Chapter III: England and France: the First Period of Their Rivalship

(1066-1217).

The emperors, the heads of the Holy Roman Empire, were the chief secular rulers in the Middle Ages, and were in theory the sovereigns of Christendom. But in the era of the Crusades, the kingdoms of England and France began to be prominent. In them, moreover, we see beginnings of an order of things not embraced in the mediaeval system. In France, steps are taken towards a compact monarchy. In England, there are laid the foundations of free representative government.

CONNECTION OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE.--For a long time the fortunes of England and of France are linked together. The kings of the French, with their capital at _Paris_, had been often obliged to contend with their powerful liegemen, the dukes of Normandy, at _Rouen_. When the Norman duke became king of England, he had an independent dominion added to the great fief on the other side of the channel. It sometimes looked as if England and France would be united under one sovereignty, so close did their relations become.

DEATH OF WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.--It was while _William the Conqueror_, angry with the king of the French, was burning _Mantes_, in the border-land between Normandy and France, that, by the stumbling of his horse in the ashes, he was thrown forward upon the iron pommel of his saddle, and received the hurt which ended, in the next month, in his death (Sept., 1087). On his death-bed he was smitten with remorse for his unjust conquest of England, and for his bloody deeds there. He would not dare to appoint a successor: it belonged, he said, to the Almighty to do that; but he hoped that his son _William_ might succeed him. The burial service at _Caen_, in the church which he had built, was interrupted by _Ascelin_, a knight, who raised his voice to protest against the interment, for the reason that the duke had wrongfully seized from his father the ground on which the church stood. The family of William made a settlement with Ascelin on the spot by paying a sum of money, and the service proceeded. The whole ground was afterwards paid for. William had left money for the rebuilding of the churches which he had burned at _Mantes_. He gave his treasures to the poor and to the churches in his dominions. These circumstances illustrate in a striking way how, in the Middle Ages, ruthless violence was mingled with power of conscience and a sense of righteous obligation.

WILLIAM RUFUS.--William the Conqueror was succeeded by his son, _William Rufus_ (1087-1100), who was as able a man as his father. He promised to be liberal, and to lay no unjust taxes; but he proved to be--especially after the death of the good _Lanfranc_, the archbishop of Canterbury--a vicious and irreligious king. The Norman nobles would have preferred to have his brother _Robert_, who was duke of Normandy, for their king; but the English stood by William. He left bishoprics and abbacies vacant that he might seize the revenues. One of his good deeds was the appointment of the holy and learned _Anselm_ to succeed _Lanfranc_; but he quarreled with _Anselm_, who withdrew from the kingdom. Normandy, which he had tried to wrest from his elder brother _Robert_, was mortgaged to him by the latter, in order that he might set out upon the first Crusade. That duchy came thus into the king's possession. William, while hunting in the New Forest, was killed, if not accidentally, then either, as it was charged, by _Walter Tyrrel_, one of the party, or by some one who had been robbed of his home when the New Forest was made. He was found in the agonies of death, pierced by an arrow shot from a cross-bow.

