As the king assumed the entire power over trade, he was to be paid for a permission to exercise commerce or industry of any kind [k]. Hugh Oisel paid four hundred marks for liberty to trade in England [l]; Nigel de Havene gave fifty marks for the partnership in merchandize which he had with Gervase de Hanton [m]; the men of Worcester paid one hundred shillings, that they might have the liberty of selling and buying dyed cloth as formerly [n]; several other towns paid for a like liberty [o]. The commerce indeed of the kingdom was so much under the control of the king, that he erected guilds, corporations, and monopolies, wherever he pleased; and levied sums for these exclusive privileges [p]. [FN [k] Id. p. 323. [l] Id. ibid. [m] Id. ibid. [n] Id. p. 324. [o] Id. ibid. [p] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 232, 233, &c.]
There were no profits so small as to be below the king's attention. Henry, son of Arthur, gave ten dogs to have a recognition against the Countess of Copland for one knight's fee [q]. Roger, son of Nicholas, gave twenty lampreys and twenty shads for an inquest to find, whether Gilbert, son of Alured, gave to Roger two hundred muttons to obtain his confirmation for certain lands, or whether Roger took them from him by violence [r]; Geoffrey Fitz-Pierre, the chief justiciary, gave two good Norway hawks, that Walter le Madine might have leave to export a hundred weight of cheese out of the king's dominions . [FN [q] Id. p. 298. [r] Id. p. 305. Id. p. 325.]
It is really amusing to remark the strange business in which the king sometimes interfered, and never without a present. The wife of Hugh de Neville gave the king two hundred hens, that she might lie with her husband one night [t]; and she brought with her two sureties, who answered each for a hundred hens. It is probable that her husband was a prisoner, which debarred her from having access to him. The Abbot of Rucford paid ten marks for leave to erect houses and place men upon his land near Welhang, in order to secure his wood there from being stolen . Hugh, Archdeacon of Wells, gave one tun of wine for leave to carry six hundred sums of corn whither he would [w]; Peter de Peraris gave twenty marks for leave to salt fishes, as Peter Chevalier used to do [x]. [FN [t] Id. p. 320. Id. p. 326. [w] Id. p. 320. [x] Id. p. 326.]
It was usual to pay high fines, in order to gain the king's good-will, or mitigate his anger. In the reign of Henry II., Gilbert, the son of Fergus, fines in nine hundred and nineteen pounds, nine shillings, to obtain that prince's favour; William de Chataignes, a thousand marks, that he would remit his displeasure. In the reign of Henry III., the city of London fines in no less a sum than twenty thousand pounds on the same account [y]. [FN [y] Id. p. 327, 329.]
The king's protection and good offices of every kind were bought and sold. Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would help him against the Earl of Mortaigne, in a certain plea [z]: Robert de Cundet gave thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him to an accord with the Bishop of Lincoln [a]: Ralph de Breckham gave a hawk, that the king would protect him ; and this is a very frequent reason for payments: John, son of Ordgar, gave a Norway hawk, to have the king's request to the king of Norway to let him have his brother Godard's chattels [c]: Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to obtain the king's request to Isolda Bisset, that she should take him for a husband [d]: Roger Fitz-Walter gave three good palfreys to have the king's letter to Roger Bertram's mother, that she should marry him [e]: Eling, the dean, paid one hundred marks, that his whore and his children might be let out upon bail [f]: the Bishop of Winchester gave one tun of good wine for his not putting the king in mind to give a girdle to the Countess of Albemarle [g]: Robert de Veaux gave five of the best palfreys, that the king would hold his tongue about Henry Pinel's wife [h]. There are in the records of exchequer, many other singular instances of a like nature . It will, however, be just to remark, that the same ridiculous practices and dangerous abuses prevailed in Normandy, and probably in all the other states of Europe [k]: England was not, in this respect, more barbarous than its neighbours. [FN [z] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 329. [a] Id. p. 330. Id. p. 332. [c] Id. ibid. [d] Id. p. 333. [e] Id. ibid. [f] Id. p. 342. PRO HABENDA AMICA SUA ET FILIIS, &c. [g] Id. p. 352. [h] Id. ibid. UT REX TACERET DE UXORE HENRICI PINEL. WE SHALL GRATIFY THE READER'S CURIOSITY BY SUBJOINING A FEW MORE INSTANCES FROM MADOX, p. 332. Hugh Oisel was to give the king two robes of a good green colour, to have the king's letters patent to the merchants of Flanders, with a request to render him one thousand marks, which he lost in Flanders. The Abbot of Hyde paid thirty marks, to have the king's letters of request to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to remove certain monks that were against the abbot. Roger de Trihanton paid twenty marks and a palfrey, to have the king's request to Richard de Umfreville to give him his sister to wife, and to the sister, that she would accept him for a husband. William de Cheveringworth paid five marks, to have the king's letter to the Abbot of Perfore, to let him enjoy peaceably his tithes as formerly. Matthew de Hereford, clerk, paid ten marks for a letter of request to the Bishop of Llandaff, to let him enjoy peaceably his church of Schenfrith. Andrew Neulun gave three Flemish caps for the king's request to the Prior of Chikesand, for performance of an agreement made between them. Henry de Fontibus gave a Lombardy horse of value, to have the king's request to Henry Fitz-Hervey, that he would grant him his daughter to wife. Roger, son of Nicholas, promised all the lampreys he could get, to have the king's request to Earl William Marshall, that he would grant him the manor of Langeford at Firm. The burgesses of Gloucester promised three hundred lampreys, that they might not be distrained to find the prisoners of Poictou with necessaries, unless they pleased. Id. p. 352. Jordan, son of Reginald, paid twenty marks, to have the king's request to William Paniel, that he would grant him the land of Mill Nieresult, and the custody of his heirs: and if Jordan obtained the same, he was pay the twenty marks, otherwise not. Id. p. 333. [k] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 359.]
