The Executive 263
court system, has noted.* He tit in the
old. way, forbidding private
fighting in anyone's quarrel but the king's, in the
new way of a suddenly increased the
court revenue. In 1173, the last purely
revolt in England, almost a hundred years after the first
one. Again the understood contract between lord
vassal—whose content varied from age to age, but
always a reality— the barons made
an unsuccessful attempt to the king to its terms.
By the close of Henry II.'s reign we have this interesting
but explainable paradox: the of England were
stronger than the kings elsewhere in Europe, and yet
they were the only kings who made formal, written agree-
ments when they were crowned. In addition to the
points brought out in the foregoing sketch it should be
noted here that there not one primogenitary
succession to the English throne the Conquest—
not that anyone had opposed primogeniture as such,
but the chances of family circumstance and personality
had ruled that way. Primogenitary successions would
not be favourable to coronation agreements; non-primo-
genitary successions, because more likely to be disputed^
would.2
Richard I.'s succession was primogenitary, and there
was no coronation charter. Also, probably in part owing
to the crusading preoccupation, there was no feudal
revolt then or throughout the reign. By the end of the
twelfth century one party to the feudal contract, namely,
the king, appears to L^ve been so uniformly successful
that all contract element was likely to pass away, and
"the king be limited with respect to no portion of his
1 See above, pp. 144. ff.
2 In France hereditary circumstance had been such that primogeniture
had been the unbroken rale since the accession of the Capetian house in
987, and was to be for about a century and a half more. Twelfth-century
kings in France were not nearly so powerful as English kings: there had
been no Conquest and the average of royal ability was lower; but in the
early firm establishment of the primogenitary rule later French kings found
a great asset in their strife for power.