HENRY I. OF ENGLAND (1100-1135): LOUIS VI. (the FAT) OF FRANCE (1108-1137): LOUIS VII. (1137-1180).--_Henry_ was the youngest son of the Conqueror. His wife was English, and was a great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside. Her name was Edith, but she assumed the Norman name of _Matilda_. Her mother Margaret, wife of Malcolm of Scotland, was of the stock of the West Saxon kings. Thus the blood of Alfred, as well as of William the Conqueror, flowed in the veins of the later English kings. In the absence of his older brother _Robert_, who was in Jerusalem, he took the crown, and put forth a _Charter of Liberties_, promising the Church to respect its rights, and giving privileges to his vassals which they in turn were to extend to their own vassals. Robert came back from the Holy Land, and tried to wrest England from his brother. He failed in the attempt. After this, _Henry_ got possession of Normandy by the victory of _Tinchebrai_ in 1106, and kept Robert a prisoner in Cardiff Castle until his death (1135). _Louis the Fat_, king of France, espoused the cause of _William of Clito_, son of Robert, but was beaten in 1119 at _Brenneville_. Peace was made between the two kings; but in 1124 _Henry_ of England combined with his son-in-law, _Henry V._ of Germany, for the invasion of France. _Louis_ called upon his vassals, who gathered in such force that the emperor abandoned the scheme. _Louis_ then undertook to chastise those great vassals who had not responded to his summons. _William_, the duke of Aquitane, seeing the power of the suzerain, came into his camp, and offered him his homage. Louis inflicted a brutal punishment in Flanders, where the count, _Charles the Good_, had been assassinated in 1127, and which had failed to furnish its contingent in 1124. He obliged the Flemish lords to elect as their count, _William Clito_, whose rule, however, they presently cast off. _Louis the Fat_ united his son _Louis_ in marriage with _Eleanor_, the only daughter of _William (X.)_, the duke of Aquitaine, and thus paved the way for a direct control over the South. The duchy of _Aquitaine_ included _Gascony_ and other districts, and the suzerainty over _Auvergne, Périgord,_ etc. _Louis the VII._ (1137-1180) was not able to preserve the dominion, extending from the north to the south of France, which he inherited. He plunged into a dispute with Pope _Innocent II._ in relation to the church of _Bourges_, where he claimed the right to name the archbishop. _St. Bernard_ took the side of the Pope. _Suger_, abbot of St. Denis, an able minister, the counselor of the last king, supported _Louis_. The king attacked the lands of _Theobald_ of Champagne, who sided with the Pope, and in his wrath burned the parish church of _Vitry_, with hundreds of poor people who had taken refuge in it. His own remorse and the excommunication of the Pope moved him to do penance by departing on a Crusade. _Suger_, not liking the risk which the monarchy incurred through the absence of the king, opposed the project. _St. Bernard_ encouraged it. The Crusade failed of any important result; but it helped to infuse a national spirit into the French soldiers, who fought side by side with the army of the emperor, _Conrad III_. On his return, on the alleged ground that _Eleanor_ was too near of kin, he divorced her, and rendered back her dowry (1152).

LOUIS VII. OF FRANCE (1137-1180): STEPHEN (1135-1154) AND HENRY II. of ENGLAND (1154-1189).--The king of England, _Henry I._, after the death of his son by shipwreck, declared his daughter _Matilda_ his heir. She was the widow of _Henry V._, the emperor of Germany. In 1127 she married _Geoffrey_, count of Anjou, surnamed _Plantagenet_ on account of his habit of wearing a sprig of broom (_genet_) in his bonnet. Henry left Matilda, whom he called the "Empress," under the charge of his nephew, _Stephen of Blois_, who got himself elected king by the barons or great landowners,--as there was no law regulating the succession of the crown,--and was crowned at Westminster. They had sworn, however, to support Matilda. Her uncle _David_, king of Scots, took up her cause; but the Scots were defeated at the _Battle of the Standard_ in 1138. England was thrown into utter disorder by these circumstances: some of the barons fought on one side, and some on the other. There were thieves along the highways, and the barons in their castles were no better than the thieves. The empress landed in England in 1139, to recover her rights. In the civil war that ensued, _Stephen_ was taken prisoner (1141); but _Matilda_, whose imperious temper made her unpopular in London, was driven out of the city. _Stephen_ was released in exchange for the _Earl of Gloucester_. _Matilda_ was at one time in great peril, but contrived to escape in a winter night from Oxford Castle (1142). In 1153 peace was made, by which Stephen was to retain the kingdom, but was to be succeeded by Matilda's eldest son.

CRUELTY OF THE NOBLES.--In the time of Stephen and Matilda, the barons, released from the strong hand of his predecessor, were guilty of atrocities which made the people mourn the loss of Henry.

"They built strong castles, and filled them with armed men. From these they rode out as robbers, as a wild beast goes forth from its den. 'They fought among themselves with deadly hatred, they spoiled the fairest lands with fire and rapine; in what had been the most fertile of counties they destroyed almost all the provision of bread.' Whatever money or valuable goods they found, they carried off. They burnt houses and sacked towns, If they suspected any one of concealing his wealth, they carried him off to their castle; and there they tortured him, to make him confess where his money was. 'They hanged up men by their feet, and smoked them with foul smoke. Some were hanged up by their thumbs, others by the head, and burning things were hung on to their feet. They put knotted strings about men's heads, and twisted them till they went to the brain. They put men into prisons where adders and snakes and toads were crawling, and so they tormented them. Some they put into a chest short and narrow, and not deep, and that had sharp stones within, and forced men therein so that they broke all their limbs. In many of the castles were hateful and grim things called _rachenteges_, which two or three men had enough to do to carry. It was thus made: it was fastened to a beam, and had a sharp iron to go about a man's neck and throat, so that he might noways sit or lie or sleep; but he bore all the iron. Many thousands they starved with hunger.' The unhappy sufferers had no one to help them. Stephen and Matilda were too busy with their own quarrel to do justice to their subjects. Poor men cried to Heaven, but they got no answer. 'Men said openly that Christ and his saints were asleep.'"

