NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN ENGLAND 475 and Matilda. Then the feudal lords were able to do much as they pleased, but they so misconducted themselves that every one became quite disgusted with their misrule, and in 1 1 54 the new king, Henry II, had little difficulty in quickly restoring order. Of this and of Henry's vast feudal posses- sions on the Continent and of his struggle with Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, we have already spoken in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters. Henry was somewhat corpulent, but none the less a dynamo of energy. He could not sit still in church, he was ever on the go from one part of his wide domin- TT 1 1 ii- ., . , , Henry II ions to another, he devoted himself with equal rapidity and zest to hunting or state business or literature and learning. His anger was terrible when aroused, and even when in good humor he kept his ministers and cour- tiers in a state bordering upon nervous prostration by his incessant activity. Henry's troublesome Continental pos- sessions forced him to spend more of his time on the other side of the Channel than in England. But he drew up many measures for the government of England, and his brief periods of residence in that country were very busy times. He appointed able ministers to carry on the central govern- ment in his absence, and he sent itinerant justices to extend his authority throughout the land. These officials resembled the missi of Charlemagne and had already existed under Henry I, but had disappeared during the disorder of Stephen's reign. So well did Henry II develop the govern- mental machinery that his son and successor, Richard the Lion-Hearted, was enabled to spend only six months of his ten years' reign in England. Henry's greatest contribution to English government and nationality was the founding of the common law. Else- where in Europe at this time there was the great- The com- est diversity of courts and legal systems. There mon law was canon law and feudal law and the law merchant and the revived Roman law. There were hundreds and thou- sands of independent municipal and manorial courts. There was an infinite variety of local custom and usage, from
