278
Constitutional History. [chap.
The country was infested, with malefactors banded together to
avoid punishment1. In 1402 there is a petition against forcible
Private war. entries by the magnates2. In 1404 the war between the earls
of Northumberland and Westmoreland was regarded by the
parliament as a private war ; and Northumberland’s treason
remo∏ent was cond≡ed as a trespass only3. In 1406 the.king had to
strances. remodel his council in order to insure better governance ; but
the petition for ‘ good and abundant governance ’ was imme-
diately followed by a request for the better remuneration of the
lords of the council, and the speaker had to insist on more
co-operation from the lords in the work of reform4. In 1407
the king was told that the better and more abundant govern-
ance had not been provided, the sea had been badly watched,
and the marches badly kept5. In 1411 a statute against rioters
statutes was passedδ. On the accession of Henry V the cry was re-
against x , √ √
rioters. peated ; the late king’s promises of governance had been badly
kept ; the marches were still in danger ; the Lollards were still
disturbing the peace ; there were riots day by day in diverse
parts of the realm7. The parliament of 1414 reissued the
statute against rioters8; in 1417, according to the petitions,
large bands of associated malefactors were ravaging the country,
plundering the people, holding the forests, spreading Lollardy,
treason, and rebellion, robbing the collectors of the revenueα.
Bandsof Matters were still worse in 1420; whole counties were infested
by bandits ; the scholars of Oxford were waging war on the
county; the inhabitants of Tynedale, Redesdale, and Hexham-
shire had become brigands ; all the evils of the old feudal
Complaints immunities were in full force10. Similar complaints accumulate
HenryVi. during the early years of Henry VI, and seem to reach the
highest regions of public life in the armed strife of Gloucester
and Beaufort. But the general spirit of misrule was quite
independent of party and faction. The quarrels of the heir
male and heirs general of the house of Berkeley, carried on
1 Kot. ParI. ɪii. 445. 2 lb. iii. 487.
3 Above, p. 43.
5 lb. iii. 609, 610.
7 Rot. Parl. xv. 4.
10 lb. iv. x 24, 125.
4 Rot. Parl. iii. 571 sq., 576 sq., 585.
6 13 Hen. IV, c. 7 ; Statutes, ii. 169.
8 2 Hen. V, st. i. c. 9 ; Statutes, iɪ. 186.
’ Rot. Parl. iv. ɪ ɪ 3.
XV∏I∙] Private IFars. g
both bylaw and by arms, lasted from 1421 to 1475, through
three generations’. In 1437 lords Grcy and Fanhope were at instances of
. , . oη T, public dis-
war in Bedfordshire2, and in 1438 the two branches of the order.
house of Westmoreland, one under the earl, the other under
his stepmother, the sister of Cardinal Beaufort, were at open
war3. In 1441 the earl of Devon and lord Bonneville con-
tested in arms the stewardship of Cornwall4. The struggles of
Egremont and Neville, of the duke of Exeter and lord Crom-
well, were private wars. In 1441, when archbishop Kemp5
was one of the king’s most trusted councillors, there was war
between the tenants of his liberty of Ripon and the king’s
tenants of Knaresborough forest ; and the Piipon men brought
down the half-outlawed bandits from the archbishop’s liberty of
Tynedale to help them. By the light of these illustrations the
struggle between York and Lancaster seems scarcely more than
a grand and critical instance of the working of causes every-
where potent for harm. The enforcement of law under such imperfect
. η 1 i τ τ ∙ enforcement
circumstances was scarcely attempted : although it was an age of law.
of great judges0 the administration of the law was full of
abuses ; the varieties of conflicting jurisdictions, the facilities
for obtaining, and cheaply obtaining, writs of all kinds, gave to
the strong aggressor a legal standing-ground which they could
not secure for the victim 7 ; the multiplication of legal forms
and functionaries was inefficient, it would seem, for any good
purpose ; these evils, and the absence of any determined attempt
to remedy them, brought about a strong and permanent dis-
affection. As is ever the case, the social miseries called down F,d.,o
upon the government an accumulation of false charges. The against the
. government,
ɪ Dugdale, Baronage, i. 362-365. 2 Ordinances, v. 35.
3 Excerpta Historica, pp. 2, 3; Ordinances, v. 35-40, 173-180.
4 See above, p. 174.
5 Rymer, xi. 27 ; Plumpton Papers, ed. Stapleton, pp. liv. sq.
6 Reeves, Hist, of English Law, vol. iii. pp. 108, 109, speaks with high
praise of the administration of justice during the troublous years of
Henry VI. No doubt the law was ably discussed and the judges were
great judges, but justice was not enforced ; there was no governance.
7 Abundant illustration of this will be found in the Paston Letters.
Even royal letters interfering with the course of justice could be easily
purchased ; e. g. Henry VI issues letters to the sheriff of Norfolk directing
him to impannel a jury to acquit Lord Molines ; Pa⅛ton Letters, i. 208 :
such a letter might be bought for a noble ; ib. p. 215.