Willis: Anglo-American Law 
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experience he was made chief justiciar by Henry II, and sat 
at Westminster. He was executor of the will of Henry II, 
assisted at the coronation of Richard I, and went with the 
latter to Jerusalem and died at Acre. 
Becket (1118-1170). Thomas a Becket, archbishop of 
Canterbury, was chancellor under Henry II, and one of the 
two English chancellors numbered as saints. He has been 
called the first English chancellor, but probably the office had 
existed for some time prior. Scutage was substituted for 
military service on his advice. He devised statutes on legal 
procedure, and with the king and his chief justiciars removed 
private oppression, suppressed robbery, restored property 
wrongly held, and generally helped to vindicate the supremacy 
of law over force. But he was a churchman, educated in the 
canon and civil law at Paris, and he opposed the king in his 
project to take jurisdiction away from the Ecclesiastical 
Courts. In his fight with the king he at one time fled to Louis 
of France. He was recalled, but he was finally killed. Be- 
cause of this the people turned against the king, and he failed 
in his campaign against the Ecclesiastical Courts. Other- 
wise the King’s Courts might have taken over the jurisdiction 
of the Ecclesiastical Courts at this time. 
During the reign of John the outstanding lawyer was 
Geoffrey Fitz Peter (-1213). He is responsible for the rule 
that realty devolves upon the heir and personalty upon the 
personal representative, which resulted from a decision 
rendered against his own personal interest, that a will of lands 
was invalid. But he is chiefly known for the restraint which 
he exercised over John. This was such that the king both 
feared and hated him, and on his death the king said, “I am 
now king and lord of England.” 
Henry III promised to appoint as judges only men who knew 
the law, and as a consequence his reign is conspicuous for 
trained lawyers. The greatest of these was Bracton, but two 
others whom Bracton canonized in his treatise and cited almost 
as his sole authority were Pateshull (-1229) and Raleigh 
(1250). All three were priests. Raleigh is reputed to have 
devised many new writs. 
Bracton (-1267). Bracton’ s father was a vicar of the church 
at Bratton of which Raleigh was rector. After Bracton 
had studied at Oxford, Raleigh made him his clerk. There- 
