It was natural that Henry
should have been unwilling to allow them in the early years of the reign
the wide powers which belonged to the later Justiciars.
should have been unwilling to allow them in the early years of the reign
the wide powers which belonged to the later Justiciars.
Cambridge Medieval History - v5 - Contest of Empire and the Papacy
568 (#614) ############################################
568
Balance of parties
Leicester (son of Henry's justiciar), William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby,
Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and Roger de Mowbray, a great baron in
Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire. They brought to the cause of the
young king a great stretch of England and many castles. Leicester was
a centre for the rebels, with Leicester Castle supported by Groby Castle
five miles to the north-west and Mountsorrel seven miles to the north.
The Ferrers castles of Duffield in Derbyshire and Tutbury in Stafford-
shire, the Bigod castles of Bungay and Framlingham in Suffolk, and the
Mowbray castles of Thirsk and Kirkby Malzeard in Yorkshire, were all
held for the young king.
On Henry's side were the mass of the clergy. The legates sent to
give Henry absolution remained to attempt a reconciliation between him
and his sons: At their suggestion, Henry proceeded to fill all vacant
bishoprics and abbeys. It was not Henry's fault that the see of Canter-
bury had not been filled before, for the perennial quarrel between the prior
and monks of Canterbury and the provincial bishops delayed every election.
The six bishops now appointed were all chosen for their politics rather than
for their religious zeal. Richard of Ilchester, elected Bishop of Winchester,
was a skilled financier. Geoffrey Ridel, elected Bishop of Ely, had suc-
ceeded Becket as Archdeacon of Canterbury and had borne the king's seal.
Both of them were bitter opponents of Becket, and had been excom-
municated in the course of the struggle. The king's illegitimate son,
Geoffrey, was elected Bishop of Lincoln. In June, the monks of Canter-
bury were conciliated by the election of Richard, prior of St Martin's at
Dover, to the archbishopric. The young king's attempt to prevent the
consecration of the prelates probably did much to confirm the eccle-
siastical order in its support of his father; the only English bishop who
finally joined the rebels was Hugh Puiset of Durham.
Among the barons, there were on the king's side his uncle Reginald,
Earl of Cornwall, his half-brother Hamelin, Earl Warenne, his cousin
William, Earl of Gloucester, William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex,
Simon de Sentliz, Earl of Northampton, and William de Albini, Earl of
Arundel. Although the most powerful of the earls were in revolt, the
baronage as a whole was on the king's side. The rebel castles were
more than balanced by the royal castles and those of loyal barons. The
fee of the Earl of Derby was roughly balanced by the honour of Peverel,
then in the king's hand, with its castles of Nottingham, Bolsover, and
the Peak. John de Lacy, constable of Chester, was on the king's side,
and his loyalty made Roger de Mowbray's defection of less moment. In
East Anglia, the Warennes balanced the Bigods, and in the west, the
loyal marchers and the king's Welsh auxiliaries balanced the Farl of
Chester. In the north, the Umfravilles, Vauxes, Vescis, Bruces, Balliols,
and Stutevilles, balanced the King of Scots. The mass of men, the lesser
baronage, the sheriff's, and above all the new ministerial class, were
solidly on Henry's side. Richard de Luci the justiciar, himself an Essex
## p. 569 (#615) ############################################
First summer of rebellion
569
baron holding the castle and honour of Ongar, raised forces and gar-
risoned castles. The Kymes of Lincolnshire, richer than most baronial
families, were active in the king's support. If Henry's sons expected a
glad response in England to the call of anarchy, they were disillusioned.
The rebellion began with an attack upon Henry's position in northern
France. The Earl of Chester, hereditary Viscount of Avranches and
Bayeux, ravaged Brittany, in association with Breton nobles. The young
king, with the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne, advanced from the east,
while the King of France laid siege to Verneuil. Louis VII, though he
could intrigue, could not carry through a war. He and his allies had no
concerted plan; the brains were all on Henry's side. His castles were
ready to stand siege, and he himself with a competent force could go
where he was needed. Brittany was cleared of rebels by the end of July
1173, and the Earl of Chester was taken prisoner with many other nobles.
The King of France did no more than sack Verneuil and then retreat
before Henry. The rebel forces operating in the east took Aumâle, but
after Matthew, Count of Boulogne, had been mortally wounded did no
more. At a meeting between Trie and Gisors in September, Henry made
generous offers to his sons, though denying them independent rule; his
terms were refused, and after the meeting the rebels and their allies seem
to have concluded that an attack on England must be made.
In England, the centres of war were the midlands, the north, and the
east. There also no definite plan can be traced. No other warfare was
possible at this period than a series of sieges and counter-sieges, raids
and counter-raids, for neither side could call itself victorious while the
other side still held unreduced castles. The justiciar took the offensive by
laying siege to Leicester, and if he could have taken it, the fall of Groby
and Mountsorrel would soon have followed. The town of Leicester was
almost entirely destroyed by an accidental fire. The townsfolk came to
terms, but the castle still held out. The justiciar arranged a truce that
he might be free to meet a Scotch inroad, and together with Humphrey de
Bohun, the king's constable, he chased the Scots into Scotland; but he was
then obliged to make a truce with them until 13 January 1174, in order
to turn south to meet an invasion by the Earl of Leicester with a body of
mercenaries. The earl was one of Henry's bitterest opponents at this time.
He may possibly have felt slighted because he had not succeeded his father
as justiciar, though his conduct during the rebellion gives no indication
that he had any of the ability necessary for such an office. He landed
at Walton near Felixstowe about 18 October 1173. Walton was a royal
castle, and the earl failed to take it. He joined the Earl of Norfolk at
Framlingham, and together they attacked and took the great castle of
Haughley, held for the king by Ranulf de Broc. At Bury St Edmunds,
on his way to Leicester, the earl heard of the approach of the royal
army under the constable, supported by the Earls of Cornwall, Gloucester,
and Arundel. He retreated before they came up, and tried to escape to
CH. XVII.
## p. 570 (#616) ############################################
570
Second summer of rebellion
Leicester by passing to the north. They met him at Fornham St Gene-
vieve three miles north-west of Bury. "In the twinkling of an eye” the
battle was over, and the earl and his wife were prisoners. Winter was
now coming on, and a truce was made with the Earl of Norfolk, to last
until 19 May 1174, on condition that his Flemish mercenaries were sent
back over sea. The Bishop of Durham arranged for a prolongation of
the truce with the Scots until the end of March, and the Northumbrian
barons paid the King of Scots two hundred pounds for the respite.
The winter was passed in preparation for the final struggle. The
Bishop of Durham, abandoning his pretence of loyalty, fortified his epis-
copal castle of Northallerton, while Roger de Mowbray strengthened his
castles of Thirsk and Kirkby Malzeard, and put into a defensible state a
derelict castle at Kinnard Ferry in the Isle of Axholme, of which he was
lord. The site of the castle can still be seen at Owston Ferry by the
lower Trent. A typical Norman motte and bailey, it had probably been
an adulterine castle of Stephen's time, from which the broad and fertile
flats of Axholme could be protected. The castles of Bamburgh, Wark,
and Carlisle, the border fortresses of Liddel and Harbottle, Prudhoe
Castle on the Tyne, Appleby and Brough-under-Stainmoor, were all held
for the king. The rebel plan for 1174, as for the previous year, seems to
have involved a threefold attack on Henry's supporters. The King of
France intended that the young king and the Count of Flanders should
land in East Anglia to join the Earl of Norfolk. In the midlands, the
Earl of Derby, David, the Scottish Earl of Huntingdon, and Anketill
Mallory, the constable of Leicester, tried to reduce the neighbouring
towns. In the north, the King of Scots attacked the northern castles.
He was supported by the Bishop of Durham, who was arranging for his
nephew Hugh de Puiset, Count of Bar, to bring troops to northern
England. The King of Scots began operations in April, but failed to
take Bamburgh and fell back on Berwick. In May he advanced again,
failed to take Wark, and passed on to lay siege to Carlisle. While main-
taining a close siege, the king himself led out detachments against other
castles. One such raid secured Liddel and Harbottle, another Appleby
and Brough-under-Stainmoor. Meanwhile, in East Anglia, a body of
Flemings sent in advance by the Count of Flanders joined the Earl of
Norfolk; with their help he took Norwich in June. In the midlands,
Nottingham was sacked by a raiding party from Leicester under David,
Earl of Huntingdon, and Anketill Mallory raided north Oxfordshire and
Northamptonshire, defeating the townsmen of Northampton who came
out to attack him.
