Henry II of England

And let all the sheriffs make a list of all fugitives who have fled from their counties; and let them do this before the county courts, and they shall bring the names of these men in writing before the justices when first they come to them, in order that they may be sought throughout all England and their chattels seized for the benefit of the king.

Assize of Clarendon, § 18. Made by King Henry with the assent of clergy and nobility in 1166. Latin text in: , Select Charters, 9th ed. (1913), pp. 170–173. Translation in: A. B. White; W. Notestein, Source Problems in English History (1915), Appendix, III , 1913

Henry Plantagenet, no less than any political leader in the second half of the present century, was confronted with such varied problems as law and order, a war weariness which brought about a military organizational revolution, economic inflation, the choice between isolation and “internationalism,” sovereignty, and even, on a personal level, women’s lib. To maintain that any of these tensions are new to the twentieth century is the highest form of self-adulation and to hold that nothing can be learned from their past appearances the height of historical nearsightedness.

Epilogue (p. 178) , 1973

Laymen ought not to be accused save by dependable and lawful accusers and witnesses in the presence of the bishop, yet so that the archdeacon lose not his right or anything which he ought to have thence. And if there should be those who are deemed culpable, but whom no one wishes or dares to accuse, the sheriff, upon the bishop's request, shall cause twelve lawful men of the neighbourhood or the vill to take oath before the bishop that they will show the truth of the matter according to their conscience.

Constitutions of Clarendon, § 6. Presented by King Henry to the bishops at Clarendon in January 1164. Latin text in: , Select Charters, 9th ed. (1913), pp. 163–167. Translation in: A. B. White; W. Notestein, Source Problems in English History (1915), Appendix, II. See also: , The Plantagenets (2014), pp. 19–22 , 1913

Henry II’s introduction of English authority into southern Ireland was to last exactly 750 years. Eight centuries later the native Irish in the north were still discontent with the nature of English rule.

Chapter 8, “Peace with the Pope” (p. 133) , 1973

What separated the king and archbishop was more than the personality of the two antagonists. Each had become by the time of Clarendon a fierce and unyielding representative of opposing views regarding the nature and purpose of law. Germanic law, which only in the Angevin lands was maintaining its purity against the spread of the Roman concept of justice, operated pragmatically to settle disputes by appealing to earlier practices. Custom and precedent, rather than an abstract concept of “justice,” determined what was just in a given case. This explains Henry’s conservatism and obsessive search for the practices of his ancestors. By Roman (and Canon) lawyers, on the other hand, a law was deemed just not because it was aligned to the past, but because it borrowed its justness from an a priori, rational, transcendental concept of justice.

Chapter 6, “The Challenge from Canterbury” (pp. 103-104) , 1973