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Considered in this light, Gilbert's marriage with the king's
daughter seems less a reward of loyalty than a punishment for
lawlessness. In the same year as this marriage, Edward passed another
law directed against the baronage. This was the statute of Westminster
the Third, called from its opening words, _Quia emptores_. It enacted
that, when part of an estate was alienated by its lord, the grantee
should not be permitted to become the subtenant of the grantor, but
should stand to the ultimate lord of the fief in the same feudal
relation as the grantor himself. This prohibition of further
subinfeudation stopped the creation of new manors and prevented the
rivetting of new links in the feudal chain, which were the necessary
condition of its strength. Though passed at the request of the barons,
it was a measure much more helpful to the king than to his vassals. It
stood to the barons as the statute of Mortmain stood to the Church.
Edward was bent on showing that he was master, and his new son-in-law
and the Earl of Hereford became the victims of his policy.


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