United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


A greater danger opened when the young Earl of Gloucester, though enriched with the estates of the foreigners, held himself aloof from the Justiciar, and resented Leicester's prohibition of a tournament, his naming the wardens of the royal castles by his own authority, his holding Edward's fortresses on the Welsh marches by his own garrisons.

This war on John was approved by Richard, who himself pushed it to a speedy and successful end. Then on March 30 the king met a great council of the realm at Nottingham. His mother was present, and the justiciar, and Longchamp, who was still chancellor, though he had not been allowed to return to England to remain until now.

In England the summer and autumn of 1173 passed with no more decisive events than on the continent, but with the same general drift in favour of the elder Henry. Richard of Lucy, the justiciar and special representative of the king, and his uncle, Reginald of Cornwall, were the chief leaders of his cause. In July they captured the town of Leicester, but not the castle.

When prelates and barons chose twelve representatives to confer with Henry in 1244 Simon stood with Earl Richard of Cornwall at the head of them. A definite plan of reform disclosed his hand. The confirmation of the Charter was to be followed by the election of Justiciar, Chancellor, Treasurer, in the Great Council.

There, therefore, resulted the conception of Great Britain as what may perhaps be called "the Justiciar State" of this British-American Union.

Luckily, Randolph stood aside, and his withdrawal gave the aged earl marshal the position for which his nomination as justiciar at Gloucester had already marked him out. The title of regent was as yet unknown, either in England or France, but the style, "ruler of king and kingdom," which the barons gave to the marshal, meant something more than the ordinary position of a justiciar.

To bring into existence a Greater American Union de jure, it needs, first, the public and express recognition by the American Union of itself as the Justiciar State, and of each of the separate Insular regions within proper territorial limits, as a Free State in just connection and union with the American Union; and, secondly, the establishment by the American Union of the necessary Advisory Council for investigating facts and for advising the President before he, on behalf of the American Union as Justiciar State, exercises his superior justiciary powers, and for advising the Congress before it, in the same behalf, exercises its supreme justiciary powers.

To the assemblies, held now in one place, now in another, would usually come the vassals of the district, with such officers of state as the Chancellor, the Chamberlain, the Steward, the Constable or Commander- in-Chief, the Justiciar, and the Marischal, and such Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and tenants-in-chief as chose to attend.

As a priest he had attracted the attention of Henry before he became king by the quickness with which he got through the morning mass; he was taken into his service, and steadily rose higher and higher until he became the head of the whole administrative system, standing next to the king when he was in England, and exercising the royal authority, as justiciar, when he was absent.

The welcome Stephen won at London and Winchester, his seizure of the royal treasure, the adhesion of the Justiciar Bishop Roger to his cause, the reluctant consent of the Archbishop, the hopelessness of aid from Anjou where Geoffry was at this moment pressed by revolt, the need above all of some king to meet the outbreak of anarchy which followed Henry's death, secured Stephen the voice of the baronage.