On 5 May Geoffrey, the Bishop-elect of Lincoln, took the castle of
Kinnard Ferry. Roger de Mowbray, on his way to seek help at Leicester,
was taken prisoner by “the rustics of the Clay," the thickly-populated
district west of Trent which now forms the North and South Clay divi-
sions of Bassetlaw wapentake. Much of this district was ancient demesne
## p. 571 (#617) ############################################
Suppression of the rebellion
571
of the Crown, and the king's humble tenants had nothing to gain from
baronial anarchy. With the support of the Archbishop of York, Geoffrey
took the castle of Kirkby Malzeard, and fortified Topcliffe, which he
gave in charge to William de Stuteville to control Roger's remaining
castle of Thirsk. Contemporaneously with these events the Justiciar
laid siege to Huntingdon. Failing to take the castle, he built a counter-
work against it, and placed Earl Simon of Northampton, who claimed
the earldom of Huntingdon, in charge of operations. Messages were
sent to the king to ask him to cross over. While Henry was landing at
Southampton on 8 July, the King of Scots, having brought William de
Vaux to promise to surrender Carlisle if it were not relieved by Michael-
mas, was planning an attack on Prudhoe. Henry's first care after landing
was to perform an elaborate penance at Becket's tomb. In the mean-
time, the loyal barons of the north, under the sheriffs of York and
Lancaster, were quelling the rebellion. The King of Scots began the
siege of Prudhoe on Tuesday, 9 July, but on Thursday he abandoned it,
hearing that the northern barons were gathering at Newcastle. The
invading army ravaged far and wide, while the King of Scots rode to-
wards Alnwick. A mist lay over the valley of the Alne. The English
forces approached Alnwick as the mist lifted, and found the King of
Scots with a few followers. The king charged, but capture was inevitable;
Ranulf de Glanville took custody of him, and sent a messenger to Henry,
who heard the news on 17 July. On 21 July Henry in person received
the surrender of Huntingdon. From Huntingdon he went to Sileham,
a village midway between the two Bigod castles of Framlingham and
Bungay. The Earl of Norfolk surrendered; and Henry then turned west-
wards to Northampton, where the King of Scots was brought to him, and
the rebels made their submission. It only remained for Henry to return
to Normandy and shew himself ready to take the offensive, and the King
of France abandoned the siege of Rouen, which he had begun after Henry's
departure. The threatened invasion of England never took place.
The rebellion was suppressed, but not without two summers of warfare
which must have reminded old men of the days of Stephen. After the
first few months there can have been little doubt which side would win.
The king's sons relied on their powerful allies and assumed a feudal
hatred of order which might exist in France but was not felt in England.
They forgot that alliance with the King of Scots would secure the sup-
port of the northern barons to their father, and that though some barons
might resent order the masses of men loved it. Henry's position in
England was never threatened again. The King of Scots was not only
compelled to do homage for his kingdom as English barons did homage
for their baronies; he was forced to allow Henry to garrison the castles of
Berwick, Jedburgh, Roxburgh, Stirling, and Edinburgh. Peace was made
with France, and lasted until Louis' death, when it was Henry's support
which secured Philip Augustus in his position. To the young king,
CH. XVII.
## p. 572 (#618) ############################################
572
Henry's death
1
Henry gave a competent revenue, but no share in the government of his
dominions.
The subsequent rebellions by which Henry was troubled were no more
than attempts on the part of his sons to anticipate his death; they
belong rather to French than to English history. In securing Philip
Augustus on the French throne, Henry had done the one thing that
ensured the ultimate disintegration of his own dominions, for Philip lost
no opportunity of encouraging Henry's sons in their rebellious atti-
tude. In 1175 Henry entrusted the government of Aquitaine to Richard.
The rebellion of 1181 began as a quarrel between Richard and the young
king. In that year, Henry issued the Assize of Arms in England, which
provided for the arming of men according to their degree, and forbade
the export of arms. There was no fear of rebellion in England; Henry
could rely on the respect which men felt for his government, and arm
them to defend it against invasion. The war in France dragged on until
the young king's death in 1183. In the next year, it was renewed by
Richard, unwilling to surrender Aquitaine to John. Henry gave way,
and the Irish expedition was fitted out for John in 1185. Its failure was
the less serious in that Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, died in 1186, leaving
Henry with two sons only for whom to make provision. The long-
expected fall of Jerusalem in the next year postponed the imminent war
between Henry and Philip. Public opinion demanded a crusade, and the
Kings of France and England could do no other than follow it; Henry,
Richard, and Philip took the cross. Henry, who had evaded a crusade
for so many years, cannot have meant to undertake one when old age
was creeping upon him; in fact, both kings were willing to assist the
cause with money, but neither wished to leave his kingdom. Of pretexts
for war between Philip and Henry there were many; Philip claimed the
wardship of Geoffrey's heir, and demanded the marriage of Richard and
his sister Alais, so long promised. The war began in the south-west,
with aggressions by Richard on Toulouse and counter-attacks by Philip,
but it soon changed its character. When Henry crossed to Normandy in
1188, Richard and Philip became allies fighting for the recognition of
Richard's right to succeed his father in all his dominions. Ill and pre-
maturely aged, Henry was no match for the military skill of Richard
and Philip. He was forced to surrender, and having agreed to Philip's
terms, overcome with his illness and shame for his failure, he succumbed
to the shock of learning that John, too, had deserted him.
II.
The essential feature of English history in the twelfth century is the
development of a reasoned system of law for the whole land. The change
from the archaic law of the conquered English, modified by new Norman
elements, to the law described in the treatise known by Ranulf de
## p. 573 (#619) ############################################
Two-fold division of the reign
573
Glanville's name, was the work of Henry II and his ministers. Henry's
reign witnessed a change that was almost a revolution. His early years
carry on the tradition of the previous reigns. He was then a very young
man, and the first necessity was to secure England and to consolidate his
continental dominions; the interest of that time lies in political events.
The Becket quarrel came to hinder, though for a time only, what
must have been an extensive programme of reform. The charters and
writs of these earlier years are very similar in form and wording to those
of the reign of Henry I; they suggest the influence of the individual
circumstance. Those of the latter part of the reign suggest the routine
of a government bureau. In the latter years there were few political
events in England to be recorded; the interest of that time lies in the
detail of administration. No precise date can be taken as marking the
change between the earlier and later parts of Henry's reign, but it seems
to fall between the deaths of Henry's first two justiciars, Robert “Bossu,"
Earl of Leicester, and Richard de Luci, that is, between 1168 and 1179.
Between these years fall Becket's murder and the rebellion of 1174, each
of which helps to mark the close of an epoch.
Little can be learned about the personnel of the administration from
the chronicle accounts of Henry's earliest years. The re-organisation
of the Exchequer is unnoticed. From the second year of the reign, the
Pipe Roll of each year, or, as it was more properly called, the Great
Roll of the Exchequer, records the financial administration of the year.
The early rolls are small. They shew that the king and his ministers had
to contend with the financial difficulties presented by land wasted in the
anarchy, or granted away to buy support for the king. Nigel, Bishop
of Ely, nephew of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, remained treasurer until
he bought the office for his son Richard, who was to become the author
of the treatise known as the Dialogus de Scaccario', and who continued
as treasurer into the reign of Richard I. To these men is due the honour
of elaborating the system of the Exchequer. Richard is not known
to have taken an active part in any other administrative work; unlike
most Exchequer officials, he did not act regularly as a judge. He writes
of the Exchequer as a man writes whose life-work lies in the subject of
which he treats. When he wrote the Dialogus, the business of the
Exchequer was transacted at two great annual sessions at Easter and
Michaelmas, over which the Justiciar presided. Already in Henry's fifth
1 The dates of both the beginning and end of Richard's official career are un-
certain. The date generally accepted for the purchase of the office on his behalf by
Nigel is 1158, but at the Easter session of the Exchequer in 1162 a quittance from
Danegeld was attested by Nigel, Bishop of Ely, Robert, Earl of Leicester, and the
other barons (Lincoln Cathedral, Registrum Antiquissimum, f. 36). It is generally
stated that Richard held the office until his death, but at some date after 1194 he
granted certain houses in Westminster to his beloved kinsman William, the king's
treasurer (Cott. Faust. A. in f. 248). The word consanguineus is important as
proving kinship between William of Ely and Richard Fitz Nigel.
CH. XVII.
## p. 574 (#620) ############################################
574 The Exchequer and the Barons of the Exchequer
year, John, the king's Marshal, when granting land, states that his
charter was sealed at the Exchequer in the Easter term and before Robert,
Earl of Leicester, and Richard de Luci.
This great department of State was inherited from Henry I and Roger,
Bishop of Salisbury. Each officer of high rank had his definite seat there.
The Justiciar sat at the head of the exchequer board, a rectangular table,
five feet by ten, covered with a chequered cloth; on his left sat the
Chancellor, and on his right, when Richard wrote, the Bishop of Win-
chester, Richard of Ilchester, sat by the king's command. These three
filled the head of the table. On the Chancellor's left, though not at the
table, sat the Constable, the Chamberlains, and the Marshal. Along
the side of the table to the right of the Bishop of Winchester sat the
Treasurer and the clerks. At the foot of the table, opposite the Bishop
of Winchester, sat another skilled financier, master Thomas Brown, and
next to him, opposite the Justiciar, sat the sheriff or other person who
was rendering account. Along the remaining side sat the tally-cutter,
the calculator, and the clerk who was at the head of the writing office.
At the same side of the table sat other “discreet men sent by the king,
a phrase which must have had a wide application. Most men who were
employed on the king's business did at times sit at the Exchequer. It
was far more than a financial office; it was the heart of the government.
Becket's biographer, William Fitz Stephen, says of the Exchequer that
there the pleas of the king were wont to be heard; and the surviving final
concords of Henry's reign illustrate the judicial business that was done
there. Many if not most of the judges employed by Henry in his latter
years were Exchequer officials, “barons of the Exchequer,” men who
normally sat there; such persons must be understood by the phrase "dis-
creet men sent by the king. ” They were barons of the Exchequer, although
they did not hold any definite office there or have any definite seat.
The duties of such men were doubtless undefined; they took their share
in whatever work there was to do, judicial, financial, or adıninistrative.
Exemption from fiscal burdens per libertatem sedendi ad scaccarium was
enjoyed by men who are not known to have held any of the definite
offices of state.
