HENRY II TO HENRY III, 1154–1272; THE BEGINNINGS OF PARLIAMENT
The task of the King in 1154.The young man of twenty-one, whom we call Henry II, came to a country absolutely wasted with civil war. When he died, thirty-five years later, he left it the richest, the most peaceful, the most intelligent, the most united Kingdom in Europe. There is no misery like that of civil war; there have been two civil wars since that date, one in the fifteenth and one in the seventeenth century; and of course during these wars the country people suffered. But so firmly did the sense of law and order, which Henry II drove into his people's heads, take root, that there was no complete upset of civil life, even in these later civil wars. We cannot of course attribute all the later good fortune of the country to one man, not even to such a great and wise man as Henry Il. His path had been prepared for him long before, and he was extraordinarily fortunate in his opportunity. His favourable opportunity.A great revival of intelligence had already begun all over Europe, and a great revival of trade, no doubt largely owing to the lessons learned in the Crusades. Long-neglected books of Roman Law had been found, and French and Italian lawyers were reading them. Schools were increasing, and even ‘Universities’, of which Oxford was the first in England, were beginning. The towns had been gaining in riches in spite of the civil war; London, to which Henry I had given a ‘Charter’, allowing it to govern itself and keep its own customs, was even more ahead of the other English towns than
