the reducing of them to perpetual slavery an act of mercy on the part
of the conqueror, which practice was not entirely exploded even in
the fourteenth century, when Louis Hutin in a letter to Edward II. his
vassal and ally, desired him to arrest his enemies, the Flemings, and
make them slaves and serfs. (_Mettre par deveres vous, si comme
forfain à vous Sers et Esclaves à tous jours._) _Rymer._ Booty,
however, being equally with vengeance the cause of war, men were not
unwilling to accept of advantages more convenient and useful than the
services of a prisoner; whose maintenance might be perhaps a burden to
them, and to whose death they were indifferent. For this reason even the
most sanguinary nations condescended at last to accept of ransom for
their captives; and during the period between the eleventh and fifteenth
centuries, fixed and general rules appear to have been established for
the regulating such transactions. The principal of these seem to have
been, the right of the captor to the persons of his prisoners, though in
some cases the king claimed the prerogative of either restoring them to
liberty, or of retaining them himself, at a price much inferior to what
their original possessor had expected. On a similar principle, Henry IV.
forbade the Percies to ransom their prisoners taken at Holmdown. In this
case the captives consisted of the chief Scottish nobility, and the king
in retaining them, had probably views of policy, which looked to objects
far beyond the mere advantage of their ransom. It is mentioned by a
French antiquary that the King of France had the privilege of purchasing
any prisoner from his conqueror, on the payment of 10,000 livres; and
as a confirmation of this, the money paid to Denis de Morbec for his
captive John, King of France, by Edward III. amounted to this exact
sum. The English monarch afterwards extorted the enormous ransom of
three millions of gold crowns, amounting, as it has been calculated,
to £1,500,000. of our present money, from his royal captive. The
French author censures Edward somewhat unjustly for his share in