Charter Of Henry II.
The charter granted by Henry II., about the year 1154, still expresses nothing more than a recognition of rights; it does not contain any new promise, or any concession of guarantees. The reign of this prince, I need hardly remind you, was entirely occupied with his disputes with the clergy, with the revolts of his sons, and with his conquests, both on the Continent and in Ireland. No important differences were brought into discussion between him and his barons; no progress in existing institutions is visible, and we may say that the reign of Henry II., considered from this point of view, was orderly and stationary.
If, however, the king, so far as his relations to his barons were concerned, obtained an almost uninterrupted submission, and caused the demolition of most of those fortified castles which had been constructed during the preceding reign, the towns on the other hand, and especially the city of London, increased in strength and importance, and the aristocracy became every day more compact by means of the fusion of the Normans and the English, a fusion which was almost completed during this reign, at least among the upper classes.
The fact of this period which bears most importantly upon the subject which we have under consideration, is the substitution of the escuage for the personal service of the vassals. It is under the reign of Henry II. that we find this impost collected for the first time, at least in the form of a general measure. The establishment and limitations of the escuage became soon the principal object of contention between the king and his barons. The use which the kings came to make of the resources derived from this impost was fatal to them, for they employed it in order to keep up armies of foreign mercenaries, especially Brabanters; and by these measures, they gave a new motive to the English barons to coalesce. The expulsion of foreign soldiers became at length one of the continually recurring demands of the barons.
Henry II. towards the close of his reign, imposed by his own authority a tax of one sixth on all moveable property. He abandoned the danegeld.
Reign Of Richard I.
The reign of Richard, which was entirely occupied with his brilliant but unfortunate expeditions, offers nothing especially illustrative of the history of institutions. The absence of the king and the weakness of the royal power supplied the feudal aristocracy with opportunities for extending their importance; but they did not at that time take advantage of their superiority to procure a recognition of their rights;—not until the reign of John did the struggle become violent and the victory decisive.