I. _The Curia Regis as a Court of Law._ The evil complained of was a characteristically medieval one, and arose from the fact that all departments of government were originally centred in the king and his household, or _Curia Regis_, which performed royal and national business of every kind. This _Curia Regis_, indeed, united in itself the functions of the modern Cabinet, of the administrative departments (such as the Home Office, the Foreign Office, and the Admiralty), and of the various legal tribunals. It was the parent _inter alia_ of the Court at St. James’s and the courts at Westminster. One result of throwing so many and miscellaneous duties on a small body of hard-worked officials was to produce a congestion of business. Nothing could be done outside of the royal household, and that household never tarried long in any one spot. Everything was focussed to one point, but to a point constantly in motion. Wherever the king went, there the _Curia Regis_, with all its departments, went also. The entire machinery of royal justice followed Henry II., as he passed, sometimes on the impulse of the moment, from one of his favourite hunting seats to another. Crowds thronged after him in hot pursuit, since it was difficult to transact business of moment elsewhere. This entailed intolerable delay, annoyance, and expense upon litigants who brought their pleas for the king’s decision. The case of Richard d’Anesty is often cited in illustration of the hardships which this system inflicted upon suitors. His own account is extant and gives a graphic record of his journeyings in search of justice, throughout a period of five years, during which he visited in the king’s wake most parts of England, Normandy, Aquitaine, and Anjou. The plaintiff, although ultimately successful, paid dearly for his legal triumph. Reduced to borrow from the Jews to meet his enormous outlays, mostly travelling expenses, he had to discharge his debts with accumulations of interest at the ruinous rate of 86⅔ per cent.[534] ----- Footnote 534: Cf. J. F. Stephen, _Hist. of Crim. Law_, I. 88-9. -----