He was generous in carrying out
the royal custom of subsidizing the feeding of paupers. He visited
the sick. He was frugal and dressed in plain, ordinary clothes
rather than extravagant or ostentatious ones. He disliked ceremony
and display.
At his accession, there was a firm foundation of a national law
administered by a centralized judicial system, a centralized
executive, and an organized system of local government in close
touch with both the judicial and the executive system. To gain
knowledge of his nation, he sent royal commissioners into every
county to ask about any encroachments on the King's rights and
about misdeeds by any of the King's officials: sheriffs, bailiffs,
or coroners. The results were compiled as the "Hundred Rolls".
They were the basis of reforms which improved justice at the local
as well as the national level. They also rationalized the array of
jurisdictions that had grown up with feudal government. Statutes
were passed by a parliament of two houses, that of peers (lords)
and that of an elected [rather than appointed] commons, and the
final form of the constitution was fixed.
Wardships of children and widows were sought because they were
very profitable. A guardian could get one tenth of the income of
the property during the wardship and a substantial marriage amount
when the ward married. Parents often made contracts to marry for
their young children.
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