The Justiciar presided over the Exchequer, because by origin it was
a session of the king's court and the Justiciar was the man who represented
the king in his absence. By the end of Henry's reign, the dignity and
work of the office of Justiciar were well defined. He was second to the
king in the kingdom, and governed the country when the king was
abroad in accordance with the directions sent him by the king. At such
times he disposed of every sort of business that arose, whether it concerned
the Church, the State, or the king's private affairs. He presided at the
election of bishops; he saw to the fortification of castles; he sat as a
judge; he provided for the sending of necessaries to the king for his
hunting, or for other purposes. His duties were less onerous when the
## p. 575 (#621) ############################################
The Justiciar
575
king was in England, but even then there was much routine work to be
done. The Pipe Rolls shew that throughout the late twelfth century the
Justiciar actually sat at the Exchequer for the ordinary business of the
session. By the middle of Henry's reign it was established that he alone
among
officials could issue writs in his own name to authorise the payment
of the king's moneys out of the king's treasury. To the end of John's
reign, the Justiciar normally presided over the king's court of justice at
Westminster. From the sixth year of Richard I, the Feet of Fines, which
begin at that date, shew the Justiciar sitting there, day after day, the
chief among the judges. Difficult cases were referred to him by the
justices itinerant in the shires. The evidence which has survived from
the reign of Henry II suggests that the same practice was already usual
in Henry's later years. From time to time, the Justiciar himself led
parties of justices itinerant. His title, Capitalis Iusticiarius Regis,
expresses the truth; he was the chief justice in actual fact. But he was also
at the same time a politician, a soldier, and a financier. The king's
service in the twelfth century did not admit of specialisation.
It is in the conception of the position and duties of the Justiciar that
the difference between the earlier and later parts of Henry's reign is most
clearly shewn. It is doubtful if the idea of a permanent head of the
administration was fully developed in 1154. Under Henry I, Bishop
Roger of Salisbury had held a position comparable to that of the later
Justiciar. But in that reign, although Roger used the definite title
Procurator, applied by some chroniclers to the Justiciars of Henry II, it
was possible for Henry I's queen to do work which later in the century
would have fallen to the Justiciar. Moreover, although Roger presided
at the Exchequer, Ralf and Richard Basset, father and son, seem to have
acted in turn as the head of the judicial body. There is no record of
the appointment by Henry II of his first two Justiciars, Robert, Earl of
Leicester, and Richard de Luci, nor is it easy to find evidence of their
labours in the early years of the reign. The fact that they were presiding
together over the Easter Exchequer of Henry's fifth year shews that the
control of finance was already an essential part of their duties. Both of
them had served Stephen, and Richard had served him consistently to the
end; both were past their youth in 1154.
It was natural that Henry
should have been unwilling to allow them in the early years of the reign
the wide powers which belonged to the later Justiciars. They were
mainly occupied with routine work; the king's confidence was given to
Thomas of London, his Chancellor.
Viceregal power did not automatically belong to the Justiciar. That
Queen Eleanor should act in Henry's place in Aquitaine was natural, for the
land was her inheritance, but, like the queens of William I and Henry I
before her, she seems to have acted in a similar capacity in England.
The Pipe Rolls of Henry's earliest years contain numerous entries of
money paid out or pardoned on her writ. In one instance, the writ of "the
1
CH. XVII.
## p. 576 (#622) ############################################
576
Development of the office
queen and the Justiciar” is said to be the authority. A writ of the king
from over-sea was her authority for issuing a writ at Oxford forbidding
that the abbey of St Benet of Holme should be impleaded in the king's
absence! The queen's writ was attested by Richard de Luci. Later in
the reign, the young king had his brief period of delegated power.
Although its limitations caused him to rebel, he certainly exercised
some of the powers of a Justiciar? The king wrote to him to announce
the end of the Becket quarrel, and to command him to cause the archbishop
to be put into possession of his lands. In writs of which copies have
survived, the young king commands Peter of Studley to observe the
agreement which he has made with Godwine of Warwicks, and commands
Roger Foliot to warrant to the monks of Biddlesden the land which he
has given them“. When a collection of the young king's writs has been
made, it will certainly shew him to have been entrusted with considerable
administrative responsibility in England in the time immediately preceding
his rebellion.
In the early years of the reign, the Justiciar was not, as at a later
time, the only officer whose writ could authorise the payment of money
from the Treasury. The establishment of this Exchequer rule seems to
coincide with Becket's resignation of secular power. Becket himself took
an important part in the business of financial administration. The Pipe
Roll of 1162, the last year of his chancellorship, records no less than nine
writs by which Becket either authorises the payment of money from the
Treasury or pardons debts. The Earl of Leicester issued only one such
writ in this year, while Richard de Luci issued none, though three sepa-
rate payments are said to have been made “through” him-per Ricardum
de Lui. Although in each year previous to 1162 payments were made
either “through” Richard de Luci or by his command-precepto Ricardi
de Luci- it is not until 1163 that the Roll records a financial writ issued
in the joint names of the two justiciars. In the years before 1162 it was
not Richard de Luci but the queen or the Earl of Leicester who issued
the recorded writs on which the Treasury officials took action. The rolls
of those years record many payments made “through" or "by command of"
other persons—the Chancellor, or, on rare occasions, Nigel, Bishop of Ely.
Payments on the Earl of Leicester's writ are recorded on each successive
roll from 1159 to 1163. The king's presence in England between January
1163 and March 1166 meant that the Pipe Rolls offer little evidence of
the financial authority of his justiciars, but the roll for 1167 shews the
earl and Richard in full control of the administration; it records fourteen
writs issued by Richard and twenty-one issued by the earl. The king
1 Cott. MSS. Galba E. i f. 33 d.
? He presided over a session of the Exchequer at Winchester. EHR, vi (1891),
P. 364.
3 P. R. O. Exchequer K. R. Misc. Bks. 22 f. xxxix.
4 Harl. MSS. 3688 f. 20.
## p. 577 (#623) ############################################
Power of the Justiciar
577
was sending his writs to them, and they were acting on the commands
contained therein. The impression created by the Pipe Rolls is that in the
early years of the reign the control of finance was not yet concentrated
in the hands of the justiciars.
With few exceptions, the chroniclers say little of the Justiciar's work
in the early years of the reign. Gervase of Canterbury speaks of the Earls
of Leicester and Cornwall as wise, famous, and most powerful in the
kingdom, but he nowhere gives to the Earl of Leicester the title of
justiciar. Of Richard de Luci, Gervase states, under the year 1166, that
he had the rule in England-prefecturam agebat in Anglia. Roger of
Howden records an assertion by Becket that the barons of the Exchequer
and Richard de Luci,“Justiciar of England," had given him quittance of
his accounts before he was elected archbishop. Ralph de Diceto applies
the phrase justiciarius regis to both the Earl of Leicester and Richard de
Luci. The judicial work of the justiciars had little interest for the
ordinary chronicler, unless his own house was concerned in a plea. The
most familiar illustrations of their activity come from the History of
Abingdon and the Chronicle of Battle. Between 1160 and 1164, the
Earl of Leicester presided over a plea in the shire-court of Berkshire
touching the right of the Abbot of Abingdon to hold a market there.
The earl first heard the plea by virtue of the king's writ from over-sea.
When Henry returned in January 1163, the case came up again before
his justices at Oxford. Opinions varied, and the earl, who was present as
justiciarius et judex, did not presume to give judgment, but went to con-
sult the king. Between 1139 and 1171, Richard de Luci's brother Walter
was Abbot of Battle. The Chronicle of that house describes at length
an important plea which he prosecuted against the Bishop of Chichester
in 1157. The Earl of Leicester was present among the barons, but his
office is not mentioned, nor does he appear to have taken a prominent
part in the discussion; Richard de Luci acted on his brother's behalf.
The Chancellor seems to have led the debate, and the suit ended in a
compromise to the abbot's advantage, arranged by the king. In a suit
against Gilbert de Balliol, the abbot, though his brother was Justiciar,
had some trouble in obtaining a hearing in the king's court. At last it
was heard at Clarendon before the king. Richard de Luci, vir magnificus
et prudens, “at that time chief justice of the king," was present, but only
appears in the account of the plea as the advocate of his brother's cause.
When the king sat in person, the Justiciar was present in court as a
baron, not as a judge. Isolated administrative documents which illustrate
the Justiciar's activity suggest that his position was more important than
would be gathered from the accounts of famous pleas before the king.
Between 1156 and 1165, the Earl of Leicester presided over the knights
of Nottinghamshire when they defined the boundary between the land of
the Archbishop of York and the king's forest of Sherwood'. By virtue
1 Thoroton, History of Nottinghamshire, ed. 1790, Vol. 11, p. 160.
C. MED, H. vOL. v. CH. XVII.
37
## p. 578 (#624) ############################################
578
Richard de Luci and Ranulf de Glanville
of the king's writ from over-sea, he commanded “the king's barons of
Hastings to allow the Abbot of St Benet of Holme peaceable possession
of his lands in Yarmouth. "" The king laid on him the duty of constraining
the Earl of Norfolk to do the castle-guard at Norwich which he held of
St Edmund'. Magnus fuit hic.
Until within a year of his death in 1179, Richard de Luci continued
to perform the duties of Justiciar. No discreditable tales are told of him.
The worst that can be said is that he supported his brother, the Abbot of
Battle, in his efforts to give effect to the claims of his house, and it is very
doubtful if he went beyond the law in his support. He was honest enough
to oppose the king when Henry began to prosecute men for forest offences
which he had himself allowed at the time of the rebellion of 1174. Richard
must have been an able administrator and a skilled judge; many of the
reforms of Henry's reign in legal and administrative matters were initiated
while he was Justiciar. His successor was a man no less able but more
unscrupulous, Ranulf de Glanville, who was appointed Justiciar in 1180.
