[1] Later writers, anxious to depreciate Henry II. even to the extent of making him illegitimate, and his mother a bigamist, retailed a legend to the effect that the Emperor Henry V. had not died at this time, but had retired secretly into a monastery: Giraldus Cambrensis, Op. viii. 300.

[2] Mr. Round (Feudal England, 491-4) rejects the “Invasion of 1147,” of which the only mention is the account given in the Gesta Stephani, and considers that the events recorded relate to Henry’s visit in 1149. He is undoubtedly right in pointing out that the chronicler confused Henry’s unwarlike cousin, Earl William of Gloucester, with his loyal uncle, Earl Robert, making the latter refuse to give that help which, had he then been living, he would certainly have rendered to the utmost of his ability. On the other hand, what we know of Henry’s visit to England in 1149 is quite inconsistent with the wretched fiasco described in the Gesta, and when Mr. Round argues that “the statement that Henry applied for help to his mother by no means involves ... her presence in England at the time,” it is difficult to follow his argument. Had Henry applied for money to any one outside England it would presumably have been to his father, and, moreover, in 1149 the empress could not have been in straitened circumstances.

[3] See list of witnesses to charter executed at Devizes on 13th April, 1149: Sarum Charters (Rolls Ser.), 16.

[4] The connection between Louis and Eleanor was very distant, but a literal observance of the Canon Law would have invalidated the marriages of half the nobility of Europe.

[5] It is not quite certain when Richard de Luci was associated with the Earl of Leicester in the justiciarship, but the earl was clearly Chief Justiciar until his death in 1168, and may have held the superior position by priority of appointment.

[6] Nicholas Brakespere, the only Englishman to attain the papacy, was elected pope and took the title of Adrian IV. in December 1154.

[7] Roger of Hoveden mentions in particular the Yorkshire castle of Drax as one of the last of many destroyed by Stephen.

[8] After his description of Earl William’s great castle of Scarborough, William de Neuburgh adds that when in course of time it fell into decay, King Henry rebuilt it. It is rather surprising to find how soon this occurred, but the Pipe Roll for 1159 shows £111 spent “on the works of the castle of Scardeburc,” and £70 spent on the works of the “tower” (turris), a term which Mr. Round has shown to imply a keep. Next year £94, 3s. 4d. was spent on the keep, and the following year £107, 6s. 8d. on the castle.

[10] The claim of the popes to the sovereignty over islands was based upon the forged “Donation” of Constantine.

[11] This payment of 500 marks, entered under Essex on the lost Pipe Roll for the first year of Henry II., is copied into the Red Book of the Exchequer.

[12] There are numerous references to the “nova terra” of Earl Warenne on the Pipe Roll 4 Henry II.

[13] According to the Brut y Tywysogion (p. 109), an English governor on one occasion took certain action, “knowing the manners of the people of the country, that they would all be killing one another.”

[14] Many of these were probably merely positions of advantage strengthened with ditch and wooden stockade.

[15] See Round, Commune of London, 281.

[16] Details of these proceedings are to be found on the Pipe Rolls, 11 and 12 Henry II.

[17] In justice to Henry it must be remembered that the mutilation or execution of hostages was the natural outcome of the rebellion of those for whose good conduct they were sureties. A hostage who cannot be punished for the sins of those whom he represents is merely a useless expense to his keeper.

[18] The Pipe Roll, 12 Henry II., shows both these princes on good terms with the English.

[19] The Pipe Roll for 8 Henry II. shows “60s. paid to William Cade for gold for the crown of the king’s son, and for preparing the regalia,” and the Roll for the twelfth year records the expenditure of 7s. “for carrying the regalia of the king’s son into Normandy.” It would also seem (see below, p. 91) that the pope issued a commission for the Archbishop of York to crown the young prince.

[20] Gervase of Canterbury (Opera, i. 171) says that Thomas instituted the feast of the Holy Trinity. It would seem that the Sunday following Whitsunday was already sacred to the Trinity, but that he gave to the feast a position which it had not held before in England, and which it did not attain on the Continent till a much later date.

[21] The legend that the mother of Thomas was the daughter of a Saracen emir into whose hands Gilbert Becket had fallen during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and that, after helping Gilbert to escape, she followed him to London, is of late date and absolutely without foundation.

[22] The actual salary of the chancellor was 5s. a day, but the perquisites of the office, including the gifts which those who required his favour had to make, were great. Becket himself was said, by Foliot, to have paid “many thousand marks” for the office.

[23] Translation from one see to another, except in the case of promotion to the primacy, was extremely rare, and almost unheard of, in England at this time.

[24] A small point, not without significance as an indication of character, is observable in the gradual degradation of the royal oath. The Conqueror swore “by the splendour of God,” Henry “by the eyes of God,” Richard “by the body” or “by the thighs of God,” and John “by the feet,” or even “by the nails, of God.”

[25] Isabelle de Warenne had been the wife of William, son of King Stephen, the cousin of William of Anjou. The connection being through the Empress Maud there was no obstacle to her marriage, afterwards effected, with Hamelin, the illegitimate son of Geoffrey of Anjou.

[26] Their names occur as owing these sums “pro plegio archiepiscopi” on the Pipe Roll, 11 Henry II.

