n. It was the beginning of six years of incessant diplomatic
intrigue, and of almost ceaseless war. The conflict, transferred from
England to France, rapidly widened into a strife, not now for the
maintenance of the king's authority in England, but for his actual
supremacy over the whole empire. Instead of the great questions of
principle which had given dignity to the earlier stages of the dispute,
the quarrel sank into a bitter personal wrangle, an ignoble strife which
left to later generations no great example, no fruitful precedent, no
victory won for liberty or order, for Church or State.

The Constitutions of Clarendon two years before had lain down the
principles which were to regulate the relations in England of Church and
State. The Assize of Clarendon laid down the principles on which the
administration of justice was to be carried out. Just as Henry had
undertaken to bring Church courts and Church law under the king's
control, so now he aimed at bringing all local and rival jurisdictions
whatever into the same obedience. In form the new law was simple enough.
It consisted of twenty-two articles which were drawn up for the use of
the judges who were about to make their circuits of the provinces. The
first articles described the manner in which criminals were to be
"presented" before the justices or sheriff. The accusation was to be
made by "juries," composed of twelve men of the hundred and four men of
the township; the "presentment" of a criminal by a jury such as this
practically implied that the man was held guilty by the public report of
his own neighbourhood, and he was therefore forbidden such chance of
escape as compurgation or the less dangerous forms of ordeal might have
afforded, and was sent to the almost certain condemnation of the ordeal
by water; if by some rare fortune he should escape from this alive he
was banished from the kingdom as a man of evil reputation. All freemen
were ordered to attend the courts held by the justices. The judges were
given power to enter on all estates of the nobles, to see that the men
of the manor were duly enrolled under the system of "frank-pledge," in
groups of ten men bound to answer for one another as "pledges" for all
purposes of police. Strict rules were made to prevent the possible
escape of criminals. The sheriffs were ordered to aid one another in
carrying the hue and cry after them from one country to another; no
"liberty" or "honour" might harbour a malef