travellers were continually exposed to
the danger of being robbed, bound, wounded, and murdered; that
these crimes escaped with impunity, because the ministers of justice
themselves were in a confederacy with the robbers; and that they, for
their part, instead of bringing matters to a fruitless trial by law,
were willing, though merchants, to decide their cause with the robbers
by arms and a duel. The king, provoked at these abuses, ordered a jury
to be enclosed, and to try the robbers: the jury, though consisting
of twelve men of property in Hampshire, were found to be also in a
confederacy with the felons, and acquitted them. Henry, in a rage,
committed the jury to prison, threatened them with severe punishment,
and ordered a new jury to be enclosed, who, dreading the fate of their
fellows, at last found a verdict against the criminals. Many of the
king's own household were discovered to have participated in the guilt;
and they said for their excuse, that they received no wages from him,
and were obliged to rob for a maintenance.[*] "Knights and esquires,"
says the Dictum of Kenilworth, "Who were robbers, if they have no land,
shall pay the half of their goods, and find sufficient security to
keep henceforth the peace of the kingdom." Such were the manners of the
times!

One can the less repine, during the prevalence of such manners, at the
frauds and forgeries of the clergy; as it gives less disturbance to
society to take men's money from them with their own consent, though by
deceits and lies, than to ravish it by open force and violence. During
this reign the papal power was at its summit, and was even beginning
insensibly to decline, by reason of the immeasurable avarice and
extortions of the court of Rome, which disgusted the clergy as well as
laity in every kingdom of Europe. England itself, though sunk in the
deepest abyss of ignorance and superstition, had seriously entertained
thoughts of shaking off the papal yoke;[**] and the Roman pontiff was
obliged to think of new expedients for rivetting it faster upon the
Christian world.

* M. Paris, p. 509.

** M. Paris, p. 421.

For this purpose, Gregory IX. published his decretals,[*] which are a
collection of forgeries favorable to the court of Rome, and consist
of the supposed decrees of popes in the first centuries. But these
forgeries are so gross, and confound so palpably all language, history,
chronology, and antiquities,--matters more stubborn