of manuscript. The youth of the middle classes, destined for the cloister or the merchant's stall, chiefly thronged these schools. The aristocracy cared little for book-learning. Very few, indeed, of the barons could read or write. But all could ride, fence, tilt, play, and carve extremely well; for to these accomplishments many years of pagehood and squirehood were given. The University of Oxford was fast growing into a formidable rival of the great school at Paris. But the latter still sent forth the greatest men of the age. Becket and that noted English monk born near St. Albans-Nicholas Breakspear, who became Pope in 1154 under the name of Adrian the Fourth-were both distinguished students of Paris.

At the Conquest, the Saxon Witenagemôt gave place to the King's Court (Curia Regis), formed of the barons or royal tenants-in-chief and the bishops, who assembled in the palace on stated occasions to transact the public business of the realm. The king enacted laws by the advice and with the consent of this court, so that the double sanction of royalty and nobility came to be regarded in the popular mind as essential to the reality of a law. During the frequent absences of the Norman kings, the chief justiciar sat as president of the Curia. Associated with him in the management of affairs were the constable, the mareschal, the chamberlain, the chancellor, and the treasurer. As business increased, the Curia was divided into several courts -Common Pleas, Chancery, King's Bench, and Exchequer; of which the Exchequer was historically the oldest. And when it became difficult for the justiciar to travel about the land, justices in eyre—that is, itinerant-were appointed, who went on circuit in the character of royal commissioners, not only to try criminals and hear pleas, but to receive oaths, to collect taxes, to inspect garrisons, and to regulate coins. The Great Council, held by Henry the Second at Northampton in 1176, divided the country into six circuits.

The Ordeals gradually fell into disuse, and were at last for

bidden by the Church. The Duel and the Grand Assize-the former derived from Normandy about the time of the Conquest; the latter instituted by a law of Henry the Second-became the modes of decision in cases of uncertain guilt or liability. The Duel, like the Ordeal, sprang from a belief that God defends the right, and cannot allow the innocent to be vanquished. When the Grand Assize was chosen instead of the Duel, four knights returned by the sheriff and twelve others from the district, chosen by them, were sworn to give a verdict on the case. Ranulf de Glanville, who bears an honoured name in English history, not only as a successful soldier, but also as a great legist and the author of the oldest English law-book we have ("Tractatus de Legibus et Consuetudinibus Anglia"), is believed to have hit on the happy expedient of the Grand Assize, which we may regard as the first establishment of trial by jury in regular legal form.

The multitudinous laws of England enacted during this period grew from three great roots-the Common Law of the Saxon times which had taken shape and substance from long usage, the Canon Law of the Church, and the Roman Civil Law, which had begun to be studied deeply on the Continent, and on which lectures were delivered at Oxford in the reign of Stephen. From the conflict of these three rival systems the nation, groaning in the throes of revolution and transition, suffered heavily. The barons and the people stood firmly by the Common Law, with which their best interests were deeply inter

woven.

A Norman king derived his revenue from several sources, of which the principal were the following "feudal incidents":

1. The relief or fine, paid by an incoming heir before he could take possession of his estate. This stood for the Saxon heriot or suit of armour, given under similar circumstances.

2. The primer seisin, the first year's income of the lands, payable only by tenants of the crown.

3. Fines of alienation, paid when a tenant transferred any part of his lands to a stranger.

4. An escheat, when a fief reverted to a superior, the tenant having died heirless.

5. Forfeiture, payable when a vassal failed in any part of his duty either to his lord or to the state.

6. Aids, paid to ransom the king, to portion his daughters, or to make his eldest son a knight.

7. The profits of wardship and marriage; for the crown managed the estates of minors, and held the right of giving in marriage the heiresses and widows of its tenants. A good round sum was generally needed to buy the royal consent.

