General satisfaction. laws, strict heed to right, strict examination into wrong. The vacant churches should be filled, and their revenues should be restored to them. The King would no longer sell them or set them to farm. All prisoners should be set free; all debts to the crown should be forgiven; all offences against the King should be pardoned, and all suits begun in the King's name stopped.[1] Great was the joy through the land; a burst of loyal thankfulness was in every heart and on every mouth. The rule of King William was henceforth to be as the rule of the best of the kings who had gone before him. Thanksgivings went up to God through the whole land, and earnest prayers for the welfare of so great and so good a king.[2]
Beginnings of reform. This was the second time that the people of England had greedily swallowed the promises of the Red King. He had already deceived them once; but kings are easily trusted, and the awful circumstances under which reform was now promised might well lead men to believe that the promise was sincere. Sincere for the moment it doubtless was; nor did the proclamation remain altogether a dead letter. The reforms were actually begun; some at least of the prisoners were set free. William
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 16. "Scribitur edictum, regioque sigillo firmatur, quatenus captivi quicunque sunt in omni dominatione sua relaxentur, omnia debita irrevocabiliter remittantur, omnes offensiones antehac perpetratæ, indulta remissione, perpetuæ oblivioni tradantur." More general provisions followed; "Promittuntur insuper omni populo bonæ et sanctæ leges, inviolabilis observatio juris, injuriarum gravis, et quæ terreat cæteros, examinatio." We may specially regret that we have not the English text of this momentary Great Charter. Its language seems to assume, like the charter of Henry (see above, pp. 344, 392), that suits brought in the King's name would be unjust, and that his claims for debts would be unjust also.
- ↑ Ib. "Gaudetur a cunctis, benedicitur Deus in istis, obnixe oratur pro salute talis ac tanti regis." This is the real language of the moment, which is weakened by William of Malmesbury, Gest. Pont. 80; "Plausu exceptum est verbum, ibatque clamor cælo bona et salutem regi optantium."