DOMINIONS OF HENRY II.--_Henry_, the son of the empress and of Count _Geoffrey_ of Anjou, was the first of the _Angevin_ kings of England. They had Saxon blood in their veins, but were neither Norman nor Saxon, except in the female line. It was eighty-eight years since the Conquest; and, although the higher classes talked French, almost every one of their number was of mixed descent. The line between Saxon and Norman was becoming effaced. A vassal of the king of France, Henry held so many fiefs that he was stronger than the king himself, and all the other crown vassals taken together. From his father he had _Anjou_; from his mother, _Normandy_ and _Maine_; the county of _Poitou_ and the duchy of _Aquitaine_ he received by _Eleanor_, the divorced wife of Louis VII., whom he married. Later, by marrying one of his sons to the heiress of _Brittany_, that district, the nominal fief of Normandy, came practically under his dominion. He was a strong-willed man, who reduced the barons to subjection, and pulled down the castles which had been built without the king's leave. It might seem probable that the possessor of so great power would absorb the little monarchy of France. But this was prevented by long-continued discord in England,--discord in the royal family, between the king and the clergy, and, later, between the king and the barons. On the Continent, the king of England required a great and united force to break the feudal bonds which grew stronger between the king of France and the French provinces of England. We shall soon see how France enlarged her territory, and how the English dominion on the Continent was greatly reduced.

REFORMS OF HENRY.--In order to control the barons, he arranged with them to pay money in lieu of military service. In this way they were weakened. At the same time, he encouraged the small landowners to exercise themselves in arms, which would prepare them for self-defense and to assist the king. Moreover, he sent judges through the land to hear causes. They were to ask a certain number of men in the county as to the merits of the cases coming before them. These men took an oath to tell the truth. They gradually adopted the custom of hearing the evidence of others before giving to the judges their _verdict_,--that is, their declaration of the truth (from _vere dictum_). Out of this custom grew the jury system.

BECKET: CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.--The Conqueror had granted to ecclesiastical courts the privilege of trying cases in which the clergy were concerned. On this privilege the clergy had been disposed to insist ever since the fall of the Roman Empire. Under Stephen the energetic restraint exercised upon them was removed. In the early years of the reign of Henry II., there were great disorders among the Norman clergy, and crimes were of frequent occurrence. These were often punished more lightly than the same offenses when committed by a layman, as church courts could not inflict capital punishment. Henry undertook to bring the clergy under the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts. In this attempt he was resisted by _Thomas à Becket_, who had been his chancelor, and whom he raised to the archbishopric of Canterbury (1162), in the full expectation of having his support. He had been gay and extravagant in his ways, and zealous in behalf of whatever the king wished. But the brilliant chancelor became a strict and austere prelate, the champion of the clergy, with a will as inflexible as that of Henry. The only bishop that voted against him at his election, remarked that "the king had worked a miracle in having that day turned a layman into an archbishop, and a soldier into a saint." In this controversy, the clergy had reason to fear that Henry, if he got the power, would use it to punish and plunder the innocent. At a great council of prelates and barons, the _Constitutions of Clarendon_ were adopted (1164), which went far towards the subjecting of the ecclesiastics, as to their appointment and conduct, to the royal will.

_Becket_, with the other prelates, swore to observe these statutes; but he repented of the act, was absolved by the Pope from his oath, and fled to France. Later a reconciliation took place between him and the king. Becket returned to England, but with a temper unaltered. A hasty expression of Henry, uttered in wrath, and indicating a desire to be rid of him, was taken up by four knights, who attacked the archbishop, and slew him, near the great altar in the cathedral at Canterbury (Dec. 29, 1170). The higher nobles welcomed the occasion to revolt. _Henry_ was regarded as the instigator of the bloody deed, and was moved to make important concessions to the Pope, _Alexander III_. His life was darkened by quarrels with his sons. In 1173 the kings of France and Scotland, and many nobles of Normandy and England, joined hands with them. Henry, afflicted with remorse, did penance, allowing himself to be scourged by the monks at the tomb of Becket, or "St. Thomas,"--for he was canonized. The people rallied to him, and the nobles were defeated. The rebellion came to an end. The king of Scotland became more completely the vassal of England. In another rebellion the king's sons rebelled against him: in 1189 _John_, the youngest of them, joined with his brother Richard. Then Henry's heart was broken, and he died.

