It should be noticed how skilfully the queries were framed in the inquest of 1166, to entrap the unwary tenant, and make him commit himself to the facts. If his enfeoffed knights were short of the required number, he was caught under the third query; if, on the other hand, he had an excess, he was caught under the others. Now, did the 'barons', when they made their returns, anticipate this sweeping and unwelcome reform? Presumably not. They appear to have drawn up their _cartae_ carefully and willingly, few of those who had an excess of knights taking even the precaution of mentioning their _servitium debitum_.[54] The church, moreover, from the terms in which her payments are thenceforth entered (_vide infra_), must have uniformly and systematically adopted an attitude of protest. Yet there is no trace of such protest in her returns. May we then infer that the crown sought to deliberately entrap its tenants? Two circumstances might favour that view. In the first place the tenants had to make their returns _extra sigillum pendentes_, thereby solemnly committing themselves;[55] in the second, the tenants would, of course, have been tempted to conceal or understate their excess of knights, had they foreseen the use that the crown would make of their returns. The question may very fairly be asked, 'What check had the crown upon a tenant in the event of the latter omitting some of his "excess" fees?' The answer is supplied, I think, by a clause in the invaluable return of the northern primate. He there requests that his return may be accepted 'without prejudice', as a lawyer would say, in case of his omitting some small fees. That is to say, these formal returns might be brought up as evidence against tenants-in-chief who had omitted some of their fees, proving that they had thereby themselves disowned their right to the fees in question.[56] Two points strike one strongly in the preparation of these returns. The first of these is the difficulty experienced in compiling a correct list of under-tenants and their holdings; the second is the employment of the 'Inquest' as a means of ascertaining the particulars. Taking the former of these, we find Hugh Wac writing, 'si amplius inquirere possim, notificabo vobis'; and Guarine 'de Aula', 'si plus possim inquirere, faciam vobis scire'; so too the Bishop of Ely, 'de hiis vero certi sumus, et si amplius inquirere poterimus libenter vobis significabimus'; and the Bishop of Bath, 'si certiorem inquirere poterimus veritatem, nos illam vobis significabimus'; and Alfred of Lincoln, 'si plus inquiri potest, inquirere faciemus'. The Bishop of Exeter makes his return, 'sicut eam diligentius inquirere potui'; the Abbot of Tavistock, 'quantum inde sollicitius inquirendo scire potuit'. Hugh de Lacy, in a postscript to his return, adds a fee 'quod oblitus sum'; while the Earl of Clare has to send in a subsequent rider, containing an entry, 'quod ego postquam misi cartam ... recordatus sum'.