Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/406

 For a moment we can believe that the English people would feel a certain pleasure in seeing the men who had once conquered them and whom they had more lately conquered, brought under the yoke, and under such a yoke as that of Flambard. But such a feeling would be short-lived compared with the far deeper feeling of common grievances and common enmities.

For the yoke of Flambard was one which, in different ways, pressed on all classes. If the native English, and the less wealthy men generally, were less directly touched by his feudal legislation than those who ranked above them, Flambard had no mind to let poor men, or native Englishmen, or any other class of men, go scot free. If his new devices pressed mainly on the great, he knew how to use the old forms of law so as to press on great and small alike. No one was too high, no one was too low, for the ministers of the King's Exchequer to keep their eyes on him. No source of profit was deemed too small or too mean, if the coffers of a chivalrous king could be filled by it. If Flambard sought to seize upon every man's heritage, he also drave all the King's gemóts over all England. We have no details; but it is easy to see how the ancient assemblies, and the judicial and administrative business which was done in them, might be turned into instruments of extortion. We have seen that the worst criminals could win their pardon by a bribe, and means might easily be found, by false charges and by various tricks of the law, for wringing money out of the innocent as well as the guilty. We may again turn to Henry's charter. It is a very speaking clause which forgives all "pleas" and debts due to his brother, except certain classes of them which were held to be due of lawful right. In the days of*