The rise of the Court Leet marks an important stage in the development of English police. The decennary system could only be of value as long as its strictly local character could be preserved, and the power of interference possessed by the Vicecomes was foreign to the national idea of police administration. Although the creation of the sheriff's court must only be considered as an ill-advised and novel attempt at centralisation, and its discontinuance a return to first principles, it was not to be expected that the Tourn, when once established, would be allowed to disappear until there was an alternative institution ready and able to take its place. On this account the appearance of the Court Leet was well timed, for the moment and indispensable for the future, to act as a link between ancient principles and modern practice. When Henry II. returned from the Continent in 1170 he found it necessary to investigate the complaints that were persistently made against the sheriffs, who were said to have been guilty of oppression and extortion. The charges were well founded, and the result of his inquiry was that several were dismissed from their office, whilst a few years later the Assize of Northampton considerably reduced the authority of the remainder. In the years that follow we find evidence, over and over again, of the abuse of their power by the sheriffs, whose importance steadily declined in consequence; the decay of their office was gradual at first, but proceeded more rapidly, as we shall see, after the institution of "Conservators of the Peace" by Richard I. At the Council of Northampton provision was also made for holding assizes in the different counties of England. For this purpose the kingdom was divided into six circuits, and three judges, subsequently known under the title of "justices itinerant," were assigned to each circuit. Notwithstanding the recent friction between the two nationalities (now happily on the wane), and all the evils which had accompanied it, hundreds and tythings continued to perform their executive functions as best they could, and not altogether without success; but the levying of amercements, which was essential to the system, was so liable to abuse at the hands of royal officers, and the fines grew so out of proportion to the offences for which they were exacted, that advantage was very properly taken of King John's humiliation in 1215 to insist that they should only be enforced in future "on oath being made by the worthy men of the district," and steps were taken to confine amercements to their proper limits. By Magna Carta police fines were henceforward to correspond in amount to the magnitude of the crime for which they were incurred, and might not be enforced except with _beneficium competentiæ_ _i.e._ every man had a right to his bare living, the merchant to his merchandise, and the villein to his agricultural implements.[24]