Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/207

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every kind of unrighteous extortion. The land was bowed down by what, in the living speech of our forefathers, was called ungeld; money, that is, wrung from the people by unrede, unright, and unlaw. Like his father, Rufus was, as a rule, strict in preserving the peace of the land; his hand was heavy on the murderer and the robber. The law of his father which forbade the punishment of death was either formally repealed or allowed to fall into disuse. The robber was now sent to the gallows; but, when he had got thither, he might still save his neck by a timely payment to the King's coffers. And the sternness of the law which smote offenders who had no such prevailing plea was relaxed also in favour of all who were in the immediate service of the King. The chief objects of William's boasted liberality were his mercenary soldiers, picked men from all lands. A strong hand and a ready wit, by whomsoever shown and howsoever proved, were a passport to the Red King's service and to his personal favour. And those who thus won his personal favour were more likely to be altogether strangers than natives of the land, whether of the conquering or of the conquered race. We may suspect that the settled inhabitants of England, whether English or Norman, knew the King's mercenaries mainly as a body of aliens who had licence to do any kind of wrong among them without fear of punishment. The native Englishman and his Norman neighbour had alike to complain of the chartered