the hands of the prince, and that
all the noble families were thereby held in perpetual dependence.
When the king granted the wardship of a rich heir to any one, he had
the opportunity of enriching a favourite or minister: if he sold it,
he thereby levied a considerable sum of money. Simon de Mountfort
paid Henry III. ten thousand marks, an immense sum in those days, for
the wardship of Gilbert de Umfreville [r]. Geoffrey de Mandeville
paid to the same prince the sum of twenty thousand marks, that he
might marry Isabel, Countess of Gloucester, and possess all her lands
and knights' fees. This sum would be equivalent to three hundred
thousand, perhaps four hundred thousand pounds in our time [s].
[FN [r] Madox's Hist. of the Exch. p. 223. [s] Madox's Hist. of the
Exch. p. 322.]

If the heir were a female, the king was entitled to offer her any
husband of her rank he thought proper; and if she refused him, she
forfeited her land. Even a male heir could not marry without the
royal consent; and it was usual for men to pay large sums for the
liberty of making their own choice in marriage [t]. No man could
dispose of his land, either by sale or will, without the consent of
his superior. The possessor was never considered as full proprietor:
he was still a kind of beneficiary; and could not oblige his superior
to accept of any vassal that was not agreeable to him.
[FN [t] Ibid. p. 320.]

Fines, amerciaments, and oblatas, as they were called, were another
considerable branch of the royal power and revenue. The ancient
records of the exchequer, which are still preserved, give surprising
accounts of the numerous fines and amerciaments levied in those days
[u] and of the strange inventions fallen upon to exact money from the
subject. It appears that the ancient kings of England put themselves
entirely on the footing of the barbarous eastern princes, whom no man
must approach without a present, who sell all their good offices, and
who intrude themselves into every business that they may have a
pretence for extorting money. Even justice was avowedly bought and
sold; the king's court itself, though the supreme judicature of the
kingdom, was open to none that brought not presents to the king; the
bribes given for the expedition, delay [w], suspension, and, doubtless
for the perversion of justice, were entered in the public registers of
the royal revenue, and remain as monuments of the perpetual iniquity
and tyranny of th