Thus gradually and insidiously throughout the entire reign of John, the stream of feudal obligations by many different channels steadily rose until the barons feared that nothing of their property would be saved from the torrent. The normal rate of scutage had been raised, the frequency of its imposition had been increased, the conditions of foreign service had become more burdensome, and the objects of foreign expeditions more unpopular; while attempts were sometimes made to exact both service and scutage in the same year. The limit of the barons’ endurance was reached when, on 26th May, 1214, John, already discredited by his unsuccessful expeditions in Poitou, soon to be followed by the utter overthrow of his allies at Bouvines, issued writs for a scutage at the unheard-of rate of three marks, grounded doubtless on the inquest of 1212 and unusually far-reaching in the subjects which it embraced.[139] ----- Footnote 139: See Miss Norgate, _John Lackland_, 210, and cf. _supra_, p. 37. ----- Then the final crash came; this writ was like a call to arms—a call not to follow the King’s banner, but to fight against him. III. Royal Justice and Feudal Justice. A well-known aphorism of legal text-books, couched in language unusually figurative, declares the King to be “the sole fountain of justice.” Correct as it is to apply this metaphor to the present state of the constitution, it would be an anachronism and a blunder to transport it into the thirteenth century. In John’s reign there still were—as there had been for centuries—not one, but many competing jurisdictions. It was by no means a foregone conclusion that the King’s Courts were the proper tribunals to which a wronged individual must repair to seek redress. On the contrary, the great bulk of the rural population, the villeins, had no _locus standi_ except in the court of the manor to which they belonged; while the doors of the royal Courts had been closed against the ordinary freeman previous to the reign of Henry II. Royal justice was still the exception, not the rule. Each man must seek redress, in the ordinary case, in his own locality. To dispense justice to the nation at large was no part of the normal business of a medieval King. I. _Rival Systems of Law Courts._ In the thirteenth century, there existed not one source of justice, but many. Rival courts, eagerly competing to extend their own sphere of usefulness and to increase their own fees, existed in a bewildering multitude. Putting aside for the moment the Courts Christian, the Borough Courts, the Forest Courts, and all exceptional or peculiar tribunals, there existed three great rival systems of jurisdiction which may be named in the order in which they became in turn prominent in England.