The first table of English laws were those of Ina, King of Wessex. Alfred the Great published a fuller code, commencing with the Ten Commandments, as the foundation of all law. Ethelstane and St. Dunstan, in the name of Edgar the Peaceable, added many other enactments, by which the lives, liberties, and property of Englishmen were secured as soundly as the wisdom of the times could devise.
These were the laws of Alfred and Edward the Confessor, which William the Conqueror bound himself to observe at his coronation, but which he entirely set at nought, bringing in with him the feudal system, according to his own harsh interpretation. The Norman barons who owned estates in England found themselves more entirely subject to the King, who brought them in by right of conquest, than they had been by ancient custom to their duke in Normandy; and Saxons and Normans alike were new to the strict Forest Laws introduced by William.
Every king of doubtful right tried to win the favor of the Saxons, a sturdy and formidable race, though still in subjection, by engaging to give them the laws of their own dynasty. With this promise William Rufus was crowned, and likewise Henry I., who even distributed copies of the charter to be kept in the archives of all the chief abbeys, but afterward caused them, it seems, to be privately destroyed. Stephen made the same futile promise, failing perhaps, more from inability than from design; and after his death the nation was so glad of repose on any terms, that there were no special stipulations made on the accession of Henry II. He and his Grand Justiciary, Ranulf de Glanville, governed according to law, but it was partly the law of Normandy, partly of their own device; the Norman parlement of barons, and the Saxon Wittenagemot, were alike ignored. The King obtained sufficient supplies from his own immense estates, and from the fines which he had the power to demand at certain times as feudal superior, and did in fact obtain at will, and exact even for doing men justice in courts of law.
As long as there was an orderly sovereign, such as Henry II. the unlimited power of the Crown was tolerable; under a reckless, impetuous prince like Coeur de Lion, it was a grievance; and, in a tyrant such as John Lackland, it became past endurance. His fines were outrageous extortion, and here and there the entries in the accounts show the base, wanton bribery in his court. The Bishop of Winchester paid a tun of good wine for not reminding the King to give a girdle to the Countess of Albemarle; Robert de Vaux gave five of his best palfreys that the King might hold his tongue about Henry Pinel’s wife; while a third paid four marks for permission to eat. Moreover, no man’s family was safe, even of the highest rank: the death of the Lady of Bramber was fresh in the memory of all; and Matilda the Fair, the daughter of Robert Lord Fitzwalter, was seized, carried from her home, and, because she refused to listen to the suit of the tyrant, her father was banished, his castles destroyed, and the maiden, after enduring with constancy two years’ imprisonment in a turret of the White Tower of London, was poisoned with an egg.
The person of whom John stood most in awe, was his Grand Justiciary, Geoffrey Fitzpiers, who, though of low birth, had married the Countess of Essex, and was highly respected for his character and situation.
One day the King, with his usual imprudence, pointed him out to the Provost of St. Omer. “Seest thou him yonder? Never did one man watch another as he watches me, lest I should get some of his goods; but as much pains as he takes to watch me, so much do I take to gain them.”
Fitzpiers was not out of earshot, and his comment was, “Sir Provost, well did I hear what the King said to thee; and since he is so set on my wealth, he will surely get it; but thou knowest; and he knows, that I can raise such a storm as he will feel many a day after my death.”
John’s fears did not prevent him from imposing a fine of 12,000 marks on Geoffrey, which ended his patience. He entered into an understanding with the barons, who had just been summoned by John to attend him on his expedition against France. They joined him, but sailed no further than Jersey, where they declared that the forty days they were bound to serve by feudal tenure were passed; and all, turning back, met Archbishop Langton and the Grand Justiciary at St. Albans, where Fitzpiers commenced his retaliation, by proclaiming, in the King’s name, the old Saxon charter of Alfred and Edward, renewed by Henry I., as well as the repeal of the Forest Laws.
Back came John in rage and fury, and let loose his free-companions on the estates of the confederates. At Northampton, Stephen Langton met him, and forbade his violence. “These measures are contrary to your oaths,” he said. “Your vassals have a right to be judged only by their peers.”
John reviled him. “Rule you the Church,” he said; “leave me to govern the State.”