These iniquitous practices of the Norman kings were so well known, that on the death of Hugh Bigod, in the reign of Henry II., the best and most just of these princes, the eldest son and the widow of this nobleman came to court, and strove, by offering large presents to the king, each of them to acquire possession of that rich inheritance. The king was so equitable as to order the cause to be tried by the great council! But, in the mean time, he seized all the money and treasure of the deceased [l]. Peter of Blois, a judicious, and even an elegant writer for that age, gives a pathetic description of the venality of justice, and the oppressions of the poor, under the reign of Henry; and he scruples not to complain to the king himself of these abuses [m]. We may judge what the case would be under the government of worst princes. The articles of inquiry concerning the conduct of sheriffs, which Henry promulgated in 1170, show the great power, as well as the licentiousness of these officers [n]. [FN [l] Bened. Abb. p. 180, 181. [m] Petri Bles. Epist. 95. apud Bibl. Patrum, tom. p. xxiv. 2014. [n] Hoveden, Chron. Gerv. p. 1410.]
Amerciaments, or fines for crimes and trespasses, were another considerable branch of the royal revenue [o]. Most crimes were atoned for by money; the fines imposed were not limited by any rule or statute; and frequently occasioned the total ruin of the person, even for the slightest trespasses. The forest-laws, particularly, were a great source of oppression. The king possessed sixty-eight forests, thirteen chases, and seven hundred and eighty-one parks, in different parts of England [p]; and considering the extreme passion of the English and Normans for hunting, these were so many snares laid for the people, by which they were allured into trespasses, and brought within the reach of arbitrary and rigorous laws, which the king had thought proper to enact by his own authority. [FN [o] Madox, chap. 14. [p] Spellm. Gloss. in verbo FORESTA.]
But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of law, were extremely odious from the bigotry of the people, and were abandoned to the immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers. Besides many other indignities to which they were continually exposed, it appears that they were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of sixty-six thousand marks exacted for their liberty [q]: at another time, Isaac the Jew paid alone five thousand one hundred marks [r]; Brun, three thousand marks ; Jurnet, two thousand; Bennet, five hundred: at another, Licorica, widow of David, the Jew of Oxford, was required to pay six thousand marks; and she was delivered over to six of the richest and discreetest Jews in England, who were to answer for the sum [t]. Henry III. borrowed five thousand marks from the Earl of Cornwall; and for his repayment, consigned over to him all the Jews in England . The revenue arising from exactions upon this nation was so considerable, that there was a particular court of exchequer set apart for managing it [w]. [FN [q] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 151. This happened in the reign of King John. [r] Id. p. 151. Id. p. 153. [t] Id. p. 168. Id. p. 156. [w] Id. chap. 7.]
[MN Commerce.] We may judge concerning the low state of commerce among the English, when the Jews, notwithstanding these oppressions, could still find their account in trading among them, and lending them money. And as the improvements of agriculture were also much checked by the immense possessions of the nobility, by the disorders of the times, and by the precarious state of feudal property, it appears that industry of no kind could then have place in the kingdom [x]. [FN [x] We learn from the extracts given us of Doomsday by Brady, in his Treatise of Boroughs, that almost all the boroughs of England had suffered in the shock of the Conquest, and had extremely decayed between the death of the Confessor, and the time when Doomsday was framed.]
It is asserted by Sir Henry Spellman [y], as an undoubted truth, that, during the reigns of the first Norman princes, every edict of the king, issued with the consent of his privy council, had the full force of law. But the barons, surely, were not so passive as to intrust a power, entirely arbitrary and despotic, into the hands of the sovereign. It only appears, that the constitution had not fixed any precise boundaries to the royal power; that the right of issuing proclamations on any emergence, and of exacting obedience to them, a right which was always supposed inherent in the crown, is very difficult to be distinguished from a legislative authority; that the extreme imperfection of the ancient laws, and the sudden exigencies which often occurred in such turbulent governments, obliged the prince to exert frequently the latent powers of his prerogative; that he naturally proceeded, from the acquiescence of the people, to assume, in many particulars of moment, an authority from which he had excluded himself by express statutes, charters, or concessions, and which was, in the main, repugnant to the general genius of the constitution; and that the lives, the personal liberty, and the properties of all his subjects, were less secured by law against the exertion of his arbitrary authority, than by the independent power and private connexions of each individual. It appears from the great charter itself, that not only John, a tyrannical prince, and Richard, a violent one, but their father, Henry, under whose reign the prevalence of gross abuses is the least to be suspected, were accustomed, from their sole authority, without process of law, to imprison, banish, and attaint the freemen of their kingdom. [FN [y] Gloss. in verb. JUDICIUM DEI. The author of the MIROIR DES JUSTICES complains, that ordinances are only made by the king and his clerks, and by aliens and others, who dare not contradict the king, but study to please him. Whence, he concludes, laws are oftener dictated by will, than founded on right.]