320.] [**** Madox, Hist.

of the Exch.p.

272.] 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,[*] 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 the times.
The barons of the exchequer, for instance, the first nobility of the kingdom, were not ashamed to insert, as an article in their records, that the county of Norfolk paid a sum that they might be fairly dealt with;[**] the borough of Yarmouth, that the king's charters, which they have for their liberties, might not be violated;[***] Richard, son of Gilbert, for the king's helping him to recover his debt from the Jews;[****] Serlo, son of Terlavaston, that he might be permitted to make his defence, in case he were accused of a certain homicide;[*****] Waiter de Burton, for free law, if accused of wounding another;[******] Robert de Essart, for having an Liquest to find whether Roger the butcher, and Wace and Humphrey, accused him of robbery and theft out of envy and ill will, or not;[*******] William Buhurst, for having an inquest to find whether he were accused of the death of one Goodwin out of ill will, or for just cause.[********] I have selected these few instances from a great number of a like kind, which Madox had selected from a still greater number, preserved in the ancient rolls of the exchequer.[*********] Sometimes the party litigant offered the king a certain portion, a half, a third, a fourth, payable out of the debts which he, as the executor of justice, should assist him in recovering.[**********] Theophania de Westland agreed to pay the half of two hundred and twelve marks, that she might recover that sum against James de Fughleston;[*] Solomon the Jew engaged to pay one mark out of every seven that he should recover against Hugh de la Hose;[************] Nicholas Morrel promised to pay sixty pounds, that the earl of Flanders might be distrained to pay him three hundred and forty-three pounds, which the earl had taken from him; and these sixty pounds were to be paid out of the first money that Nicholas should recover from the earl.[*************] [* Madox, Hist.

of the Exch.p.274, 309.] [** Madox, Hist.