[27] The claim of the northern archbishops to have their cross carried before them within the province of Canterbury was a continual source of dispute for several centuries, leading to many undignified scenes.

[28] See Pipe Roll, 16 Henry II.

[29] See Pipe Roll, 12 Henry II.

[30] For a discussion of the authenticity of this letter of Pope Adrian, see Round, The Commune of London, 171-200, and, on the other side, Orpen, Ireland under the Normans, i. 312-8.

[31] This province had been previously offered to Herbert and William Fitz-Herbert, half-brothers of Earl Reynold of Cornwall, and Jolland de la Pomeray, but they had wisely declined the gift.

[32] The Pipe Roll, 19 Henry II., shows an expenditure of £32, 6s. 5d. for the king’s maintenance at Northampton for four days; and it would seem that he travelled without luggage, as over £72 was spent at the same time on the outfit which the sheriff provided for the king. None of the chroniclers notice this flying visit, but the evidence appears to favour the end of June as the most probable date.

[33] All the authorities agree as to the rapidity of Henry’s dash to Dol. Presumably he had with him only a small mounted escort.

[34] The Pipe Roll of 21 Henry II. shows a pension of 33s. 4d. paid to her for the last quarter of the twentieth year. She seems to have died in 1188, as the pension was then paid to her son John.

[35] “Fair Rosamund” was buried at Godstow Abbey, where the king set up a wonderfully carved monument to her memory. As we find fifty marks paid “for work at Godstow” in 1177, the first of a number of similar payments, it is probable that she had been buried there the previous year.

[36] She was apparently still alive in 1181, when a small allowance was made her, the sum of 66s. 8d. paid “matri G. cancellarii ad eam sustentandam” appearing amongst the charges on the bishopric of Lincoln.

[37] It is interesting to observe that Matthew Paris assigns to the young king Henry a shield of arms,—per pale gules and sable, three golden leopards; Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), vi. 473. This bears every mark of being an exceptionally early instance of differencing, and makes it more than probable that Henry II. bore the red shield with the three golden leopards, which has ever since been the arms of England.

[38] As for instance in the case of the disputed privileges of the abbey of St. Alban’s, when his examination of their charters and his comments thereon showed remarkable painstaking ability: Gesta Abbatum S. Albani (Rolls Ser.) i. 145-155. Another case, reported in still greater detail, is the suit between the Bishop of Chichester and the Abbot of Battle: Chron. of Battle Abbey (ed. Lower), 78-115. For an instance of the king’s appreciation of legal technicalities, see ibid., 182.

[39] The Pipe Roll for 31 Henry II. records a fine of 500 marks imposed on the Bishop of Durham for holding a plea touching the advowson of a church in Court Christian.

[40] An instance of a difficult case being referred by the justiciar to King Henry occurs in the Chron. Mon. de Abingdon (Rolls Ser.), ii. 229.

[41] Instances of the blessing of the ordeal pits occur in the Pipe Rolls. In 1166, for instance, 10s. was paid to two priests for blessing the pits (fossarum) at Bury St. Edmunds, and in Wiltshire 5s. was paid for preparing the pools (polis) for the ordeal of thieves, and 20s. to priests for blessing the same pools. As early as 1158 the sheriff of Wiltshire accounted for making “the pools of the moneyers,” and in 1175 in Hampshire there were payments made for “blessing the ordeal pits (fossis iuisse), and the cost of doing justice on the peasants who burnt their lord.”

[42] Engl. Hist. Rev., xxv. 709.

[43] The fragmentary return to the Inquest of Sheriffs made from the Earl of Arundel’s lands in Norfolk has been printed as an appendix to the Red Book of the Exchequer in the Rolls Series, but was first identified by Mr. Round.

[44] See Round, Commune of London, 229-233.

[45] In connection with the “sheriff’s aid” there is an interesting entry in the Chronicle of Abingdon (ii. 230), which relates that a former abbot had granted the sheriff 100s. yearly to protect the interests of the abbey’s tenants. The later sheriffs had continued to draw the money while doing nothing for it, and Abbot Ingulf refused to continue the payment, lest it should become established as a custom. The matter was brought before King Henry, who gave his decision in the abbot’s favour. The survey of the manors belonging to the canons of St. Paul’s in 1181 shows that the payments due to the sheriff from the different manors varied from 6d. to 4s. on the hide.

[46] The numerous references to Jews on the Pipe Rolls and in contemporary chronicles have been brought together in Jacobs’ The Jews of Angevin England. Examples of their dealings with monastic houses may be found in Jocelin of Brakelond’s Chronicle, relating to St. Edmund’s Abbey, and in the Gesta Abbatum concerning St. Alban’s, while an idea of their importance to the litigant in want of ready money for legal expenses may be gathered from Richard of Anstey’s famous story of the costs of his lawsuit (translated in Hall’s Court Life of the Plantagenets), in which he accounts for some seventeen different loans, amounting in all to £87, on which he paid £53 for usury.

[47] The tally, the precursor of the counterfoil, was a wooden stick on the edge of which the sum paid was indicated by a series of cuts or notches, the various sizes of which indicated definite sums. The stick being split parallel to its face, each party to the payment retained one portion, with its edge thus significantly notched, and the genuineness of either portion could at once be proved by putting the two together, when the notches would be found to tally.