During the whole of this long absence from England the country was governed by Richard de Lucy and Earl Robert of Leicester, as the king’s chief justices or justiciars; the little Henry taking his father’s place on occasions of ceremony, when he happened to be in England. The historians of these years tell us little or nothing of what was going on. There were no wars or revolts; abbots and bishops died and their successors were appointed; notably the good Archbishop Theobald, to whom Henry owed so much, died in 1161, and Becket succeeded him. [Sidenote: Progress of reforms. ] [Sidenote: Nature of the revenue. ] [Sidenote: Administration of justice. ] From other sources we learn that Henry’s legal reforms were in full operation. He had restored the machinery of the Exchequer, and with it the method of raising revenue which had been arranged in his grandfather’s time. That revenue arose, firstly, from the ferm or rent of the counties; that is, the sum paid by the sheriffs as royal stewards; by way of composition for the rents of royal lands in the shire, and the ordinary proceeds of the fines and other payments made in the ancient shiremoot or county court; secondly, from the Danegeld, a tax of two shillings on the hide of land, originally levied as tribute to the Danes under Ethelred, but continued, like the Income Tax, as a convenient ordinary resource; thirdly, from the feudal revenue, arising from the profits of marriages, wardships, transfers of land, successions, and the like, and from the aids demanded by the king from the several barons or communities that owed him feudal support. To these we may add a fourth source, the proceeds of courts of justice, held by the king’s officers to determine causes for which the ancient popular courts were not thought competent; such as began with suits between the king’s immediate dependents, and by degrees extended to all the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the country. Judicature and finance were thus bound very closely together; the sheriffs were not only tax-gatherers but executors of the law, and every improvement in the law was made to increase the income of the Exchequer. To this we must attribute the means taken by Henry to administer justice in the counties, sending some of the chief members of his judicial staff, year after year, through the country, forcing their way into the estates and castles of the most despotic nobles, and spreading the feeling of security together with the sense of loyalty, and the conviction that ready justice was well worth the money that it seemed to cost. Besides the revival of the provincial judicature in this shape Henry, from the beginning of the reign, added form and organization to the proceedings of his supreme court of justice, which comes into prominence later on. [Sidenote: Scutage.]