In the reign of Henry III., the city of London fines in no less a sum than twenty thousand pounds on the same account.
The king's protection and good offices of every kind were bought and sold.

Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would help him against the earl of Mortaigne in a certain plea: Robert de Cundet gave thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him to an accord with the bishop of Lincoln; Ralph de Breckham gave a hawk, that the king would protect him; and this is a very frequent reason for payments; John, son of Ordgar, gave a Norway hawk, to have the king's request to the king of Norway to let him have his brother Godard's chattels; Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to obtain the king's request to Isolda Bisset, that she should take him for a husband; Roger Fitz-Walter gave three good palfreys to have the king's letter to Roger Bertram's mother, that she should marry him; Eling the dean paid one hundred marks, that his whore and his children might be let out upon bail; the bishop of Winchester gave one tun of good wine for his not putting the king in mind to give a girdle to the countess of Albemarle; Robert de Veaux gave five of the best palfreys, that the king would hold his tongue about Henry Pinel's wife.

There are in the records of exchequer many other singular instances of a like nature.[*] It will, however, be just to remark, that the same ridiculous practices and dangerous abuses prevailed in Normandy, and probably in all the other states of Europe.[**] England was not in this respect more barbarous than its neighbors.
These iniquitous practices of the Norman kings were so well known, that, on the death of Hugh Bigod, in the reign of Henry II., the best and most just of these princes, the eldest son and the widow of this nobleman came to court, and strove, by offering large presents to the king, each of them to acquire possession of that rich inheritance.

The king was so equitable as to order the cause to be tried by the great council! But, in the mean time, he seized all the money and treasure of the deceased,[***] Peter, of Blois, a judicious, and even an elegant writer, for that age, gives a pathetic description of the reign of Henry; and he scruples not to complain to the king himself of these abuses.[****] [* We shall gratify the reader's curiosity by subjoining a few more instances from Madox, p.332.

Hugh Oisel was to give the king two robes of a good green color, to have the king's letters patent to the merchants of Flanders with a request to render him one thousand marks, which he lost in Flanders.