for his quarrel with Anselm, worked with the Church to do away with the abuses in the land. Henry I.'s character. 4. Henry was a hard, selfish man, but fortunately for the people his interests were the same as theirs. He knew what he wanted, and he knew how to get it. He kept his aims clearly before him in all that he did. He wished to build up a strong power out of the firm union of England and Normandy. Men did not love him, but they feared and trusted him, for they could see and understand his aims. 'Great was the awe of him,' says the chronicler; 'no man durst illtreat another in his time: he made peace for men and deer.' Henry I.'s govern ment. 5. The Conqueror had loved order and made peace in the land. But time had tried his system and showed the points in which it failed, so that Henry could see where it would be well to make changes. In his plans for reform his chief adviser was Roger, Bishop of Salisbury. He was a very wise and able man, a Norman by birth, who had risen in Henry's service from being a poor clerk to be Bishop of Salisbury and chief minister of the king. In Henry I.'s time these ministers of the crown first grew up to help the king in all that he had to do. The 6. The chief minister in those days was called the Justiciar. At first the Justiciar only existed when the king was away from England and some one had to take his place there. The Conqueror, Justiciar. wanted no minister, for he liked to look after everything himself. But as the business of the government grew greater, some one was much oftener wanted to fill the king's place and look after things for him. Roger of Salisbury was Justiciar to the end of Henry's reign, and it is in his time that the Justiciar seems to have grown to be chief minister of the crown. The 7. In later times the Justiciar became only a judgethe Lord Chief Justice, as he is now called. Most of his duties then fell upon the Chancellor, who was Chancellor. at first only the head of the royal chaplains, the priests in the king's service. They were the king's secretaries. He got his name from the screen-cancelli, as it is called in Latin-behind which he and the chaplains did their work. The Chancellor also has become in our days a legal officer, but is still a minister of the crown. The Treasurer. 8. The Treasurer was simply the keeper of the king's treasure, and had to look after the accounts. Still the office was important, and Roger of Salisbury got it for his nephew, the Bishop of Ely. These were the chief men who did the business of the government for the king. They were generally clergymen, for the kings did not wish to give these offices to any of the great barons, for fear they should grow too strong and hand on the offices to their sons. The Great Council. 9. Most of the government was really in the king's own hands, though it was always said that he acted by the advice of his Great Council, the Witenagemot, as it had been called under the English kings. But it had changed its nature since the Conquest. It was now not a meeting of the Wise Men, but a court of the king's chief barons. It had only the forms of power; and though the king asked its advice, it does not seem to have dared to do more than agree to what he said. But by right it had the power to make laws, and it was important for the growth of English freedom that it kept even the forms of its rights; for when the people grew stronger they could make these forms real powers. Besides the Great Council the king had two other courts, the Exchequer and the Curia Regis. The Ex chequer. 10. The Exchequer was the court which managed the accounts of the government and received the taxes. The Justiciar was the head of the court. The Chancellor and all the great officers of the king's household sat in it, and were called Barons of the Exchequer. The Exchequer got its name from the checked cloth which covered the table round which the barons sat. Its chief meetings were held twice a year, when the sheriffs came up from the counties with their accounts. Each sheriff had to bring up the money due to the crown from his county. This money came chiefly from the rents of the land belonging to the king in each county, and from the fines paid by offenders to the county courts. The sheriff agreed to pay the king for his dues a fixed sum, which was called the Ferm of the county. If he got more out of the county he kept it for himself, if less he had to make it up out of his own purse. Accounts between the sheriff and the Exchequer were kept on a long piece of stick, in which notches were made marking the pounds, shillings, and pence paid in by the sheriffs; the stick was then split in half, half was given to the sheriff, and half kept by the Exchequer. The King's revenue. II. The King's revenue, as the money which came in every year to the king was called, was made up of the following payments: 1. The Ferm of the counties, which has just been explained. 2. The Danegeld; this in time was done away with under that name, but the kings still laid a tax of much the same kind on the cultivated land. 3. The fines which had to be paid to the king by certain kinds of criminals, and the fees and other profits of the law courts. 4. The feudal aids. The vassals of the king had to pay him fixed sums when his eldest son was knighted, when his eldest daughter was married, when their lands passed from one hand to another. 5. Henry I. got a great deal of money by fining those who broke the forest laws and killed the king's game. These forest laws were so very harsh that they brought much suffering upon the people. All these different moneys were paid into the Exchequer, and made a very large revenue for the crown. The Curia 12. The Curia Regis was the King's Court, as its Latin name means, in which the king sat at the head of his barons to give justice. It acted as a sort of committee of the king's Great Council, as the Great Council did not meet often. The usual court, therefore, was made up of the officers of the royal household. The same men who were barons of the Exchequer also sat in the Curia Regis, and were then called Justices. If the king was not present at the meetings of the court, the Justiciar took his place and heard the cases for him. The business of this court was very great. It had to hear the cases of persons who had interfered with the king's interest; it had to settle the disputes of the chief vassals of the crown, and suits were brought up to it from the county courts which could not be settled there. Out of this court sprang, in the next century, the three courts of Westminster, which we still have: the Exchequer, King's Bench, and Common Pleas. Besides being a court for doing justice it was also an assembly of the King's advisers, and as such it still remains in the Privy Council. The chief reason which led the Norman kings to order this court so carefully was because they found that it brought them in a great deal of money. They did justice very much because of the large profits made by the fines which the offenders had to pay. Henry, too, was wise enough to see that the country would be safer if justice were done in it, and so he would be able to tax it more easily. So we see that the Norman kings did not do justice for the good of the people, but because they found it profitable and useful for themselves. Circuit of the Justices. 13. Henry I. felt as strongly as his father had done how necessary it was to keep the power of the barons from growing too great. He saw that the Conqueror had not gone far enough in this way. He went on to make it impossible for the barons to get strong powers of their own in the counties. He did this by connecting all the county courts with the Curia Regis. He sent his justices through the country on circuit, as it is called. They went first to fix what sums of money were due to the king. They sat in the shiremoot, the old English county court. At first they only had to look after money matters, but in time they sat as judges in the court as well, in the same way as our Judges do now when they go on circuit. Their circuits did not become very regular till the reign of Henry II., when we shall have to speak about them again. The important thing to notice is how the whole country was bound together under one system. Through his justices the king could make his power felt in every part of the kingdom. The county courts. 14. The county courts were much the same as they had been in the days of Edward the Confessor. They were presided over by the sheriff, who was chosen by the king, and who represented the kingthat is, stood in his place—in the county. Below them was the court of the hundred, which was a division of the county; and lastly came the manorial courts, the courts of the greater barons. These courts were all steps up to the Curia Regis, and were now all closely connected with it by the circuits of the justices. So you see how orderly was the government of the Norman kings. The people were very safe under it, but they had to pay dearly for their safety. The taxes were |