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The troubles of Edward's
youth had made clear to him the obstacles thrown in the path of orderly
government by the great territorial franchises. He had been forced to
modify his policy to gratify the lord of Glamorgan, and win over the
house of Mortimer by the erection of a new franchise that was a
palatinate in all but name. But such great "regalities" were, after all,
exceptional. Much more irritating to an orderly mind were the
innumerable petty immunities which made half the hundreds in England the
appendages of baronial estates, and such common privileges as "return of
writs," which prevented the sheriff's officers from executing his
mandates on numerous manors where the lords claimed that the execution
of writs must be entrusted to their bailiffs.[1] These widespread powers
in private hands were the more annoying to the king since they were
commonly exercised with no better warrant than long custom, and without
direct grant from him.
[1] See on "return of writs" and a host of similar immunities,
Pollock and Maitland's _History of English Law_, i.


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