Of an East Anglian family of no special importance, Ranulf early entered
the king's service, and already in 1164 was sheriff of Yorkshire. His
conduct as sheriff cannot have been beyond reproach, for he was deprived
of his office between 1170 and 1175, doubtless as a result of the Inquest
of Sheriffs in 1170, but he was reinstated after the rebellion of 1174. The
part which he took in the capture of the King of Scots may well have
been the cause of his reinstatement. The Pipe Roll of 1177 contains a
curious entry that Ranulf has accounted for more than fifteen hundred
pounds derived partly from the county and partly from the lands of
Everard de Ros which he had held in custody. The king pardoned the
whole amount, but the entry suggests that there may have been good
reason for Ranulf's removal from his sheriffdom. Further light is cast on
the Justiciar's character by a story told by the chronicler known as Benedict
of Peterborough and corroborated by entries on the Pipe Roll of 1184.
There seems little doubt that Ranulf strained the law in the hope of
securing the execution of Gilbert de Plumpton, in order that his widow,
an heiress, might become the wife of Reiner of Waxham, Ranulf's steward.
Whatever his faults, Ranulf suited Henry, whose service demanded ability
and fidelity rather than too strict an honour, and during the last ten years
of Henry's reign Ranulf was the dominating figure in English administra-
tion. That he wrote the legal treatise which bears his name is most probable;
it must have been written while he was Justiciar. It has been suggested
that it was written by his nephew Hubert Walter, himself afterwards
Justiciar and Archbishop of Canterbury. Hubert had been brought up
by Ranulf de Glanville and his wife, and that he should write an account
of the practice of the king's court at his patron's request is not in itself
unlikely. Yet even if the words in which Roger of Howden, the chronicler
and judge, introduces the earliest text of the treatise do not prove that
i Cott. Galba E. 11 f. 33d.
2 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 14847 f. 37.
## p. 579 (#625) ############################################
Chancellor, Treasurer, and curiales
579
Glanville himself wrote it, they certainly imply that it was written at his
inspiration and, in all probability, under his guidance'.
Between the earlier and later parts of Henry's reign there occurred a
remarkable change in the personnel of the administration. Richard de
Luci was one of the last men in constant touch with the king who had
shared in the early labours of re-organisation. There was, in particular, a
definite break in the development of the office of Chancellor. Throughout
the twelfth century, the importance of any individual curialis depended
rather upon his relations with the king than upon the office which he held.
The peculiar importance of the chancellorship in the early years of the
reign was due to Becket's intimacy with Henry. Between the time of
Becket's resignation and the spring of 1173, the king's seal was apparently
kept by Geoffrey Ridel, Becket's successor as Archdeacon of Canterbury.
Although Geoffrey seems to have done the Chancellor's work, it is not
certain that he was ever appointed to the office. In 1173, Henry appointed
Ralf de Warneville Chancellor. This appointment coincides nearly, though
not precisely, with a remarkable change in the royal style. Until at least
May 1172, charters composed in the royal chancery uniformly style the
king Rex Anglorum et dux Normannorum et Aquitannorum et comes
Andegavorum. In charters known to issue from the chancery after May
1173 these titles are preceded by the formula dei gratia. It is difficult
to find evidence of Ralf's presence in England, where he seems normally
to have been represented by Walter of Coutances, then Archdeacon of
Oxford, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, Archbishop of Rouen, and for a
short time Justiciar of England. The last Chancellor of the reign was
Geoffrey, the king's illegitimate son, who in 1181 resigned the see of
Lincoln before consecration in order to take the office.
The office of Treasurer remained with the kin of Roger of Salisbury
not only throughout Henry's reign but into the reign of Henry III? . The
Treasurer's work was more specialised than that of any other official, and
he was essentially a financial officer. Until the appointment of Eustace
de Fauconberg early in the reign of Henry III, the treasurers were not
much concerned with general administration; Richard Fitz Nigel rarely
appears among the persons who attest the writs and charters of Henry II.
The names which are most prominent in the attestation clauses of Henry's
charters belong to a small number of men who, in the strict sense of the
word, may be styled curiales. Few of them held high baronial rank, and
most of them possessed definite office in the king's household. In the first
years of the reign, Thomas Becket, the Chancellor, was generally with the
1 “. . . cuius sapientia conditae sunt leges subscriptae quas Anglicanas vocamus. "
Howden, 11, 215. Maitland's doubt as to Glanville's authorship of the treatise rests
on an unusual translation of the verb condo. The normal translation of condo in
this context would be to write down or compile. A comparison of the treatise with
the surviving judicial records of the early thirteenth century shews that it is the
work of a practised judge.
2 Cf. supra p. 573, note.
CH. XVII.
37-2
## p. 580 (#626) ############################################
580
The Sheriffs
king. Manasser Biset the steward, Warin Fitz Gerald the chamberlain,
Richard de Humez the constable, were his constant companions. Until
his disgrace, Henry of Essex, as constable, was constantly attendant on the
king. Unlike his fellows of the household, he was of baronial rank. His
forfeited honour was given by the king to Henry Fitz Gerald, brother
of Warin, and like him a chamberlain. In the later years of the reign, the
personnel of the court was more varied; judges, and other men who served
the king without definite office, appear beside the regular household
officials. Much research remains to be done upon the curiales of Henry II.
That he reposed great confidence in them is certain. He rewarded them
with land, but not lavishly, though some of them have left their names
to English villages: Manasser Biset is immortalised in the name of Preston
Bisset in Buckinghamshire. Before the end of the reign there are definite
traces of the organisation which was to develop into the wardrobe of the
thirteenth century. The names of many chamber-clerks appear on twelfth-
century Pipe Rolls. They were already employed in administrative work
as well as in purely household functions. It is only from the examination of
unprinted documents that more can be learned of their origin and status.
If the men in the king's immediate service are as a body obscure, his
sheriffs are all known by name, and their territorial position can often
be ascertained precisely. The office still gives a field for research, but it
is certain that during the reigns of Henry II and his sons the sheriff
took the first and all-important steps towards his present position of
forgotten dignity. The Norman kings had suffered from the over-mighty
sheriff, and had tried to check his power. Henry I had often put his
own curiales into sheriffdoms and united several counties in the hands
of one or two trusted ministers. But the lists of sheriffs in Henry II's
early years still shew baronial names. In Devonshire, the earl was sheriff
until 1157. Northumberland was held by William de Vesci from 1157
to 1170, and by Roger de Stuteville from 1170 to 1185. William de
Beauchamp was sheriff of Worcestershire from 1155 to 1169, of Glou-
cestershire from 1157 to 1163, and of Herefordshire from 1160 to
1169. Wiltshire was held by Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, from 1155 to
1160. Throughout the reign, Shropshire was held by local magnates.
A baron was not inevitably the king's opponent, and a baronial sheriff
may have been as good an officer as any curialis. Moreover, many
sheriffs of baronial rank held their offices because they had become
curiales, and were competing for the prizes which the king's service
offered. Ranulf de Glanville was the chief among many such men.
Many of Henry's sheriffs were undistinguished knights in the counties
they held. Adam de Catmere, sheriff of Berkshire from 1160 to 1170,
and of Oxfordshire from 1164 to 1170, held half a knight's fee at Cat-
more in Berkshire of William, Earl of Derby. The south Lincolnshire
knight, Alfred of Pointon, sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1166 and 1167, and
again from 1170 to 1174, held three knight's fees of Maurice de Craon,
.
## p. 581 (#627) ############################################
The Sheriff's work
581
and was his steward. Even at the beginning of the reign, some shires
were held by curiales. The important county of Hampshire was held
by a succession of them. Turstin, sheriff until 1160, had been the clerk
of a chamberlain in the reign of Henry 11. His son succeeded him, and
was followed from 1170 to 1179 by Hugh de Gundeville. From 1174
to 1177 Hugh was also sheriff of Northamptonshire, from 1177 to 1179
he was sheriff of Devon, and his name frequently occurs in lists of
Henry's judges. From 1155 to 1160 Northamptonshire was held by
another minister who often served as judge, Simon son of Peter of Brix-
worth in that county. By the end of the reign it was the rule rather
than the exception that the sheriffs should be ministeriales. The change
was probably the result of Henry's policy rather than the policy itself.
Henry was controlling the excesses of sheriffs, and at the same time
increasing their work, so that barons may have become less anxious to
hold the office. The large sums offered, though not always paid, for
shrievalties at the beginning of Richard's reign may suggest that the
buyers hoped for laxer administrative control under a new king-a hope
that was not realised.
The judicial reforms introduced by Henry II materially increased the
labours of the sheriff. In addition to the financial and military responsi-
bilities which had lain upon him in the Norman time, he was now required
to give effect to an elaborate system of centralised justice. The earliest
rolls of the itinerant justices reveal the unceasing labours of the sheriff
in the time of Henry's sons. He was responsible for the most minute
details of judicial administration; he must receive and produce the writs
which began the innumerable pleas resulting from Henry's legal re-
forms; he was responsible for summoning every person necessary for the
conduct of a plea; he had to give effect to the justices' decisions, and
keep a record of his action; he must answer for the most meagre chattels
of criminals that had fallen in to the king. Any failure in the perform-
ance of these duties meant that he would be called to account before the
justices. It is not remarkable that curiales appear in increasing numbers
among the sheriffs of Henry's later years. Unless the sheriffs were brought
into close relations with the king, his plan of a judicial organisation
extending over the whole land and centring upon his court was bound to
be fruitless.
In 1170 Henry sent bodies of commissioners or justices round the
country to inquire touching the behaviour of the sheriffs, their bailiffs,
and all who were doing the king's business in the shires. Generally
known as the “Inquest of Sheriffs," the inquiry had a much wider scope.