CONQUEST OF IRELAND.--In the first year of Henry's reign, he was authorized by _Pope Hadrian IV._ to invade Ireland. In 1169 _Dermot of Leinster_, a fugitive Irish king, undertook to enlist adventurers for this service. He was aided by _Richard of Clare_, earl of Pembroke, called _Strongbow_, and others. They were successful; and in 1171 _Henry_ crossed over to Ireland, and was acknowledged as sovereign by all the chiefs of the South. A synod brought the Irish Church into subjection to the see of Canterbury. But there was constant warfare, and the North and East of the island were not subdued. The whole country was not conquered until _Elizabeth's_ time, four centuries later.

WEAKENING OF GREAT VASSALS IN FRANCE.--The weakening of _Henry's_ power was the salvation of _Louis VII._, who had more the spirit of a monk than of an active and resolute monarch. At his death a new epoch is seen to begin. The dominion of the great vassals declines, and the truly monarchical period commences. It was the change which ended in making the king the sole judge, legislator, and executive of the country. _Louis the Fat, Philip Augustus,_ and _St. Louis (Louis IX.)_ are the early forerunners of _Louis XIV._, under whom the absolute monarchy was made complete.

PHILIP AUGUSTUS OF FRANCE (1180-1223): RICHARD THE LIONHEARTED OF ENGLAND (1189-1199).--_Philip Augustus_ was the last king of France to be crowned before his accession. The custom had helped to give stability to the regal system. Now it was no longer needful. Philip was only fifteen years old when he began to reign alone. For forty-three years he labored with shrewdness and perseverance, and with few scruples as to the means employed, to build up the kingly authority. His first act was a violent attack on the _Jews_, whom he despoiled and banished. This was counted an act of piety. He acquired _Vermandois, Valois_, and _Amiens_; refusing to render homage to the Bishop of Amiens, who claimed to be its suzerain. During the life of _Henry II._, Philip had allied himself closely with his son _Richard_ (the Lion-hearted), who succeeded his father. _Richard_ was passionate and quarrelsome, yet generous. He was troubadour as well as king. After his coronation (1189), the two kings made ready for a Crusade together. To raise money, _Richard_ sold earldoms and crown lands, and exclaimed that he would sell London if he could find a buyer. The two kings set out together in 1190. They soon quarreled. _Philip_ came home first, and, while _Richard_ was a prisoner in Austria, did his best to profit by his misfortunes, and to weaken the English reigning house. In the absence of _Richard, John_, his ambitious and unfaithful brother, was made regent by the lords and the London citizens. As nothing was heard of the king, John claimed the crown. Hearing of the release of _Richard, Philip_ wrote to _John_ (1194), "Take care of yourself, for the devil is let loose." _Richard_ made war on _Philip_ in Normandy, but Pope _Innocent III._ obliged the two kings to make a truce for five years (1199). Two months after, Richard was mortally wounded while besieging a castle near _Limoges_, where it was said that a treasure had been found, which he as the suzerain claimed. He had never visited England but twice; and, although he always had the fame of a hero, the country had no real cause to regret his death.

JOHN OF ENGLAND (1199-1216).--John (surnamed _Sansterre_, or _Lackland_, a name given to the younger sons, whose fathers had died before they were old enough to hold fiefs) was chosen king. Anjou, Poitou, and Touraine desired to have for their duke young _Arthur_, duke of Brittany, the son of _Geoffrey_, John's elder brother. _Philip Augustus_ took up the cause of Arthur, but deserted him when he had gained for himself what he wished. When Philip wished to reopen the war he took advantage of a complaint from one of John's vassals, Hugh of Lusignan, whose affianced bride John had stolen away. As suzerain Philip summoned John to answer at Paris, and when he did not appear the court declared his fiefs forfeited. It was in this war that Arthur was captured by his uncle and was murdered. This crime served only to strengthen Philip's cause. He seized on _Normandy_, which thenceforward was French, and _Brittany_, which became an immediate fief of the king (1204). He took the other possessions of England in Northern Gaul. There were left to the English the duchy of _Aquitaine_, with _Gascony_ and the _Channel Islands_. The lands south of the Loire John had inherited from his mother.

