l of Derby, in the midland shires, Hugh
Bigod in the eastern counties, while a Flemish fleet prepared to support
the insurrection by a descent upon the coast. The murder of Archbishop
Thomas still hung round Henry's neck, and his first act in hurrying to
England to meet these perils in 1174 was to prostrate himself before the
shrine of the new martyr and to submit to a public scourging in expiation
of his sin. But the penance was hardly wrought when all danger was
dispelled by a series of triumphs. The King of Scotland, William the
Lion, surprised by the English under cover of a mist, fell into the hands
of Henry's minister, Ranulf de Glanvill, and at the retreat of the Scots
the English rebels hastened to lay down their arms. With the army of
mercenaries which he had brought over sea Henry was able to return to
Normandy, to raise the siege of Rouen, and to reduce his sons to
submission.

[Sidenote: Later reforms]

Through the next ten years Henry's power was at its height. The French
king was cowed. The Scotch king bought his release in 1175 by owning
Henry's suzerainty. The Scotch barons did homage, and English garrisons
manned the strongest of the Scotch castles. In England itself church and
baronage were alike at the king's mercy. Eleanor was imprisoned; and the
younger Henry, though always troublesome, remained powerless to do harm.
The king availed himself of this rest from outer foes to push forward his
judicial and administrative organization. At the outset of his reign he
had restored the King's Court and the occasional circuits of its
justices; but the revolt was hardly over when in 1176 the Assize of
Northampton rendered this institution permanent and regular by dividing
the kingdom into six districts, to each of which three itinerant judges
were assigned. The circuits thus marked out correspond roughly with those
that still exist. The primary object of these circuits was financial; but
the rendering of the king's justice went on side by side with the
exaction of the king's dues, and this carrying of justice to every corner
of the realm was made still more effective by the abolition of all feudal
exemptions from the royal jurisdiction. The chief danger of the new
system lay in the opportunities it afforded to judicial corruption; and
so great were its abuses, that in 1178 Henry was forced to restrict for a
while the number of justices to five, and to reserve appeals from their
court to himself in council. Th