The Norman barons who owned
estates in England found themselves more entirely subject to the King,
who brought them in by right of conquest, than they had been by ancient
custom to their duke in Normandy; and Saxons and Normans alike were new
to the strict Forest Laws introduced by William.
Every king of doubtful right tried to win the favor of the Saxons, a
sturdy and formidable race, though still in subjection, by engaging to
give them the laws of their own dynasty. With this promise William Rufus
was crowned, and likewise Henry I., who even distributed copies of
the charter to be kept in the archives of all the chief abbeys, but
afterward caused them, it seems, to be privately destroyed. Stephen made
the same futile promise, failing perhaps, more from inability than from
design; and after his death the nation was so glad of repose on any
terms, that there were no special stipulations made on the accession of
Henry II. He and his Grand Justiciary, Ranulf de Glanville, governed
according to law, but it was partly the law of Normandy, partly of
their own device; the Norman _parlement_ of barons, and the Saxon
Wittenagemot, were alike ignored. The King obtained sufficient supplies
from his own immense estates, and from the fines which he had the power
to demand at certain times as feudal superior, and did in fact obtain at
will, and exact even for doing men justice in courts of law.
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