A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Baronial tyranny.

In these extracts, which might be largely multiplied, the chief causes of the people’s misery are mentioned. Heavy taxes, famines, floods, pestilence, false money, and purveyance. To attempt to rectify such of these as were within the power of man, was one main part of Henry’s duty. To that was added the work of suppressing, by a centralized royal power, the excesses of the feudal barons. What crying necessity there was that they should be suppressed is made plain by the stories related of Robert of Belesme, their chief. He is spoken of as guilty of the most unheard-of barbarities, as having scorned the ransoms of his captives to torture them by newfangled instruments; he found delight in seeing men and women impaled and struggling in the agonies of death. “He was a man,” says William of Malmesbury, “intolerable for the barbarity of his manners, remarkable besides for cruelty;” and, among other instances, he relates how, on account of some trifling fault of its father, he blinded his godchild, who was his hostage, by tearing out the poor little creature’s eyes with “his accursed nails.”

Heavy taxation.

Henry cures what evils he can.

One complaint of his people Henry systematically disregarded. He could not afford to do without his taxes, and on all classes on this point he leant with a heavy hand. But in other respects, as far as in him lay, he rectified abuses of administration, and established a vigorous and effectual police. The evils of purveyance had become extreme; no property was safe from the hands of the followers of the court, and when they found larger supplies than they wanted, “if it was liquor they washed their horses’ feet in it, or food they wantonly destroyed it.” But Henry made a regulation for the followers of his court, at whichever of his residences he might be, stating what they should take without payment from the country folk, and how much, and at what price they should purchase, punishing the transgressors by heavy fine or loss of life. So with regard to false coinage, immediately after the complaint of high prices in the year 1124, it is mentioned that Henry at once sent from Normandy to England, and commanded that all the moneyers should have their right hands cut off, and be otherwise mutilated. Bishop Roger of Salisbury sent all over England, commanded them all to come before him, and then and there punished upwards of fifty. Henry was careful, indeed, in other ways with regard to the money, having the whole of the coinage broken to prevent the refusal of broken silver pennies; for it seems to have been the custom to break the coinage to see that the money was good, and tradesmen not unfrequently refused the broken coins.

His strict police.

Against offences of violence Henry was equally vigorous. At one single court held in Leicestershire by Basset the Justiciary, during the King’s absence in 1124, no less than forty-four thieves were condemned and hanged, besides others mutilated. “He sought after robbers and counterfeiters with the greatest diligence, and punished them when discovered,” says William of Malmesbury. Rivalling his father also in other respects, he restrained by edict the acts of his courtiers, thefts, rapine, and the violation of women, commanding the delinquents to be deprived of sight. He also displayed singular vigilance against the mint masters, suffering no man who had been guilty of “deluding the innocent by the practice of roguery” to escape without losing his hands. “A good man he was,” says the Saxon Chronicle, “and all men stood in awe of him; no man durst misdo against another in his time. He made peace for man and beast. Whoso bare his burden of gold and silver, no man thirst do him aught but good.”

Administrative machinery.

Local courts.

Curia Regis.