Other sources of the royal revenue were:

1. The rents of about fourteen hundred royal manors, held in addition to more than eight hundred hunting-grounds.

2. The danegeld or hideage, a Saxon land-tax revived by the Conqueror.

3. Various taxes called scutage (a substitute for that armed soldier whom every royal tenant was originally bound to furnish and maintain during forty days, for every knight's fee he owned) -hearth-money and moneyage (the latter being a shilling on each hearth every three years, paid to the king that he might not tamper with the coinage. Henry the First abolished it on his accession)-customs-tallages or cuttings, a property-tax on towns and boroughs.

4. Purveyance and pre-emption, by which the king's servants were permitted to take provisions, horses, and carriages for the use of the royal household at a certain price, whether the owner consented or not.

5. Criminal fines and confiscations.

6. Benevolences or forced loans.

7. Treasure trove, royal fish, waifs and strays, idiots' estates, wrecked goods, spoils in war, also helped to fill the royal coffers.

CHAPTER VIII.

SIMON DE MONTFORT.

Montfort the Elder-Regency of Pembroke-Battle of Lincoln-Quick-lime at sea-Fall of De Burgh-Foreign favourites-De Montfort-The Provisions of Oxford-Chaos-Battle of Lewes-Burgesses in ParliamentBattle of Evesham-Death of Henry.

WH

HILE the barons were wresting the Great Charter from the hands of John, a banished Englishman was reddening the waters of the Garonne with the blood of the Albigenses. In 1218, a stone from the walls of Toulouse fractured the skull of this pitiless Crusader, who had already bestowed his name on a second son, that Simon de Montfort with whom we have now to deal.

Before the Crusader's son shines out in full brilliance, the reign of Henry, son and successor of John, has to drag out more than forty of its six-and-fifty years-years of discontent among barons and of weakness on the throne, yet withal years of steadily growing power, wealth, and knowledge, which then struck roots on English soil that have never lost their grasp.

In the first place, little Henry must be crowned; for until that plain gold circle, which was hurriedly made to serve for the diadem buried in the quicksands of the Wash, rested on the curls of the fair-haired boy, the loyalty of the nation would not cling to him. So the Bishop of Winchester performed the ceremony at Gloucester, in presence of Gualo, the papal legate, on the 28th of October 1216.

1216

It was well for England and well for Henry that a strong man was at hand to direct the fortunes of the state and secure the throne from a second French conquest. The Earl of Pembroke, chosen by the Great Council of Bristol to be Governor of the King and Kingdom (Rector Regis et Regni), bent the skill of a soldier and the subtlety of a statesman on the invading army of Louis, and on the barons whose blunder had called that prince across the sea. For a time the sky looked very

dark. Wales and Scotland lent their aid to the invader. London with its Tower lay in his hand. Dover Castle, indeed, defended by Hubert de Burgh, foiled his utmost skill. But he sent his marauders as far north as to Lincoln, and desolated the central shires with extreme cruelty. At Lincoln, the Count de Perche, one of his generals, received a check which resulted in the withdrawal of the French armies. 1217 Caught in the narrow streets of Lincoln, while batter

ing the walls of the citadel, the gallant knight was forced to yield to the English regent, who had made a sudden dash through the gates. This battle, known as "The Fair of Lincoln," took place in the spring of 1217.

This heavy blow locked Louis up in London, which became a perfect hot-bed of plots and perils. But heavier yet was the defeat of that splendid fleet of more than eighty sail which left Calais with three hundred knights and a large force of infantry, bound under the command of Eustace, a Flemish monk turned pirate, for service in the English war. As the huge armament bore away for the mouth of the Thames, a little English fleet of only forty ships, led by Hubert de Burgh, who was equally at home on deck and on battlement, crept between them and the wind, dashed on them with the iron beaks of their galleys, and from decks steaming with the pungent smoke of slaking lime showered a sharp rain of arrows, which struck the blinded sailors down by scores. The head of Eustace, sent to the English court, told its bloody tale. Louis, hearing of this great