)
It entered into the financial relationship between lords and their men,
with which the king had normally no concern. It covered only the
four years of Henry's recent absence abroad. Two fragments of the
original returns have survived, relating respectively to East Anglia and
1 Round, The Rise of the Pophams, in The Ancestor, vii, 59.
568
Balance of parties
Leicester (son of Henry's justiciar), William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby,
Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and Roger de Mowbray, a great baron in
Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire. They brought to the cause of the
young king a great stretch of England and many castles. Leicester was
a centre for the rebels, with Leicester Castle supported by Groby Castle
five miles to the north-west and Mountsorrel seven miles to the north.
The Ferrers castles of Duffield in Derbyshire and Tutbury in Stafford-
shire, the Bigod castles of Bungay and Framlingham in Suffolk, and the
Mowbray castles of Thirsk and Kirkby Malzeard in Yorkshire, were all
held for the young king.
On Henry's side were the mass of the clergy. The legates sent to
give Henry absolution remained to attempt a reconciliation between him
and his sons: At their suggestion, Henry proceeded to fill all vacant
bishoprics and abbeys. It was not Henry's fault that the see of Canter-
bury had not been filled before, for the perennial quarrel between the prior
and monks of Canterbury and the provincial bishops delayed every election.
The six bishops now appointed were all chosen for their politics rather than
for their religious zeal. Richard of Ilchester, elected Bishop of Winchester,
was a skilled financier. Geoffrey Ridel, elected Bishop of Ely, had suc-
ceeded Becket as Archdeacon of Canterbury and had borne the king's seal.
Both of them were bitter opponents of Becket, and had been excom-
municated in the course of the struggle. The king's illegitimate son,
Geoffrey, was elected Bishop of Lincoln. In June, the monks of Canter-
bury were conciliated by the election of Richard, prior of St Martin's at
Dover, to the archbishopric. The young king's attempt to prevent the
consecration of the prelates probably did much to confirm the eccle-
siastical order in its support of his father; the only English bishop who
finally joined the rebels was Hugh Puiset of Durham.
Among the barons, there were on the king's side his uncle Reginald,
Earl of Cornwall, his half-brother Hamelin, Earl Warenne, his cousin
William, Earl of Gloucester, William de Mandeville, Earl of Essex,
Simon de Sentliz, Earl of Northampton, and William de Albini, Earl of
Arundel. Although the most powerful of the earls were in revolt, the
baronage as a whole was on the king's side. The rebel castles were
more than balanced by the royal castles and those of loyal barons. The
fee of the Earl of Derby was roughly balanced by the honour of Peverel,
then in the king's hand, with its castles of Nottingham, Bolsover, and
the Peak. John de Lacy, constable of Chester, was on the king's side,
and his loyalty made Roger de Mowbray's defection of less moment. In
East Anglia, the Warennes balanced the Bigods, and in the west, the
loyal marchers and the king's Welsh auxiliaries balanced the Farl of
Chester. In the north, the Umfravilles, Vauxes, Vescis, Bruces, Balliols,
and Stutevilles, balanced the King of Scots. The mass of men, the lesser
baronage, the sheriff's, and above all the new ministerial class, were
solidly on Henry's side. Richard de Luci the justiciar, himself an Essex
## p. 569 (#615) ############################################
First summer of rebellion
569
baron holding the castle and honour of Ongar, raised forces and gar-
risoned castles. The Kymes of Lincolnshire, richer than most baronial
families, were active in the king's support. If Henry's sons expected a
glad response in England to the call of anarchy, they were disillusioned.
The rebellion began with an attack upon Henry's position in northern
France. The Earl of Chester, hereditary Viscount of Avranches and
Bayeux, ravaged Brittany, in association with Breton nobles. The young
king, with the Counts of Flanders and Boulogne, advanced from the east,
while the King of France laid siege to Verneuil. Louis VII, though he
could intrigue, could not carry through a war. He and his allies had no
concerted plan; the brains were all on Henry's side. His castles were
ready to stand siege, and he himself with a competent force could go
where he was needed. Brittany was cleared of rebels by the end of July
1173, and the Earl of Chester was taken prisoner with many other nobles.
The King of France did no more than sack Verneuil and then retreat
before Henry. The rebel forces operating in the east took Aumâle, but
after Matthew, Count of Boulogne, had been mortally wounded did no
more. At a meeting between Trie and Gisors in September, Henry made
generous offers to his sons, though denying them independent rule; his
terms were refused, and after the meeting the rebels and their allies seem
to have concluded that an attack on England must be made.
In England, the centres of war were the midlands, the north, and the
east. There also no definite plan can be traced. No other warfare was
possible at this period than a series of sieges and counter-sieges, raids
and counter-raids, for neither side could call itself victorious while the
other side still held unreduced castles. The justiciar took the offensive by
laying siege to Leicester, and if he could have taken it, the fall of Groby
and Mountsorrel would soon have followed. The town of Leicester was
almost entirely destroyed by an accidental fire. The townsfolk came to
terms, but the castle still held out. The justiciar arranged a truce that
he might be free to meet a Scotch inroad, and together with Humphrey de
Bohun, the king's constable, he chased the Scots into Scotland; but he was
then obliged to make a truce with them until 13 January 1174, in order
to turn south to meet an invasion by the Earl of Leicester with a body of
mercenaries. The earl was one of Henry's bitterest opponents at this time.
He may possibly have felt slighted because he had not succeeded his father
as justiciar, though his conduct during the rebellion gives no indication
that he had any of the ability necessary for such an office. He landed
at Walton near Felixstowe about 18 October 1173. Walton was a royal
castle, and the earl failed to take it. He joined the Earl of Norfolk at
Framlingham, and together they attacked and took the great castle of
Haughley, held for the king by Ranulf de Broc. At Bury St Edmunds,
on his way to Leicester, the earl heard of the approach of the royal
army under the constable, supported by the Earls of Cornwall, Gloucester,
and Arundel. He retreated before they came up, and tried to escape to
CH. XVII.
## p. 570 (#616) ############################################
570
Second summer of rebellion
Leicester by passing to the north. They met him at Fornham St Gene-
vieve three miles north-west of Bury. "In the twinkling of an eye” the
battle was over, and the earl and his wife were prisoners. Winter was
now coming on, and a truce was made with the Earl of Norfolk, to last
until 19 May 1174, on condition that his Flemish mercenaries were sent
back over sea. The Bishop of Durham arranged for a prolongation of
the truce with the Scots until the end of March, and the Northumbrian
barons paid the King of Scots two hundred pounds for the respite.
The winter was passed in preparation for the final struggle. The
Bishop of Durham, abandoning his pretence of loyalty, fortified his epis-
copal castle of Northallerton, while Roger de Mowbray strengthened his
castles of Thirsk and Kirkby Malzeard, and put into a defensible state a
derelict castle at Kinnard Ferry in the Isle of Axholme, of which he was
lord. The site of the castle can still be seen at Owston Ferry by the
lower Trent. A typical Norman motte and bailey, it had probably been
an adulterine castle of Stephen's time, from which the broad and fertile
flats of Axholme could be protected. The castles of Bamburgh, Wark,
and Carlisle, the border fortresses of Liddel and Harbottle, Prudhoe
Castle on the Tyne, Appleby and Brough-under-Stainmoor, were all held
for the king. The rebel plan for 1174, as for the previous year, seems to
have involved a threefold attack on Henry's supporters. The King of
France intended that the young king and the Count of Flanders should
land in East Anglia to join the Earl of Norfolk. In the midlands, the
Earl of Derby, David, the Scottish Earl of Huntingdon, and Anketill
Mallory, the constable of Leicester, tried to reduce the neighbouring
towns. In the north, the King of Scots attacked the northern castles.
He was supported by the Bishop of Durham, who was arranging for his
nephew Hugh de Puiset, Count of Bar, to bring troops to northern
England. The King of Scots began operations in April, but failed to
take Bamburgh and fell back on Berwick. In May he advanced again,
failed to take Wark, and passed on to lay siege to Carlisle. While main-
taining a close siege, the king himself led out detachments against other
castles. One such raid secured Liddel and Harbottle, another Appleby
and Brough-under-Stainmoor. Meanwhile, in East Anglia, a body of
Flemings sent in advance by the Count of Flanders joined the Earl of
Norfolk; with their help he took Norwich in June. In the midlands,
Nottingham was sacked by a raiding party from Leicester under David,
Earl of Huntingdon, and Anketill Mallory raided north Oxfordshire and
Northamptonshire, defeating the townsmen of Northampton who came
out to attack him.
On 5 May Geoffrey, the Bishop-elect of Lincoln, took the castle of
Kinnard Ferry. Roger de Mowbray, on his way to seek help at Leicester,
was taken prisoner by “the rustics of the Clay," the thickly-populated
district west of Trent which now forms the North and South Clay divi-
sions of Bassetlaw wapentake. Much of this district was ancient demesne
## p. 571 (#617) ############################################
Suppression of the rebellion
571
of the Crown, and the king's humble tenants had nothing to gain from
baronial anarchy. With the support of the Archbishop of York, Geoffrey
took the castle of Kirkby Malzeard, and fortified Topcliffe, which he
gave in charge to William de Stuteville to control Roger's remaining
castle of Thirsk. Contemporaneously with these events the Justiciar
laid siege to Huntingdon. Failing to take the castle, he built a counter-
work against it, and placed Earl Simon of Northampton, who claimed
the earldom of Huntingdon, in charge of operations. Messages were
sent to the king to ask him to cross over. While Henry was landing at
Southampton on 8 July, the King of Scots, having brought William de
Vaux to promise to surrender Carlisle if it were not relieved by Michael-
mas, was planning an attack on Prudhoe. Henry's first care after landing
was to perform an elaborate penance at Becket's tomb. In the mean-
time, the loyal barons of the north, under the sheriffs of York and
Lancaster, were quelling the rebellion. The King of Scots began the
siege of Prudhoe on Tuesday, 9 July, but on Thursday he abandoned it,
hearing that the northern barons were gathering at Newcastle. The
invading army ravaged far and wide, while the King of Scots rode to-
wards Alnwick. A mist lay over the valley of the Alne. The English
forces approached Alnwick as the mist lifted, and found the King of
Scots with a few followers. The king charged, but capture was inevitable;
Ranulf de Glanville took custody of him, and sent a messenger to Henry,
who heard the news on 17 July. On 21 July Henry in person received
the surrender of Huntingdon. From Huntingdon he went to Sileham,
a village midway between the two Bigod castles of Framlingham and
Bungay. The Earl of Norfolk surrendered; and Henry then turned west-
wards to Northampton, where the King of Scots was brought to him, and
the rebels made their submission. It only remained for Henry to return
to Normandy and shew himself ready to take the offensive, and the King
of France abandoned the siege of Rouen, which he had begun after Henry's
departure. The threatened invasion of England never took place.
