they would have joined Matilda; had Matilda tried to keep them in order they would have joined Stephen. Hence they did every man whatsoever was right, or rather whatsoever was wrong, in his

own eyes. They built them great castles, whence they 'sallied forth to plunder the country round. They took those whom they thought to have any goods, put them into prison for their gold and silver and treated them with pains unspeakable.

Some they hanged up by the feet, and smoked with foul smoke; some they hanged up by the thumbs, and others by the head. They practised every kind of cruelty that wicked minds could invent. Men said openly that Christ slept and His saints.

1 Stephen was the son of the Conqueror's daughter, Adela. 2 Boulogne, in the north-west of France. 3 coronation, crowning. 4 maintain, to keep. generous, noble. 6 varying, changing. -7 sally, to rush out suddenly.

5

HENRY II. RESTORES ORDER.

pro'-vince

ab-il'-it-ies

flour'-ish

scut'-age

TOWARDS the end of Stephen's reign Matilda's son Henry, then twenty years old, came to England to continue the war, but the bishops persuaded the two men to make peace. It was agreed that Stephen

should keep the crown as long as he lived, and that Henry should be king after him.

Henry was only twenty-one when he began to reign, but he showed himself at once to be an able ruler. And he had many lands to rule: Normandy

had come to him from his mother, Anjou and Maine from his father, Aquitaine and all the neighbouring provinces with his wife. Thus, in addition to being King of England, he was lord over more than half of France. What with his great abilities and his wide dominions there was in his time no sovereign in Europe mightier than he.

As soon as Henry II. was crowned he boldly set about bringing order and good government out of the confusion and lawlessness that had flourished during the last twenty years. He turned out of the country all the foreign soldiers who had been brought in during the late wars, and he commanded that all the castles which had been built during Stephen's reign should be pulled down. The justices of the royal court again visited every county as they had done in the days of Henry I., and now they went not only to collect the king's taxes but also to act as judges.

To lessen the power of the barons Henry introduced a plan called scutage or shield money. Hitherto all tenants-in-chief had been bound to supply the king during war time with one knight for every twenty pounds' worth of land they held. Thus the great barons had always under their command large bodies of fighting men, well armed and well drilled, and ready mostly to obey their own lords rather than the sovereign. Henry allowed his vassals, instead of providing him with soldiers, to pay scutage, which was a certain sum for each soldier they were bound to provide. The barons being thus left