TYRANNY OF JOHN.--John robbed his subjects, high and low, under the name of taxation. Not content with forcing money out of the Jews, one of whom he was said to have coerced by pulling out a tooth every day, he treated rich land-owners with hardly less cruelty. He had not, like _Henry II._, the support of the people, and added to his unpopularity by hiring soldiers from abroad to help him in his oppression.

JOHN'S QUARREL WITH THE POPE: MAGNA CHARTA.--As rash as he was tyrannical, John engaged in a quarrel with Pope _Innocent III_. The monks of Canterbury appointed as archbishop, not the king's treasurer, whom he bade them choose, but another. The Pope neither heeded the king nor confirmed their choice, but made them elect a religious and learned Englishman, _Stephen Langton_. _John_, in a rage, drove the monks out of Canterbury, and refused to recognize the election. The Pope excommunicated him, and laid England under an _interdict_; that is, he forbade services in the churches, and sacraments except for infants and the dying; marriages were to take place in the church porch, and the dead were to be buried without prayer and in unconsecrated ground. As _John_ paid no regard to this measure of coercion, _Innocent_ declared him deposed, and charged the king of France to carry the sentence into effect (1213). Resisted at home, and threatened from abroad, _John_ now made an abject submission, laying his crown at the feet of _Pandulph_, the Pope's legate. He made himself the vassal of the Pope, receiving back from him the kingdoms of England and Ireland, which he had delivered to _Innocent_, and engaging that a yearly rent should be paid to Rome by the king of England and his heirs. _Philip_ had to give up his plan of invading England. _John's_ tyranny and licentiousness had become intolerable. _Langton_, a man of large views, and the English Church, united with the barons in extorting from him, in the meadow of _Runnymede_,--an island in the Thames, near Windsor,--the _Magna Charta_, the foundation of English constitutional liberty. It secured two great principles: _first_, that the king could take the money of his subjects only when it was voted to him for public objects; and _secondly_, that he could not punish or imprison them at his will, but could only punish them after conviction, according to law, by their countrymen.

The Great Charter is based on the charter of Henry I. It precisely
defines and secures old customs, 1. It recognizes the rights of the
Church. 2. _It secures person and property from seizure and
spoliation without the judgment of peers or the law of the land._
3. There are regulations for courts of law. 4. Exactions by the lord
are limited to the three customary feudal aids. The benefits granted
to the vassal are to be extended to the lower tenants. 5, How the
Great Council is to be composed, and how convened, is
defined. 6. The "liberties and free customs" of London and of other
towns are secured. 7. Protection is given against certain oppressive
exactions of the Crown. 8. The safety of merchants against exactions
in coming into England, and in going out, and in traveling through
it, is guaranteed. 9. There is some provision in favor of the
villain.

WAR WITH FRANCE.--_John_ joined in a great coalition against _Philip Augustus_. He was to attack France in the south-west; while the emperor, _Otto IV._, and the counts of Flanders and Boulogne, with all the princes of the Low Countries, were to make their attack on the north. It was a war of the feudal aristocracy against the king of the French. At the great battle of _Bouvines_ (1214) the French were victorious. The success, in the glory of which the communes shared, added no territory to France; but it awakened a national spirit. _John_ was beaten in _Poitou_, and went home.

DEPOSITION OF JOHN.--In England, _John_ found that all his exertions against the _Charter_, even with the aid of Rome, were unavailing. In a spirit of vengeance, he brought in mercenary freebooters, and marched into Scotland, robbing and burning as he went. Every morning he burned the house in which he had lodged for the night. At length the English barons offered the crown to _Louis_, the eldest son of _Philip Augustus_; but _John_ died in 1216, and _Louis_ found himself deserted. He had shown a disposition to give lands to the French.

