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 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; * * Serio, son of Terlavaston,
that he might be permitted to make his defence, in case he were
accused of a certain homicide; Walter de Burton, for free law, if
accused of wounding another; Robert de Essart, for having an
inquest 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 Godwin, out of
ill-will, or for just cause.
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