p. 36.]

[*** Benedict Abbas, p. 113.]

The English monarch stretched still further the rigor of the conditions
which he exacted. He engaged the king and states of Scotland to make a
perpetual cession of the fortresses of Berwick and Roxborough, and to
allow the castle of Edinburgh to remain in his hands for a limited time
This was the first great ascendant which England obtained over Scotland;
and indeed the first important transaction which had passed between the
kingdoms. Few princes have been so fortunate as to gain considerable
advantages over their weaker neighbors with less violence and injustice
than was practised by Henry against the king of Scots, whom he had taken
prisoner in battle, and who had wantonly engaged in a war, in which all
the neighbors of that prince, and even his own family, were, without
provocation, combined against him.[*]

Henry having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with
honor from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great danger,
was employed for several years in the administration of justice, in the
execution of the laws, and in guarding against those inconveniencies,
which either the past convulsions of his state, or the political
institutions of that age, unavoidably occasioned. The provisions which
he made, show such largeness of thought as qualified him for being a
legislator; and they were commonly calculated as well for the future as
the present happiness of his kingdom.

{1176.} He enacted severe penalties against robbery, murder, false
coining, arson; and ordained that these crimes should be punished by
the amputation of the right hand and right foot.[**] The pecuniary
commutation for crimes, which has a false appearance of lenity, had
been gradually disused; and seems to have been entirely abolished by the
rigor of these statutes. The superstitious trial by water ordeal, though
condemned by the church,[***] still subsisted; but Henry ordained, that
any man accused of murder, or any heinous felony, by the oath of the
legal knights of the county, should, even though acquitted by the
ordeal, be obliged to abjure the realm.[****]

All advances towards reason and good sense are slow and gradual. Henry,
though sensible of the great absurdity attending the trial by duel or
battle, did not venture to abolish it: he only admitted either of
the parties to challenge a trial by an assize or jury of twelve
freeholders.[*****]

[* Some Scotch histo