Page:Select historical documents of the Middle Ages.djvu/85

heavy loss falls on the fisc." When, therefore, he, urging the gain that it would be to the prince, repeatedly returned to the attack, these words at length possessed the latter' s mind to such an extent, that he ordered all the established dues to be paid by all and to be remitted to no one, unless someone should have obtained from him an express mandate concerning this: and it was done accordingly. But as time went on, when the prince remembered the counsel of Achitopel, he repented of having acquiesced. He decreed, therefore, that all the aforesaid payments should be computed to those who served there, considering the loss of a small sum of money as nothing in comparison with the great honour gained. And so he despatched his writ to the exchequer, to the effect that those sitting there should, by a perpetual law, be free from these payments. From this writ, therefore, it was said then and is said now, " remitted by the king's writ "; and so it came about that what was granted to the fathers should even now continue in the case of their posterity. We remember ourselves in modern times to have seen a similar payment to this, which, after all this time was computed to those who deserved to be absolved under a similar tenor of words. For our lord king Henry II., at the Michaelmas term of the 24th year of his reign, ordered that the knights of the Temple, and the brothers Hospitallers, and the monks of the Cistercian order, to whom, by the privileges in their charter, he had long since indulged quittance of all things pertaining to money—jurisdiction over life and members being excepted,—should really now be quit of all things pertaining to money throughout the different counties; so that henceforth they should not be compelled to bring their charters to the exchequer. And the authority of the royal piety decreed this—that thus once for all, in the consideration of the barons they should be freed of all these things lest those who have gone over to the enjoyment of a better life, and are obliged the more to have freedom for prayer, should be compelled for such a cause to make a tedious and useless delay with their charters at the exchequer. By the counsel, therefore, and the deliberation of the barons who were present, a writ of the lord king was drawn up under this tenor: "I quit claim the knights of the Temple