eholds, makes one of the most considerable articles in our
law-books.[389] Highway robbery was from the earliest times a sort of
national crime. Capital punishments, though very frequent, made little
impression on a bold and a licentious crew, who had at least the
sympathy of those who had nothing to lose on their side, and flattering
prospects of impunity. We know how long the outlaws of Sherwood lived in
tradition--men who, like some of their betters, have been permitted to
redeem by a few acts of generosity the just ignominy of extensive
crimes. These, indeed, were the heroes of vulgar applause; but when such
a judge as Sir John Fortescue could exult that more Englishmen were
hanged for robbery in one year than French in seven, and that, "if an
Englishman be poor, and see another having riches which may be taken
from him by might, he will not spare to do so,"[390] it may be perceived
how thoroughly these sentiments had pervaded the public mind.

Such robbers, I have said, had flattering prospects of impunity. Besides
the general want of communication, which made one who had fled from his
own neighbourhood tolerably secure, they had the advantage of extensive
forests to facilitate their depredations and prevent detection. When
outlawed or brought to trial, the worst offenders could frequently
purchase charters of pardon, which defeated justice in the moment of her
blow.[391] Nor were the nobility ashamed to patronise men guilty of
every crime. Several proofs of this occur in the rolls. Thus, for
example, in the 22nd of Edward III., the commons pray that, "whereas it
is notorious how robbers and malefactors infest the country, the king
would charge the great men of the land that none such be maintained by
them, privily or openly, but that they lend assistance to arrest and
take such ill-doers."[392]

It is perhaps the most meritorious part of Edward I.'s government that
he bent all his power to restrain these breaches of tranquillity. One of
his salutary provisions is still in constant use, the statute of
coroners. Another, more extensive, and, though partly obsolete, the
foundation of modern laws, is the statute of Winton, which, reciting
that "from day to day robberies, murders, burnings, and theft be more
often used than they have been heretofore, and felons cannot be
attainted by the oath of jurors which had rather suffer robberies on
strangers to pass without punishment than indite the offenders, of whom
great pa