The rebellion was suppressed, but not without two summers of warfare
which must have reminded old men of the days of Stephen. After the
first few months there can have been little doubt which side would win.
The king's sons relied on their powerful allies and assumed a feudal
hatred of order which might exist in France but was not felt in England.
They forgot that alliance with the King of Scots would secure the sup-
port of the northern barons to their father, and that though some barons
might resent order the masses of men loved it. Henry's position in
England was never threatened again. The King of Scots was not only
compelled to do homage for his kingdom as English barons did homage
for their baronies; he was forced to allow Henry to garrison the castles of
Berwick, Jedburgh, Roxburgh, Stirling, and Edinburgh. Peace was made
with France, and lasted until Louis' death, when it was Henry's support
which secured Philip Augustus in his position. To the young king,
CH. XVII.
## p. 572 (#618) ############################################
572
Henry's death
1
Henry gave a competent revenue, but no share in the government of his
dominions.
The subsequent rebellions by which Henry was troubled were no more
than attempts on the part of his sons to anticipate his death; they
belong rather to French than to English history. In securing Philip
Augustus on the French throne, Henry had done the one thing that
ensured the ultimate disintegration of his own dominions, for Philip lost
no opportunity of encouraging Henry's sons in their rebellious atti-
tude. In 1175 Henry entrusted the government of Aquitaine to Richard.
The rebellion of 1181 began as a quarrel between Richard and the young
king. In that year, Henry issued the Assize of Arms in England, which
provided for the arming of men according to their degree, and forbade
the export of arms. There was no fear of rebellion in England; Henry
could rely on the respect which men felt for his government, and arm
them to defend it against invasion. The war in France dragged on until
the young king's death in 1183. In the next year, it was renewed by
Richard, unwilling to surrender Aquitaine to John. Henry gave way,
and the Irish expedition was fitted out for John in 1185. Its failure was
the less serious in that Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany, died in 1186, leaving
Henry with two sons only for whom to make provision. The long-
expected fall of Jerusalem in the next year postponed the imminent war
between Henry and Philip. Public opinion demanded a crusade, and the
Kings of France and England could do no other than follow it; Henry,
Richard, and Philip took the cross. Henry, who had evaded a crusade
for so many years, cannot have meant to undertake one when old age
was creeping upon him; in fact, both kings were willing to assist the
cause with money, but neither wished to leave his kingdom. Of pretexts
for war between Philip and Henry there were many; Philip claimed the
wardship of Geoffrey's heir, and demanded the marriage of Richard and
his sister Alais, so long promised. The war began in the south-west,
with aggressions by Richard on Toulouse and counter-attacks by Philip,
but it soon changed its character. When Henry crossed to Normandy in
1188, Richard and Philip became allies fighting for the recognition of
Richard's right to succeed his father in all his dominions. Ill and pre-
maturely aged, Henry was no match for the military skill of Richard
and Philip. He was forced to surrender, and having agreed to Philip's
terms, overcome with his illness and shame for his failure, he succumbed
to the shock of learning that John, too, had deserted him.
II.
The essential feature of English history in the twelfth century is the
development of a reasoned system of law for the whole land. The change
from the archaic law of the conquered English, modified by new Norman
elements, to the law described in the treatise known by Ranulf de
## p. 573 (#619) ############################################
Two-fold division of the reign
573
Glanville's name, was the work of Henry II and his ministers. Henry's
reign witnessed a change that was almost a revolution. His early years
carry on the tradition of the previous reigns. He was then a very young
man, and the first necessity was to secure England and to consolidate his
continental dominions; the interest of that time lies in political events.
The Becket quarrel came to hinder, though for a time only, what
must have been an extensive programme of reform. The charters and
writs of these earlier years are very similar in form and wording to those
of the reign of Henry I; they suggest the influence of the individual
circumstance. Those of the latter part of the reign suggest the routine
of a government bureau. In the latter years there were few political
events in England to be recorded; the interest of that time lies in the
detail of administration. No precise date can be taken as marking the
change between the earlier and later parts of Henry's reign, but it seems
to fall between the deaths of Henry's first two justiciars, Robert “Bossu,"
Earl of Leicester, and Richard de Luci, that is, between 1168 and 1179.
Between these years fall Becket's murder and the rebellion of 1174, each
of which helps to mark the close of an epoch.
Little can be learned about the personnel of the administration from
the chronicle accounts of Henry's earliest years. The re-organisation
of the Exchequer is unnoticed. From the second year of the reign, the
Pipe Roll of each year, or, as it was more properly called, the Great
Roll of the Exchequer, records the financial administration of the year.
The early rolls are small. They shew that the king and his ministers had
to contend with the financial difficulties presented by land wasted in the
anarchy, or granted away to buy support for the king. Nigel, Bishop
of Ely, nephew of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, remained treasurer until
he bought the office for his son Richard, who was to become the author
of the treatise known as the Dialogus de Scaccario', and who continued
as treasurer into the reign of Richard I. To these men is due the honour
of elaborating the system of the Exchequer. Richard is not known
to have taken an active part in any other administrative work; unlike
most Exchequer officials, he did not act regularly as a judge. He writes
of the Exchequer as a man writes whose life-work lies in the subject of
which he treats. When he wrote the Dialogus, the business of the
Exchequer was transacted at two great annual sessions at Easter and
Michaelmas, over which the Justiciar presided. Already in Henry's fifth
1 The dates of both the beginning and end of Richard's official career are un-
certain. The date generally accepted for the purchase of the office on his behalf by
Nigel is 1158, but at the Easter session of the Exchequer in 1162 a quittance from
Danegeld was attested by Nigel, Bishop of Ely, Robert, Earl of Leicester, and the
other barons (Lincoln Cathedral, Registrum Antiquissimum, f. 36). It is generally
stated that Richard held the office until his death, but at some date after 1194 he
granted certain houses in Westminster to his beloved kinsman William, the king's
treasurer (Cott. Faust. A. in f. 248). The word consanguineus is important as
proving kinship between William of Ely and Richard Fitz Nigel.
CH. XVII.
## p. 574 (#620) ############################################
574 The Exchequer and the Barons of the Exchequer
year, John, the king's Marshal, when granting land, states that his
charter was sealed at the Exchequer in the Easter term and before Robert,
Earl of Leicester, and Richard de Luci.
This great department of State was inherited from Henry I and Roger,
Bishop of Salisbury. Each officer of high rank had his definite seat there.
The Justiciar sat at the head of the exchequer board, a rectangular table,
five feet by ten, covered with a chequered cloth; on his left sat the
Chancellor, and on his right, when Richard wrote, the Bishop of Win-
chester, Richard of Ilchester, sat by the king's command. These three
filled the head of the table. On the Chancellor's left, though not at the
table, sat the Constable, the Chamberlains, and the Marshal. Along
the side of the table to the right of the Bishop of Winchester sat the
Treasurer and the clerks. At the foot of the table, opposite the Bishop
of Winchester, sat another skilled financier, master Thomas Brown, and
next to him, opposite the Justiciar, sat the sheriff or other person who
was rendering account. Along the remaining side sat the tally-cutter,
the calculator, and the clerk who was at the head of the writing office.
At the same side of the table sat other “discreet men sent by the king,
a phrase which must have had a wide application. Most men who were
employed on the king's business did at times sit at the Exchequer. It
was far more than a financial office; it was the heart of the government.
Becket's biographer, William Fitz Stephen, says of the Exchequer that
there the pleas of the king were wont to be heard; and the surviving final
concords of Henry's reign illustrate the judicial business that was done
there. Many if not most of the judges employed by Henry in his latter
years were Exchequer officials, “barons of the Exchequer,” men who
normally sat there; such persons must be understood by the phrase "dis-
creet men sent by the king. ” They were barons of the Exchequer, although
they did not hold any definite office there or have any definite seat.
The duties of such men were doubtless undefined; they took their share
in whatever work there was to do, judicial, financial, or adıninistrative.
Exemption from fiscal burdens per libertatem sedendi ad scaccarium was
enjoyed by men who are not known to have held any of the definite
offices of state.
