36.] [*** Benedict Abbas, p.

113.] The English monarch stretched still further the rigor of the conditions which he exacted.

He engaged the king and states of Scotland to make a perpetual cession of the fortresses of Berwick and Roxborough, and to allow the castle of Edinburgh to remain in his hands for a limited time This was the first great ascendant which England obtained over Scotland; and indeed the first important transaction which had passed between the kingdoms.

Few princes have been so fortunate as to gain considerable advantages over their weaker neighbors with less violence and injustice than was practised by Henry against the king of Scots, whom he had taken prisoner in battle, and who had wantonly engaged in a war, in which all the neighbors of that prince, and even his own family, were, without provocation, combined against him.[*] Henry having thus, contrary to expectation, extricated himself with honor from a situation in which his throne was exposed to great danger, was employed for several years in the administration of justice, in the execution of the laws, and in guarding against those inconveniencies, which either the past convulsions of his state, or the political institutions of that age, unavoidably occasioned.

The provisions which he made, show such largeness of thought as qualified him for being a legislator; and they were commonly calculated as well for the future as the present happiness of his kingdom.
{1176.} He enacted severe penalties against robbery, murder, false coining, arson; and ordained that these crimes should be punished by the amputation of the right hand and right foot.[**] The pecuniary commutation for crimes, which has a false appearance of lenity, had been gradually disused; and seems to have been entirely abolished by the rigor of these statutes.