without a present, who sell all their good offices, and who intrude
themselves into every business, that they may have a pretence for
extorting money. Even justice was avowedly bought and sold; the king's
court itself, though the supreme judicature of the kingdom, was open
to none that brought not presents to the king; the bribes given for the
expedition, delay,[*] suspension, and, doubtless, for the perversion of
justice, were entered in the public registers of the royal revenue, and
remain as monuments of the perpetual iniquity and tyranny of the times.
The barons of the exchequer, for instance, the first nobility of the
kingdom, were not ashamed to insert, as an article in their records,
that the county of Norfolk paid a sum that they might be fairly dealt
with;[**] the borough of Yarmouth, that the king's charters, which they
have for their liberties, might not be violated;[***] Richard, son
of Gilbert, for the king's helping him to recover his debt from the
Jews;[****] Serlo, son of Terlavaston, that he might be permitted to
make his defence, in case he were accused of a certain homicide;[*****]
Waiter de Burton, for free law, if accused of wounding another;[******]
Robert de Essart, for having an Liquest to find whether Roger the
butcher, and Wace and Humphrey, accused him of robbery and theft out
of envy and ill will, or not;[*******] William Buhurst, for having an
inquest to find whether he were accused of the death of one Goodwin
out of ill will, or for just cause.[********] I have selected these few
instances from a great number of a like kind, which Madox had selected
from a still greater number, preserved in the ancient rolls of the
exchequer.[*********]

Sometimes the party litigant offered the king a certain portion, a half,
a third, a fourth, payable out of the debts which he, as the executor
of justice, should assist him in recovering.[**********] Theophania de
Westland agreed to pay the half of two hundred and twelve marks, that
she might recover that sum against James de Fughleston;[*] Solomon the
Jew engaged to pay one mark out of every seven that he should recover
against Hugh de la Hose;[************] Nicholas Morrel promised to pay
sixty pounds, that the earl of Flanders might be distrained to pay him
three hundred and forty-three pounds, which the earl had taken from
him; and these sixty pounds were to be paid out of the first money that
Nicholas should recover from the earl.[*************]