For a moment we can believe that the English people would feel a certain pleasure in seeing the men who had once conquered them and whom they had more lately conquered, brought under the yoke, and under such a yoke as that of Flambard. But such a feeling would be short-lived compared with the far deeper feeling of common grievances and common enmities.
Other forms of exaction.
Working of the old laws.
"Driving" of the Gemóts.
Witness of Henry's charter.
For the yoke of Flambard was one which, in different
ways, pressed on all classes. If the native English, and
the less wealthy men generally, were less directly
touched by his feudal legislation than those who ranked
above them, Flambard had no mind to let poor men,
or native Englishmen, or any other class of men, go
scot free. If his new devices pressed mainly on the
great, he knew how to use the old forms of law so as to
press on great and small alike. No one was too high,
no one was too low, for the ministers of the King's
Exchequer to keep their eyes on him. No source of profit
was deemed too small or too mean, if the coffers of a
chivalrous king could be filled by it. If Flambard sought
to seize upon every man's heritage, he also drave all the
King's gemóts over all England. We have no details;
but it is easy to see how the ancient assemblies, and the
judicial and administrative business which was done in
them, might be turned into instruments of extortion.
We have seen that the worst criminals could win their
pardon by a bribe,[1] and means might easily be found, by
false charges and by various tricks of the law, for
wringing money out of the innocent as well as the
guilty. We may again turn to Henry's charter. It is
a very speaking clause which forgives all "pleas" and
debts due to his brother, except certain classes of them
which were held to be due of lawful right.[2] In the days of*
