was practically a dead letter, for in
a land where every man was the guardian of his own life it was far more
perilous to obey the new edict than to disregard it.

The king's harsh mood was marked too by the cruel prosecutions of
offences against forest law which had been committed in the time of the
war. The severe punishments were perhaps a means of chastizing is affected
landowners; they were certainly useful in filling the empty treasury.
Nobles and barons everywhere were sued for hunting or cutting wood or
owning dogs, and were fined sometimes more than their whole possessions
were worth. In vain the justiciar, De Lucy, pleaded for justice to men
who had done these things by express orders of the king given to De Lucy
himself; "his testimony could prevail nothing against the royal will."
Even the clergy were dragged before the civil courts, "neither archbishop
nor bishop daring to make any protest." The king's triumph over the
rebellion was visibly complete when at York the treaty which had been made
the previous year with the King of Scotland was finally concluded, and
William and his brother did homage to the English sovereigns. A few weeks
later Henry and his son received at Windsor the envoys of the King of
Connaught, the only one of the Irish princes who had till now refused
homage.

In the Church as in the State the royal power was unquestioned. A papal
legate arrived in October, who proved a tractable servant of the king;
"with the right hand and the left he took gifts, which he planted
together in his coffers". His coming gave Henry opportunity to carry out
at last through common action of Church and State his old scheme of
reforms. In the Assize of Northampton, held in January 1176, the king
confirmed and perfected the judicial legislation which he had begun ten
years before in the Assize of Clarendon. The kingdom was divided into
six circuits. The judges appointed to the circuits were given a more
full independence than they had before, and were no longer joined with
the sheriffs of the counties in their sessions, their powers were
extended beyond criminal jurisdiction to questions of property, of
inheritance, of wardship, of forfeiture of crown lands, of advowsons to
churches, and of the tenure of land. For the first time the name of
Justitiarii Itinerantes was given in the Pipe Roll to these travelling
justices, and the anxiety of the king to make the procedure of his
courts perfectly regular, instead