nts, which have been holden of the king's
progenitors that now is, as of honors; and the same lands have been
taken into the king's hands, as though they had been holden in chief of
the king as of his crown: (2.) The king will that from henceforth no man
be grieved by any such purchase."

De Lolme, chap. iii., sec. 3, remarks on these laws that they took from
the king all power of preventing alienation or of purchase. They left
him the reversionary right on the failure of heirs.

These changes in the relative power of the sovereign and the nobles took
place to enable Edward to enter upon the conquest of France; but that
monarch, conferred a power upon the barons, which was used to the
detriment of his descendants, and led to the dethronement of the
Plantagenets.

The line of demarcation between the two sets of titles, those derived
through the ANGLO-SAXON laws and those derived through the grants of the
Norman sovereigns, was gradually being effaced. The people looked back
to the laws of Edward the Confessor, and forced them upon Edward II.
But after passing the laws which prevented nobles from selling, and
empowering FREEMEN to do so, Edward III. found it needful to assert his
claims to the entire land of England, and enacted in the twenty-fourth
year of his reign:

"That the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all land
in his kingdom; that no man doth or can possess, any part of it but what
has mediately or immediately been derived as a gift from him to be held
on feodal service."

Those who obtained gifts of land, only held or had the use of them; the
ownership rested in the Crown. Feodal service, the maintenance of armed
men, and the bringing them into the field, was the rent paid.

The wealth which came into England after the conquest of France
influenced all classes, but none more than the family of the king. His
own example seems to have affected his descendants. The invasion of
France and the captivity of its king reappear in the invasion of England
by Henry IV., and the capture and dethronement of Richard II. The
prosperity of England during the reign of Edward had passed away in that
of his grandson. Very great distress pervaded the land, and it led to
efforts to get rid of villeinage. The 1st Richard II. recites:

"That grievous complaints had been made to the Lords and Commons, that
villeins and land tenants daily withdraw into cities and towns, and a
special commission was appointe