Page:The child's pictorial history of England; (IA childspictorialh00corn).pdf/87

 rebuild the towns that had been burned down in the late wars; and ordered that the judges should go on circuits; that is, travel to all the cities, and hold assizes, two or three times a year, as they do now, to see that justice is done to every body.

2. But it was not quite so easy to do justice then; for, as long as the feudal laws lasted, the rich could always oppress the poor, and every great man had an army of his own vassals, who would do any thing he bade them, whether it was lawful or not.

3. Now the king wisely thought that the best thing in the world for the country would be to give more freedom to the people, so that the Barons might not have quite so much power.

4. He, therefore, granted charters to some of the cities, which made them a little more independent; but it was by very slow degrees that the people of England became free, although this happy change was beginning to take place.

5. Another thing the king wanted to do, was to make the clergy answerable to the judges for any bad acts they might commit, instead of having particular laws and judges for themselves; and, I am sorry to say, they sometimes did very wicked things, for which they were not punished half so severely as other people would