The Justiciar presided over the Exchequer, because by origin it was
a session of the king's court and the Justiciar was the man who represented
the king in his absence. By the end of Henry's reign, the dignity and
work of the office of Justiciar were well defined. He was second to the
king in the kingdom, and governed the country when the king was
abroad in accordance with the directions sent him by the king. At such
times he disposed of every sort of business that arose, whether it concerned
the Church, the State, or the king's private affairs. He presided at the
election of bishops; he saw to the fortification of castles; he sat as a
judge; he provided for the sending of necessaries to the king for his
hunting, or for other purposes. His duties were less onerous when the
## p. 575 (#621) ############################################
The Justiciar
575
king was in England, but even then there was much routine work to be
done. The Pipe Rolls shew that throughout the late twelfth century the
Justiciar actually sat at the Exchequer for the ordinary business of the
session. By the middle of Henry's reign it was established that he alone
among
officials could issue writs in his own name to authorise the payment
of the king's moneys out of the king's treasury. To the end of John's
reign, the Justiciar normally presided over the king's court of justice at
Westminster. From the sixth year of Richard I, the Feet of Fines, which
begin at that date, shew the Justiciar sitting there, day after day, the
chief among the judges. Difficult cases were referred to him by the
justices itinerant in the shires. The evidence which has survived from
the reign of Henry II suggests that the same practice was already usual
in Henry's later years. From time to time, the Justiciar himself led
parties of justices itinerant. His title, Capitalis Iusticiarius Regis,
expresses the truth; he was the chief justice in actual fact. But he was also
at the same time a politician, a soldier, and a financier. The king's
service in the twelfth century did not admit of specialisation.
It is in the conception of the position and duties of the Justiciar that
the difference between the earlier and later parts of Henry's reign is most
clearly shewn. It is doubtful if the idea of a permanent head of the
administration was fully developed in 1154. Under Henry I, Bishop
Roger of Salisbury had held a position comparable to that of the later
Justiciar. But in that reign, although Roger used the definite title
Procurator, applied by some chroniclers to the Justiciars of Henry II, it
was possible for Henry I's queen to do work which later in the century
would have fallen to the Justiciar. Moreover, although Roger presided
at the Exchequer, Ralf and Richard Basset, father and son, seem to have
acted in turn as the head of the judicial body. There is no record of
the appointment by Henry II of his first two Justiciars, Robert, Earl of
Leicester, and Richard de Luci, nor is it easy to find evidence of their
labours in the early years of the reign. The fact that they were presiding
together over the Easter Exchequer of Henry's fifth year shews that the
control of finance was already an essential part of their duties. Both of
them had served Stephen, and Richard had served him consistently to the
end; both were past their youth in 1154.
It was natural that Henry
should have been unwilling to allow them in the early years of the reign
the wide powers which belonged to the later Justiciars. They were
mainly occupied with routine work; the king's confidence was given to
Thomas of London, his Chancellor.
Viceregal power did not automatically belong to the Justiciar. That
Queen Eleanor should act in Henry's place in Aquitaine was natural, for the
land was her inheritance, but, like the queens of William I and Henry I
before her, she seems to have acted in a similar capacity in England.
The Pipe Rolls of Henry's earliest years contain numerous entries of
money paid out or pardoned on her writ. In one instance, the writ of "the
1
CH. XVII.
## p. 576 (#622) ############################################
576
Development of the office
queen and the Justiciar” is said to be the authority. A writ of the king
from over-sea was her authority for issuing a writ at Oxford forbidding
that the abbey of St Benet of Holme should be impleaded in the king's
absence! The queen's writ was attested by Richard de Luci. Later in
the reign, the young king had his brief period of delegated power.
Although its limitations caused him to rebel, he certainly exercised
some of the powers of a Justiciar? The king wrote to him to announce
the end of the Becket quarrel, and to command him to cause the archbishop
to be put into possession of his lands. In writs of which copies have
survived, the young king commands Peter of Studley to observe the
agreement which he has made with Godwine of Warwicks, and commands
Roger Foliot to warrant to the monks of Biddlesden the land which he
has given them“. When a collection of the young king's writs has been
made, it will certainly shew him to have been entrusted with considerable
administrative responsibility in England in the time immediately preceding
his rebellion.
In the early years of the reign, the Justiciar was not, as at a later
time, the only officer whose writ could authorise the payment of money
from the Treasury. The establishment of this Exchequer rule seems to
coincide with Becket's resignation of secular power. Becket himself took
an important part in the business of financial administration. The Pipe
Roll of 1162, the last year of his chancellorship, records no less than nine
writs by which Becket either authorises the payment of money from the
Treasury or pardons debts. The Earl of Leicester issued only one such
writ in this year, while Richard de Luci issued none, though three sepa-
rate payments are said to have been made “through” him-per Ricardum
de Lui. Although in each year previous to 1162 payments were made
either “through” Richard de Luci or by his command-precepto Ricardi
de Luci- it is not until 1163 that the Roll records a financial writ issued
in the joint names of the two justiciars. In the years before 1162 it was
not Richard de Luci but the queen or the Earl of Leicester who issued
the recorded writs on which the Treasury officials took action. The rolls
of those years record many payments made “through" or "by command of"
other persons—the Chancellor, or, on rare occasions, Nigel, Bishop of Ely.
Payments on the Earl of Leicester's writ are recorded on each successive
roll from 1159 to 1163. The king's presence in England between January
1163 and March 1166 meant that the Pipe Rolls offer little evidence of
the financial authority of his justiciars, but the roll for 1167 shews the
earl and Richard in full control of the administration; it records fourteen
writs issued by Richard and twenty-one issued by the earl. The king
1 Cott. MSS. Galba E. i f. 33 d.
? He presided over a session of the Exchequer at Winchester. EHR, vi (1891),
P. 364.
3 P. R. O. Exchequer K. R. Misc. Bks. 22 f. xxxix.
4 Harl. MSS. 3688 f. 20.
## p. 577 (#623) ############################################
Power of the Justiciar
577
was sending his writs to them, and they were acting on the commands
contained therein. The impression created by the Pipe Rolls is that in the
early years of the reign the control of finance was not yet concentrated
in the hands of the justiciars.
With few exceptions, the chroniclers say little of the Justiciar's work
in the early years of the reign. Gervase of Canterbury speaks of the Earls
of Leicester and Cornwall as wise, famous, and most powerful in the
kingdom, but he nowhere gives to the Earl of Leicester the title of
justiciar. Of Richard de Luci, Gervase states, under the year 1166, that
he had the rule in England-prefecturam agebat in Anglia. Roger of
Howden records an assertion by Becket that the barons of the Exchequer
and Richard de Luci,“Justiciar of England," had given him quittance of
his accounts before he was elected archbishop. Ralph de Diceto applies
the phrase justiciarius regis to both the Earl of Leicester and Richard de
Luci. The judicial work of the justiciars had little interest for the
ordinary chronicler, unless his own house was concerned in a plea. The
most familiar illustrations of their activity come from the History of
Abingdon and the Chronicle of Battle. Between 1160 and 1164, the
Earl of Leicester presided over a plea in the shire-court of Berkshire
touching the right of the Abbot of Abingdon to hold a market there.
The earl first heard the plea by virtue of the king's writ from over-sea.
When Henry returned in January 1163, the case came up again before
his justices at Oxford. Opinions varied, and the earl, who was present as
justiciarius et judex, did not presume to give judgment, but went to con-
sult the king. Between 1139 and 1171, Richard de Luci's brother Walter
was Abbot of Battle. The Chronicle of that house describes at length
an important plea which he prosecuted against the Bishop of Chichester
in 1157. The Earl of Leicester was present among the barons, but his
office is not mentioned, nor does he appear to have taken a prominent
part in the discussion; Richard de Luci acted on his brother's behalf.
The Chancellor seems to have led the debate, and the suit ended in a
compromise to the abbot's advantage, arranged by the king. In a suit
against Gilbert de Balliol, the abbot, though his brother was Justiciar,
had some trouble in obtaining a hearing in the king's court. At last it
was heard at Clarendon before the king. Richard de Luci, vir magnificus
et prudens, “at that time chief justice of the king," was present, but only
appears in the account of the plea as the advocate of his brother's cause.
When the king sat in person, the Justiciar was present in court as a
baron, not as a judge. Isolated administrative documents which illustrate
the Justiciar's activity suggest that his position was more important than
would be gathered from the accounts of famous pleas before the king.
Between 1156 and 1165, the Earl of Leicester presided over the knights
of Nottinghamshire when they defined the boundary between the land of
the Archbishop of York and the king's forest of Sherwood'. By virtue
1 Thoroton, History of Nottinghamshire, ed. 1790, Vol. 11, p. 160.
C. MED, H. vOL. v. CH. XVII.
37
## p. 578 (#624) ############################################
578
Richard de Luci and Ranulf de Glanville
of the king's writ from over-sea, he commanded “the king's barons of
Hastings to allow the Abbot of St Benet of Holme peaceable possession
of his lands in Yarmouth. "" The king laid on him the duty of constraining
the Earl of Norfolk to do the castle-guard at Norwich which he held of
St Edmund'. Magnus fuit hic.
Until within a year of his death in 1179, Richard de Luci continued
to perform the duties of Justiciar. No discreditable tales are told of him.
The worst that can be said is that he supported his brother, the Abbot of
Battle, in his efforts to give effect to the claims of his house, and it is very
doubtful if he went beyond the law in his support. He was honest enough
to oppose the king when Henry began to prosecute men for forest offences
which he had himself allowed at the time of the rebellion of 1174. Richard
must have been an able administrator and a skilled judge; many of the
reforms of Henry's reign in legal and administrative matters were initiated
while he was Justiciar. His successor was a man no less able but more
unscrupulous, Ranulf de Glanville, who was appointed Justiciar in 1180.
