbishop Anselm on the question of Investitures ended in a compromise. The ring and crosier, as denoting spiritual jurisdiction, were in future to be conferred by the Pope; fealty and homage, being civil duties, were still to be rendered to the King, in return for the temporalities of the see. Thus the national Church regained her spiritual freedom, which the rapid growth of the Feudal principle had injuriously affected, and the King retained all that he could justly claim-the supremacy in things temporal. The chief Constitutional importance of the struggle consists in the successful imposition of a limit to the Royal power. On his coronation, STEPHEN issued a Charter briefly confirming, in general terms, to the barons and men of England all the liberties and good laws which his uncle Henry, King of the English, had granted them, as well as all the good laws and good customs which they possessed in the time of King Edward. After a short interval the King held his first Great Council at Oxford, at which most of the English, together with several Norman, prelates and barons attended. In this assembly a second charter was drawn up and promulgated by the King. It is more definite in form than the earlier one, and partakes more of the nature of a solemn compact between the King and the nation. It was attested by no less than thirty-seven witnesses, of whom fourteen were bishops (eleven English and three Norman), and the rest lay vassals, for the most part of high rank and official position. As Stephen owed his election chiefly to the favour of the clergy, who were greatly influenced by his brother Henry, Bishop of Winchester, it is not surprising to find the greater part of the charter (i.) Conces devoted to concessions to the Church. (1) The King promised to repress all simony, and to maintain the jurisdiction of the bishops over all clerical persons and their possessions. Ecclesiastical sions to the clergy. ['The cohesion of the national church was for ages the substitute for the cohesion which the divided nation was unable otherwise to realize. . . It was to an extraordinary degree a national church, national in its comprehensiveness as well as in its exclusiveness. The ecclesiastical and the national spirit thus growing into one another supplied something at least of that strong passive power which the Norman despotism was unable to break.' (Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 245.) What the Church,' writes Gneist (Hist. Engl. Const., p. 193), had lost, by its subjection to the feudal state, had been retrieved upon the ground of moral influence; for to its other callings a new one had been added. In the dissensions of nationalities it had become the natural mediator, the nearest protectress of the oppressed Saxon element, the sole power whom the Norman kings at their Court days were at times obliged to nieet on the footing of negotiation.'-ED.] Statutes of the Realm-Charter of Liberties, p. 4. dignities, with their privileges and ancient customs, should remain inviolate. The Church should retain possession of all estates which it had enjoyed by an uncontested title at the death of the Conqueror, or which the liberality of the faithful had since then conferred. But if it should demand anything which it held or possessed prior to the death of the Conqueror, but had since lost, the King reserved to his indulgence and dispensation either to refuse or restore it. He renounced all claim to the property of deceased clergymen, whether dying testate or intestate; and ordered that every vacant see with its possessions should be committed to the custody of the clergy, or other upright men of such see, until a pastor be appointed. (2) To the (ii.) And to people generally Stephen promised to maintain peace and justice in all things. All exactions and extortions, wickedly introduced by sheriffs or any other persons, he totally abolished; and promised to observe and cause to be observed good laws and the ancient and just customs in cases of murdrum and other pleas and suits. He The Forests. reserved to himself the forests made and held by William his grandfather, and William, his uncle; but those added by King Henry he restored to the Church and realm. All these things the King granted and confirmed 'saving his royal and just dignity'—a somewhat vague and elastic reservation.1 2 During the tumult and anarchy of what can scarcely be termed the 'reign' of Stephen, in which all central authority collapsed, the provisions of these Charters fell into abeyance, together with the whole Legal and Administrative machinery. But they are important as forming another link in the chain by which the ancient liberties of the nation, symbolised in the popular mind by the Laws of Edward the Confessor, were handed down in unbroken series to the framers of the Great Charter. the nation. Brave, energetic, and personally popular, Stephen lacked adminis- Feudal anarchy. trative ability and the art of governing men. The barons, taking advantage of his weakness, fortified their castles, and, under colour of supporting either the King or the Empress, made themselves practically independent of both. They claimed and exercised all the most obnoxious privileges of Continental Feudalism. Quot domini castellorum, says the chronicler, tot reges vel potius tyranni3 The King 1 Statutes of the Realm-Charter of Liberties, p. 3. [Bigelow, Hist. Procedure in Eng., p. 174, notes one striking exception to this general breakdown.-C.] * Castella quoque per singulas provincias studio partium crebra surrexerant, erantque in Anglia quodammodo tot reges vel potius tyranni, quot domini castellorum, habentes singuli percussuram proprii numismatis et potestatem subditis, regio more, dicendi juris.-Will. Newb. Hist. Angl. 1. i. 22. new Earls. Bishops, June 24, 1139. Creation of endeavoured to strengthen his position by creating new Earldoms, supported by extravagant grants from the crown-lands and the exchequer. The only result was to impoverish himself and arouse the Arrest of the jealousy of the old nobility. His justifiable but impolitic violence towards the three bishops, Roger of Salisbury and his nephews, Nigel of Ely and Alexander of Lincoln, secured, indeed, the surrender of their castles, but alienated the entire body of the clergy, who had been the King's chief supporters, and threw into confusion the whole administration of the government, over which Bishop Roger, as Justiciar, had hitherto continued to preside.1 Even the King's brother, Henry of Winchester, went over to the side of the Empress. During the long period of civil war the condition of the people was most the people. lamentable. Both sides employed mercenary troops, principally from Flanders, who behaved with the greatest insolence and barbarity. 'In this King's time,' says the Anglo-Saxon Chronicler, 'was all dissension and evil and rapine . . . . Never yet was there more wretchedness in the land.' 2 Wretched condition of Peace of 1153 Scheme of reform. At length, in 1153, after the death of Stephen's eldest son Eustace, a pacification was brought about at Wallingford, through the mediation of the Bishops. It was agreed between the King and young Henry, Matilda's son, now in his twenty-first year, and ratified by the assent and homage of the Bishops and Barons on both sides, that Henry should give up his claim to the present possession of the throne, and should be acknowledged as the rightful successor on the death of Stephen. As a part of the pacification a comprehensive scheme of reform was drawn up, to be carried out by both Stephen and Henry, for the restoration of good government and national prosperity. It included the resumption by the King of the Royal rights which had been usurped by the barons; the restoration to the lawful owners of the estates of which they had been deprived by intruders; the razing of the 'adulterine,' or unlicensed, castles; the restoration of agriculture by means of a system of State subventions to the impoverished farmers; the maintenance of the rights of the clergy; the revival of the sheriffs' jurisdiction, and the appointment of impartial men to that office; the disbandment of the armed forces; the banishment of the 1 'The arrest of Bishop Reger was perhaps the most important constitutional event that had taken place since the Conquest; the whole administration of the country ceased to work, and the whole power of the clergy was arrayed in opposition to the King. It was also the signal for the civil war, which lasted, with more or less activity, for fourteen years.'-Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 326. A.-Sax. Chron. (ed. Ingram), pp. 364, 367. 9 Matt. Paris [Chron. Maj., ed. Luard, ii. 191.—C.], s. a. 1153; Sel. Chart. |