ame system of trial by sworn witnesses was also gradually extended
to the local courts. By the new-fashioned royal system the legal men of
hundreds and townships, the knights and freeholders, were ordered to
search out the criminals of their district, and "present" them for trial
at the Shire Court,--something after the fashion of the "grand jury" of
to-day, save that in early times the jurors had themselves to bear
witness, to declare what they knew of the prisoner's character, to say if
stolen goods had been divided in a certain barn, to testify to a coat by
a patch on the shoulder. By a slow series of changes which wholly
reversed their duties, the "legal men" of the juries of "presentment" and
of "recognition" were gradually transformed into the "jury" of to-day;
and even now curious traces survive in our courts of the work done by the
ancestors of the modern jury. In criminal cases in Scotland the oath
still administered by the clerk to jurymen carries us back to an ancient
time: "You fifteen swear by Almighty God, and as you shall answer to God
at the great day of judgment, you will truth say and no truth conceal, in
so far as you are to pass on this assize."

The provincial administration was set in working order. New sheriffs took
up again the administration of the shires, and judges from the King's
Court travelled, as they had done in the time of Henry I., through the
land. The worst fears of the baronage were justified. They were disabled
by one blow after another. Their political humiliation was complete. The
heirs of the great lords who had followed the Conqueror, and who with
their vast estates in Normandy and in England had inherited the arrogant
pretensions of their fathers, found themselves of little account in the
national councils. The mercenary forces were no longer at their disposal.
The sources of wealth which they had found in plunder and in private
coinage were cut off. Their rights of jurisdiction were curtailed. A
final blow was struck at their military power by the adoption of scutage.
In the Welsh campaign of 1157 Henry opened his military reforms by
introducing a system new to England in the formation of his army. Every
two knights bound to service were ordered to furnish in their place one
knight who should remain with the king's army as long as he required. It
was the first step towards getting rid of the cumbrous machinery of the
feudal array, and securing an efficient and manageable force w