THE ALBIGENSIAN WAR.--The war against the _Albigenses_ began in the reign of _Philip_; but he pleaded that his hands were full, and left it to be waged by the nobles. That sect had its seat in the south of France, and derived its name from the city of _Albi_. It held certain heterodox tenets, and rejected the authority of the priesthood. In 1208, under _Innocent III._, a crusade was preached against _Raymond VI._, count of Toulouse, in whose territory most of them were found. This was first conducted by _Simon de Montfort_, and then by Philip's son, _Louis VIII._, the county of _Toulouse_ being a fief of France. The result of the desolating conflict was, that part of the count's fiefs were in 1229 transferred to the crown, and the country itself in 1270. In that year, at the council of Toulouse, the _Inquisition_, a special ecclesiastical tribunal, was organized to complete the extermination of the _Albigensians_ who had escaped the sword. The advantages resulting from the crushing of the sovereignties of the south were sure to come to the French monarchy. But _Philip_ left it to the nobles and to his successors to win the enticing prize.

The first period of rivalry between England and France ends with _John_ and _Philip Augustus_. For one hundred and twenty years, each country pursues its course separately. Monarchy grows stronger in France: constitutional government advances in England.

LOUIS IX. OF FRANCE (1226-1270).--In _Louis IX._ (St. Louis) France had a king so noble and just that the monarchy was sanctified in the eyes of the people. At his accession he was but eleven years old, and with his mother, _Blanche_ of Castile, had to encounter for sixteen years a combination of great barons determined to uphold feudalism. Most of them staid away from his coronation. When the young king and his mother approached _Paris_, they found the way barred; but it was opened by the devoted burghers, who came forth with arms in their hands to bring them in. The magistrates of the communes swore to defend the king and his friends (1228). They were supported by the Papacy. In 1231 the war ended in a way favorable to royalty. The treaty of 1229 with _Raymond VII._, count of _Toulouse_, led to the gradual absorption of the South. _Theobald_ of _Champagne_ became king of _Navarre_, and sold to the crown _Chartres_ and other valuable fiefs. In the earlier period of his reign Louis was guided by his wise, even if imperious, mother, who held the regency.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE.--In 1243 _Louis_ defeated _Henry III._ of England, who had come over to help the count of _La Marche_ and other rebellious nobles. In 1245 _Charles of Anjou_, the king's brother, married _Beatrice_, through whom _Provence_ passed to the house of Anjou. The king's long absence (1248-1254), during the sixth Crusade, had no other result but to show to all that he combined in himself the qualities of a hero and of a saint. After his return, his government was wise and just, and marked by sympathy with his people. In 1259 he made a treaty with _Henry III._, yielding to him the _Limousin, Périgord_, and parts of _Saintonge_, for which Henry relinquished all claims on the rest of France. _Louis_ fostered learning. The University of Paris flourished under his care. In his reign _Robert of Sorbon_ (1252) founded _the Sorbonne_, the famous college for ecclesiastics which bears his name.

CIVIL POLICY OF LOUIS.--In his civil policy _Louis_ availed himself of the Roman law to undermine feudal privileges. The legists enlarged the number of cases reserved for the king himself to adjudicate. He established new courts of justice, higher than the feudal courts, and the right of final appeal to himself. He made the king's "Parliament" a great judicial body. He abolished in his domains the judicial combat, or _duel_,--the old German method of deciding between the accused and the accuser. He liberated many serfs. But, mild as he was, he had no mercy for Jews and heretics. In his intercourse with other nations, he blended firmness and courage with a fair and unselfish spirit. He refused to comply with the request of the Pope to take up arms against the emperor, _Frederic II._; but he threatened to make war upon him if he did not release the prelates whom he had captured on their way to Rome. The "Pragmatic Sanction" of St. Louis is of doubtful genuineness. It is an assertion of the liberties of the Gallican Church. With loyalty to the Holy See, and an exalted piety, Louis defended the rights of all, and did not allow the clergy to attain to an unjust control. _Voltaire_ said of him, "It is not given to man to carry virtue to a higher point." He stands in the scale of merit on a level with _Alfred_ of England.

