d no armed revolt of the feudal baronage
was ever again possible in England.

But the rebellion had wakened in the king's mind a deep alarm, which
showed itself in a new severity of temper. Famine and plague had fallen
on the country; the treasury was well nigh empty; law and order were
endangered. Henry hastened to return as soon as his foreign campaign was
over, and in May 1175 "the two kings of England, whom a year before the
breadth of the kingdom could not contain, now crossed in one ship, sat
at one table, and slept in one bed." In token of reconciliation with the
Church they attended a synod at Westminster, and went together on solemn
pilgrimage to the martyr's tomb. Then they made a complete visitation of
the whole kingdom. Starting from Reading on the 1st of June, they went
by Oxford to Gloucester, then along the Welsh border to Shrewsbury,
through the midland counties by Lichfield and Nottingham to York, and
then back to London, having spent on their journey two months and a few
days; and in autumn they made a progress through the south-western
provinces. At every halt some weighty business was taken in hand. The
Church was made to feel anew the royal power. Twelve of the great abbeys
were now without heads, and the king, justly fearing lest the monks
should elect abbots from their own body, "and thus the royal authority
should be shaken, and they should follow another guidance than his own,"
sent orders that on a certain day chosen men should be sent to elect
acceptable prelates at his court and in his presence. The safety of the
Welsh marches was assured. The castle of Bristol was given up to the
king, and border barons and Welsh princes swore fidelity at Gloucester.
An edict given at Woodstock ordered that no man who during the war had
been in arms against the king should come to his court without a special
order; that no man should remain in his court after the setting of the
sun, or should come to it before the sun rising; in the England that lay
west of the Severn, none might carry bow and arrow or pointed knife. In
this wild border district the checks which prevailed elsewhere against
violent crime were unknown. The outlaw or stranger who fled to forest or
moorland for hiding, might lawfully be slain by any man who met him. No
"murder-fine" was known there. The king, not daring perhaps to interfere
with the "liberties" of the west, may have sought to check crime by this
order against arms; but such a law