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It is really amusing to remark the strange business in which the king sometimes interfered, and never without a present; the wife of Hugh de Nevile gave the king two hundred hens, that she might lie with her husband one night;[***********] and she brought with her two sureties, who answered each for a hundred hens.

     [** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 323.]

     [*** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 323.]

     [**** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 323.]

     [****** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 324.]

     [******* Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 232, 233,
     etc.]

     [******** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 298.]

     [********* Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 305.]

     [*0: Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 325.]

     [*1: Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p. 326 ]

     [*2: Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p 326]

It is probable that her husband was a prisoner, which debarred her from having access to him. The abbot of Rucford paid ten marks for leave to erect houses and place men upon his land near Welhang, in order to secure his wood there from being stolen; Hugh, archdeacon of Wells, gave one tun of wine for leave to carry six hundred summs of corn whither he would; Peter de Perariis gave twenty marks for leave to salt fishes as Peter Chevalier used to do.

It was usual to pay high fines, in order to gain the king’s good will or mitigate his anger. In the reign of Henry II., Gilbert, the son of Fergus, fines in nine hundred and nineteen pounds nine shillings, to obtain that prince’s favor; William de Chataignes, a thousand marks, that he would remit his displeasure. In the reign of Henry III., the city of London fines in no less a sum than twenty thousand pounds on the same account.

The king’s protection and good offices of every kind were bought and sold. Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would help him against the earl of Mortaigne in a certain plea: Robert de Cundet gave thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him to an accord with the bishop of Lincoln; Ralph de Brckham gave a hawk, that the king would protect him; and this is a very frequent reason for payments; John, son of Ordgar, gave a Norway hawk, to have the king’s request to the king of Norway to let him have his brother Godard’s chattels; Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to obtain the king’s request to Isolda Bisset, that she should take him for a husband; Roger Fitz-Walter gave three good palfreys to have the king’s letter to Roger Bertram’s mother, that she should marry him; Eling the dean paid one hundred marks, that his whore and his children might be let out upon bail; the bishop of Winchester gave one tun of good wine for his not putting the king in mind to give a girdle to the countess of Albemarle; Robert de Veaux gave five of the best palfreys, that the king would hold his tongue about Henry Pinel’s wife. There are in the records of exchequer many other singular instances of a like nature.[*] It will, however, be just to remark, that the same ridiculous practices and dangerous abuses prevailed in Normandy, and probably in all the other states of Europe.[**] England was not in this respect more barbarous than its neighbors.

These iniquitous practices of the Norman kings were so well known, that, on the death of Hugh Bigod, in the reign of Henry II., the best and most just of these princes, the eldest son and the widow of this nobleman came to court, and strove, by offering large presents to the king, each of them to acquire possession of that rich inheritance. The king was so equitable as to order the cause to be tried by the great council! But, in the mean time, he seized all the money and treasure of the deceased,[***] Peter, of Blois, a judicious, and even an elegant writer, for that age, gives a pathetic description of the reign of Henry; and he scruples not to complain to the king himself of these abuses.[****]

     [* We shall gratify the reader’s curiosity by
     subjoining a few more instances from Madox, p. 332. Hugh
     Oisel was to give the king two robes of a good green color,
     to have the king’s letters patent to the merchants of
     Flanders with a request to render him one thousand marks,
     which he lost in Flanders. The abbot of Hyde paid thirty
     marks, to have the king’s letters of request to the
     archbishop of Canterbury, to remove certain monks that were
     against the abbot. Roger de Trihanton paid twenty marks and
     a palfrey, to have the king’s request to Richard de
     Umfreville to give him his sister to wife, and to the sister
     that she would accept of him for a husband; William de
     Cheveringworth paid five marks, to have the king’s letter to
     the abbot of Perfore, to let him enjoy peaceably his tithes
     as formerly; Matthew de Hereford, clerk, paid ten marks for
     a letter of request to the bishop of Llandaff, to let him
     enjoy peaceably his church of Schenfrith; Andrew Neuhm gave
     three Flemish caps, for the king’s request to the prior of
     Chikesand, for performance of an agreement made between
     them; Henry de Fontibus gave a Lombardy horse of value, to
     have the king’s request to Henry Fitz-Hervey, that he would
     give him his daughter to wife; Roger, son of Nicholas,
     promised all the lampreys he could get, to have the king’s
     request to Earl William Mareschal, that he would grant him
     the manor of Langeford at Ferm. The burgesses of Glocester
     promised three hundred lampreys, that they might not be
     distrained to find the prisoners of Poictou with
     necessaries, unless they pleased. Madox, p. 352. Jordan, sen
     of Reginald, paid twenty marks, to have the king’s request
     to William Panier, that he would grant him the land of Mill
     Nierenuit, and the custody of his heirs; and if Jordan
     obtained the same, he was to pay the twenty marks, otherwise
     not. Madox, p. 333,]

     [** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p, 359.]

     [*** Benedict. Abbas, p. 180, 181.]

     [**** Petri Bless. Epist. 95, apud Bibl. Patrum,
     tom. 24, p. 2014.]

We may judge what the case would be under the government of worse princes. The articles of inquiry concerning the conduct of sheriffs, which Henry promulgated in 1170, show the great power as well as the licentiousness of these officers.[**]

Amerciaments or fines for crimes and trespasses were an ether considerable branch of the royal revenue.[***] Most crimes were atoned for by money; the fines imposed were not limited by any rule or statute; and frequently occasioned the total ruin of the person, even for the slightest trespasses. The forest laws, particularly, were a great source of oppression The king possessed sixty-eight forests, thirteen chases, and seven hundred and eighty-one parks, in different parts of England;[****] and, considering the extreme passion of the English and Normans for hunting, these were so many snares laid for the people, by which they were allured into trespasses and brought within the reach of arbitrary and rigorous laws, which the king had thought proper to enact by his own authority.

But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of law, were extremely odious from the bigotry of the people, and were abandoned to the immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers. Besides many other indignities to which they were continually exposed, it appears that they were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of sixty-six thousand marks exacted for their liberty:[*****] at another time, Isaac the Jew paid, alone, five thousand one hundred marks[******] Brim, three thousand marks;[*******] Jurnet, two thousand; Bennet, five hundred: at another, Licorica, widow of David the Jew, of Oxford, was required to pay six thousand marks; and she was delivered over to six of the richest and discreetest Jews in England, who were to answer for the sum.[********]