HENRY II. Henry II, one of William's successors, ruled over most of western France as well as over England. His officers and nobles were tired out by his endless traveling in his lands, which extended from the banks of the river Loire in France to the borders of Scotland. All Englishmen and Americans should remember him with gratitude because of the improvements he made in the ways of discovering the truth when disputes arose and were carried into courts. [Illustration: THE NORMANS CROSSING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL From the Bayeux Tapestry, embroidered in the time of William the Conqueror. The figures are worked on a band of linen two hundred and thirty feet long, and twenty inches wide. Worsteds of eight colors are used] ORDEALS AND TRIALS BY BATTLE. Before Henry's reign it was the custom when a man was accused of a crime to find out the truth by arranging a wager of battle or what were called ordeals. The two most common ordeals were the ordeal by fire and the ordeal by water. In the ordeal by fire an iron was heated red-hot, and after it had been blessed by a priest it was put into the hand of the man the truth of whose word was being tested, and he had to carry it a certain number of feet. His hand was then bound up and left for three days. If at the end of that time the wound was healing, men believed he was innocent, for they thought God would keep an innocent man from being punished. In the ordeal by water the man was tied and thrown into water which had been blessed by the priest. If he was guilty, the people thought the water would not receive him. If he sank at once, he was pulled out and treated as if he had told the truth. [Illustration: TRIAL BY BATTLE After a drawing in an old manuscript] A wager of battle was a fight between the two men whose dispute was to be settled, or between a man and his accuser. Each was armed with a hammer or a small battle-axe, and the one who gave up lost his case. TRIAL BY JURY. King Henry introduced a better way of finding out the truth. He called upon twelve men from a neighborhood to come before the judges, to promise solemnly to tell what they knew about a matter, and then to decide which person was in the right. They were supposed to know about the facts, and they were allowed to talk the matter over with one another before they made a decision. Later these men from the neighborhood were divided into two groups, one to tell what they knew and the other to listen and decide what was true. Those who told what they knew were called the witnesses, and those who listened and decided were called jurors. The name jurors came from a Latin word meaning to take an oath.