ABSTRACT
The systematic structure of taxation, imposition of order, and enforcement of justice that William implemented and the extensions and implications acted out by his descendants—particularly Henry II and Edward I—set in motion an evolution from which emerged the common law. Henry II, the first of the Plantagenet kings, England's longest ruling dynasty, was like his great-grandfather William I both an adept warrior king and a peripatetic ruler. In the relation of Parliament and king—the idea of the king in Parliament—and the extension of Parliament's reach to encompass levels of society beyond the magnates continued to expand. The birth of the prince united the Tory and Whig political factions in Parliament and engendered a conspiracy to depose the king. In civil disputes, Henry II system of royal writs determined processes for bringing cases before the royal civil court of Common Pleas and, in particular, the grounds for removing them from the court of feudal lords and into the king's court.