Of an East Anglian family of no special importance, Ranulf early entered
the king's service, and already in 1164 was sheriff of Yorkshire. His
conduct as sheriff cannot have been beyond reproach, for he was deprived
of his office between 1170 and 1175, doubtless as a result of the Inquest
of Sheriffs in 1170, but he was reinstated after the rebellion of 1174. The
part which he took in the capture of the King of Scots may well have
been the cause of his reinstatement. The Pipe Roll of 1177 contains a
curious entry that Ranulf has accounted for more than fifteen hundred
pounds derived partly from the county and partly from the lands of
Everard de Ros which he had held in custody. The king pardoned the
whole amount, but the entry suggests that there may have been good
reason for Ranulf's removal from his sheriffdom. Further light is cast on
the Justiciar's character by a story told by the chronicler known as Benedict
of Peterborough and corroborated by entries on the Pipe Roll of 1184.
There seems little doubt that Ranulf strained the law in the hope of
securing the execution of Gilbert de Plumpton, in order that his widow,
an heiress, might become the wife of Reiner of Waxham, Ranulf's steward.
Whatever his faults, Ranulf suited Henry, whose service demanded ability
and fidelity rather than too strict an honour, and during the last ten years
of Henry's reign Ranulf was the dominating figure in English administra-
tion. That he wrote the legal treatise which bears his name is most probable;
it must have been written while he was Justiciar. It has been suggested
that it was written by his nephew Hubert Walter, himself afterwards
Justiciar and Archbishop of Canterbury. Hubert had been brought up
by Ranulf de Glanville and his wife, and that he should write an account
of the practice of the king's court at his patron's request is not in itself
unlikely. Yet even if the words in which Roger of Howden, the chronicler
and judge, introduces the earliest text of the treatise do not prove that
i Cott. Galba E. 11 f. 33d.
2 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS. 14847 f. 37.
## p. 579 (#625) ############################################
Chancellor, Treasurer, and curiales
579
Glanville himself wrote it, they certainly imply that it was written at his
inspiration and, in all probability, under his guidance'.
Between the earlier and later parts of Henry's reign there occurred a
remarkable change in the personnel of the administration. Richard de
Luci was one of the last men in constant touch with the king who had
shared in the early labours of re-organisation. There was, in particular, a
definite break in the development of the office of Chancellor. Throughout
the twelfth century, the importance of any individual curialis depended
rather upon his relations with the king than upon the office which he held.
The peculiar importance of the chancellorship in the early years of the
reign was due to Becket's intimacy with Henry. Between the time of
Becket's resignation and the spring of 1173, the king's seal was apparently
kept by Geoffrey Ridel, Becket's successor as Archdeacon of Canterbury.
Although Geoffrey seems to have done the Chancellor's work, it is not
certain that he was ever appointed to the office. In 1173, Henry appointed
Ralf de Warneville Chancellor. This appointment coincides nearly, though
not precisely, with a remarkable change in the royal style. Until at least
May 1172, charters composed in the royal chancery uniformly style the
king Rex Anglorum et dux Normannorum et Aquitannorum et comes
Andegavorum. In charters known to issue from the chancery after May
1173 these titles are preceded by the formula dei gratia. It is difficult
to find evidence of Ralf's presence in England, where he seems normally
to have been represented by Walter of Coutances, then Archdeacon of
Oxford, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, Archbishop of Rouen, and for a
short time Justiciar of England. The last Chancellor of the reign was
Geoffrey, the king's illegitimate son, who in 1181 resigned the see of
Lincoln before consecration in order to take the office.
The office of Treasurer remained with the kin of Roger of Salisbury
not only throughout Henry's reign but into the reign of Henry III? . The
Treasurer's work was more specialised than that of any other official, and
he was essentially a financial officer. Until the appointment of Eustace
de Fauconberg early in the reign of Henry III, the treasurers were not
much concerned with general administration; Richard Fitz Nigel rarely
appears among the persons who attest the writs and charters of Henry II.
The names which are most prominent in the attestation clauses of Henry's
charters belong to a small number of men who, in the strict sense of the
word, may be styled curiales. Few of them held high baronial rank, and
most of them possessed definite office in the king's household. In the first
years of the reign, Thomas Becket, the Chancellor, was generally with the
1 “. . . cuius sapientia conditae sunt leges subscriptae quas Anglicanas vocamus. "
Howden, 11, 215. Maitland's doubt as to Glanville's authorship of the treatise rests
on an unusual translation of the verb condo. The normal translation of condo in
this context would be to write down or compile. A comparison of the treatise with
the surviving judicial records of the early thirteenth century shews that it is the
work of a practised judge.
2 Cf. supra p. 573, note.
CH. XVII.
37-2
## p. 580 (#626) ############################################
580
The Sheriffs
king. Manasser Biset the steward, Warin Fitz Gerald the chamberlain,
Richard de Humez the constable, were his constant companions. Until
his disgrace, Henry of Essex, as constable, was constantly attendant on the
king. Unlike his fellows of the household, he was of baronial rank. His
forfeited honour was given by the king to Henry Fitz Gerald, brother
of Warin, and like him a chamberlain. In the later years of the reign, the
personnel of the court was more varied; judges, and other men who served
the king without definite office, appear beside the regular household
officials. Much research remains to be done upon the curiales of Henry II.
That he reposed great confidence in them is certain. He rewarded them
with land, but not lavishly, though some of them have left their names
to English villages: Manasser Biset is immortalised in the name of Preston
Bisset in Buckinghamshire. Before the end of the reign there are definite
traces of the organisation which was to develop into the wardrobe of the
thirteenth century. The names of many chamber-clerks appear on twelfth-
century Pipe Rolls. They were already employed in administrative work
as well as in purely household functions. It is only from the examination of
unprinted documents that more can be learned of their origin and status.
If the men in the king's immediate service are as a body obscure, his
sheriffs are all known by name, and their territorial position can often
be ascertained precisely. The office still gives a field for research, but it
is certain that during the reigns of Henry II and his sons the sheriff
took the first and all-important steps towards his present position of
forgotten dignity. The Norman kings had suffered from the over-mighty
sheriff, and had tried to check his power. Henry I had often put his
own curiales into sheriffdoms and united several counties in the hands
of one or two trusted ministers. But the lists of sheriffs in Henry II's
early years still shew baronial names. In Devonshire, the earl was sheriff
until 1157. Northumberland was held by William de Vesci from 1157
to 1170, and by Roger de Stuteville from 1170 to 1185. William de
Beauchamp was sheriff of Worcestershire from 1155 to 1169, of Glou-
cestershire from 1157 to 1163, and of Herefordshire from 1160 to
1169. Wiltshire was held by Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, from 1155 to
1160. Throughout the reign, Shropshire was held by local magnates.
A baron was not inevitably the king's opponent, and a baronial sheriff
may have been as good an officer as any curialis. Moreover, many
sheriffs of baronial rank held their offices because they had become
curiales, and were competing for the prizes which the king's service
offered. Ranulf de Glanville was the chief among many such men.
Many of Henry's sheriffs were undistinguished knights in the counties
they held. Adam de Catmere, sheriff of Berkshire from 1160 to 1170,
and of Oxfordshire from 1164 to 1170, held half a knight's fee at Cat-
more in Berkshire of William, Earl of Derby. The south Lincolnshire
knight, Alfred of Pointon, sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1166 and 1167, and
again from 1170 to 1174, held three knight's fees of Maurice de Craon,
.
## p. 581 (#627) ############################################
The Sheriff's work
581
and was his steward. Even at the beginning of the reign, some shires
were held by curiales. The important county of Hampshire was held
by a succession of them. Turstin, sheriff until 1160, had been the clerk
of a chamberlain in the reign of Henry 11. His son succeeded him, and
was followed from 1170 to 1179 by Hugh de Gundeville. From 1174
to 1177 Hugh was also sheriff of Northamptonshire, from 1177 to 1179
he was sheriff of Devon, and his name frequently occurs in lists of
Henry's judges. From 1155 to 1160 Northamptonshire was held by
another minister who often served as judge, Simon son of Peter of Brix-
worth in that county. By the end of the reign it was the rule rather
than the exception that the sheriffs should be ministeriales. The change
was probably the result of Henry's policy rather than the policy itself.
Henry was controlling the excesses of sheriffs, and at the same time
increasing their work, so that barons may have become less anxious to
hold the office. The large sums offered, though not always paid, for
shrievalties at the beginning of Richard's reign may suggest that the
buyers hoped for laxer administrative control under a new king-a hope
that was not realised.
The judicial reforms introduced by Henry II materially increased the
labours of the sheriff. In addition to the financial and military responsi-
bilities which had lain upon him in the Norman time, he was now required
to give effect to an elaborate system of centralised justice. The earliest
rolls of the itinerant justices reveal the unceasing labours of the sheriff
in the time of Henry's sons. He was responsible for the most minute
details of judicial administration; he must receive and produce the writs
which began the innumerable pleas resulting from Henry's legal re-
forms; he was responsible for summoning every person necessary for the
conduct of a plea; he had to give effect to the justices' decisions, and
keep a record of his action; he must answer for the most meagre chattels
of criminals that had fallen in to the king. Any failure in the perform-
ance of these duties meant that he would be called to account before the
justices. It is not remarkable that curiales appear in increasing numbers
among the sheriffs of Henry's later years. Unless the sheriffs were brought
into close relations with the king, his plan of a judicial organisation
extending over the whole land and centring upon his court was bound to
be fruitless.
In 1170 Henry sent bodies of commissioners or justices round the
country to inquire touching the behaviour of the sheriffs, their bailiffs,
and all who were doing the king's business in the shires. Generally
known as the “Inquest of Sheriffs," the inquiry had a much wider scope.
)
It entered into the financial relationship between lords and their men,
with which the king had normally no concern. It covered only the
four years of Henry's recent absence abroad. Two fragments of the
original returns have survived, relating respectively to East Anglia and
1 Round, The Rise of the Pophams, in The Ancestor, vii, 59.
