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My ancestors won their lands with the sword. With my sword I
will defend them against all usurpers." Nor was this mere boasting. The
return of the king's officers tells us that Warenne would not say of
whom, or by what services, he held his Yorkshire stronghold of
Conisborough, and that his bailiffs refused them entrance into his
liberties and would not suffer his tenants to answer or appear before
them.[1] Edward found it prudent not to press his claims. He disturbed
few men in their franchises, and was content to have collected the mass
of evidence embodied in the _placita de quo warranto_, and thus to have
stopped the possibility of any further growth of the franchises. A few
years later he accepted the compromise that continuous possession since
the coronation of Richard I. was a sufficient answer to a writ of _quo
warranto_. In this lies the whole essence of Edward's policy in relation
to feudalism, a policy very similar to that of St. Louis. Every man is
to have his own, and the king is not to inquire too curiously what a
man's own was.


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