Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/395

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were less accurately distinguished than they were a little later. But there seems no doubt that Flambard, the lawyer whom none could withstand, held the formal office of Justiciar. Till his time that post had not, as a distinct office, reached the full measure of its greatness. It was Flambard himself who raised it to the height of power and dignity which accompanied it when it was held by Roger of Salisbury and Randolf of Glanville. He was to the post of Justiciar what Thomas of London two generations later was to the post of Chancellor; he was the man who knew how to magnify his office. In that office "he drave all the King's gemóts over all England." The King's thegns who had come to the local assembly on the King's errand in the days of Æthelred and Cnut had now grown into a mighty and terrible power. How Flambard drave the gemóts we learn elsewhere. He was fierce alike to the suppliant and to the rebel. Suppliant and rebel alike were in his eyes useful only as means for further filling the mighty chest at Winchester. Strangely enough, he himself, clerk and Norman as he was, had found neither birth nor order protect him when the Conqueror had needed a part of his land for the creation of the New Forest. On the principle that man is ever most ready to inflict on others the wrongs which he has borne himself, Flambard, who himself in some