PARLIAMENTS IN FRANCE.--The word _parliament_ in French history has a very different meaning from that which it bears when applied to the English institution of the same name. There were thirteen parliaments in France, each having a jurisdiction of its own. They were established at different times. Of these the Parliament of Paris was the oldest and by far the most important. The king and other suzerains administered justice, each in his own domain. The Parliament of Paris was originally a portion of the king's council that was set apart to hear causes among the fiefs. It considered all appeals and judicial questions. But in the reign of _Louis IX._, commissioners, or _baillis_, of the king, held provincial courts of appeal in his name. The great suzerains established, each in his own fief, like tribunals, but of more restricted authority. Louis IX. made it optional with the vassal to be tried by his immediate suzerain, or in the king's courts, which were subordinate to his council. As time went on, the authority of the royal tribunals increased, as that of the feudal courts grew weaker. In the Parliament of Paris, a corps of legists who understood the Roman law were admitted with the lords, knights, and prelates. More and more these "counsellors" were left to themselves. Later there was a division into _Chambers_, of which the _Grand Chamber_ for the final hearing and decision of appeals was of principal importance. _Philip the Fair_ (1303) gave a more complete organization to Parliament. He provided that it should hold two annual sittings at Paris. Thus there grew up a judicial aristocracy. After 1368 the members were appointed for life. At length, under _Henry IV._, the seats in Parliament became hereditary. The great magistrates thus constituted wore robes of ermine, or of scarlet adorned with velvet. _The Palace of Justice_ (_Palais de Justice_), on an island in the Seine, was given to Parliament for its sessions by _Charles V_. In its hall scenes of tragic interest, including, in modern times, the condemnation of _Marie Antoinette_ and of _Robespierre_, have taken place. The crown was represented by a great officer, a public prosecutor or attorney-general (_procureur général_). He and his assistants were termed the "king's people" (_gens du roi_). They had the privilege of speaking with their hats on. It was an ancient custom to enroll the royal ordinances in the parliamentary records. Gradually it came to be considered that no statute or decree had the force of law unless it was entered on the registers of Parliament. Great conflicts occurred with the kings when Parliament refused "to register" their edicts or treaties. Then the king would hold "a bed of justice,"--so called from the cushions of the seat where he sat in the hall of Parliament, whither he came in person to command them to register the obnoxious enactment. This royal intervention could not be resisted: commonly the enrollment would be made, but sometimes under a protest. Each of the local parliaments claimed to be supreme in its own province: they were held to constitute together one institution, and all the judges were on a level. Attempts at political interference by Parliaments, the kings resisted. At the French Revolution in 1790, the Parliaments were finally abolished.

HENRY III. (1216-1272).--John's eldest son, _Henry_, when he was crowned by the royalists, was only nine years old. For a short time he had a wise guardian in _William, Earl of Pembroke_. In two battles, one on the land and one on the sea, _Louis VIII._ (1223-1226), son of _Philip Augustus_ of France, was defeated. He made peace, and returned to France. Henry married _Eleanor_, the daughter of _Raymond_, count of _Provence_,--a beautiful and accomplished woman, but she was unpopular in England. The king, as well as his wife, lavished offices, honors, and lands upon foreigners. He was a weak prince, and unwisely accepted for his second son, _Edmund_, the crown of the _Two Sicilies_, which could be won only at the expense of England. This measure induced the barons to compel Henry to a measure equivalent to the placing of authority in the hands of a council. This brought on a war between the king and the barons. The latter were led by _Simon de Montfort_ (the second of the name), who had inherited the earldom of Leicester through his mother. Through him PARLIAMENT assumed the form which it has since retained. The greater barons, the lords or peers, with the bishops and principal abbots, came together in person, and grew into the House of Lords. The freeholders of each county had sent some of the knights to represent them. The attendance of these knights now began to be regular; but besides the two knights from each county, who were like the county members of our own time, _Simon_ caused each _city_ and _borough_ to send two of their citizens, or _burgesses_. Thus the _House of Commons_ arose. _Simon_ defeated _Henry_ at _Lewes_ (1264): but the barons flocked to the standard of Prince _Edward_, who escaped from custody; and Simon was defeated and slain at the battle of _Evesham_ in 1265. _Henry_ was restored to power. He died in 1272, and was buried in _Westminster Abbey_, which he had begun to rebuild. Under Henry, the _Great Charter_, with some alterations, was three times confirmed. A _Charter of the Forest_ was added, providing that no man should lose life or limb for taking the king's game. Cruel laws for the protection of game in the forests or uncultivated lands had been a standing grievance from the days of the Norman Conquest. The confirming of the _Great Charter_ in 1225 was made the condition of a grant of money from the National Council to the king. When the bishops, in 1236, desired to have the laws of inheritance conformed to the rules of the Church, the barons made the laconic answer, "We will not change the laws of England" (_Nolumus leges Anglice mutare_).