Saxons than the fact that the conquerors could afford to tear each
other to pieces for nineteen years (1135-1154) without the least
attempt on the part of their subjects to throw off their tyranny. There
was no English nation yet; each feudal magnate did what he pleased with
his own without fear of royal or popular vengeance, and for once in
English history, at any rate, the lords vindicated their independence.
The church was the only other body which profited by the strife; within
its portals and its courts there was some law and order, some peace and
refuge from the worldly welter; and it seized the opportunity to
broaden its jurisdiction, magnify its law, exalt its privileges, and
assert that to it belonged principally the right to elect and to depose
sovereigns. Greater still would have been its services to civilization,
had it been able to assert a power of putting down the barons from
their castles and raising the peasantry from their bondage.

Deliverance could only come by royal power, and in Henry II, Matilda's
son, Anjou gave England a greater king than Normandy had done in
William the Bastard. Although a foreigner, who ruled a vast continental
empire and spent but a fraction of his days on this side of the
Channel, he stands second to none of England's makers. He fashioned the
government which hammered together the framework of a national state.
First, he gathered up such fragments of royal authority as survived the
anarchy; then, with the conservative instincts and pretences of a
radical, he looked about for precedents in the customs of his
grandfather, proclaiming his intention of restoring good old laws. This
reaction brought him up against the encroachments of the church, and
the untoward incident of Becket's murder impaired the success of
Henry's efforts to establish royal supremacy. But this supremacy must
not be exaggerated. Henry did not usurp ecclesiastical jurisdiction; he
wanted to see that the clerical courts did their duty; he claimed the