Another surprise was received by the Virginians at this time. While Charles II was in exile in France in 1649, he granted more than five million acres of land lying between the Potomac and the Rappahannock Rivers to four Cavalier friends. This grant was called the "Northern Neck Proprietary" of Virginia. Twenty years later, he granted a new charter for the same territory to the surviving grantees. These actions were unknown to the colonists, and much of this same land had been settled under patents issued by the Colony itself. When the colonists learned of the new charter, there was much protest, and some of the colonists tried to buy out the grantees' interests. However, in most cases, their efforts were in vain. This grant was later referred to as the Fairfax Proprietary or Fairfax Grant. In 1673, the colonists found out that King Charles II had bestowed the rest of the Colony as a gift upon the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpeper for thirty-one years. This eventually had no lasting ill effects upon the colonists because Lord Culpeper later purchased the Earl of Arlington's interest and King Charles himself bought back the entire area from him for a six hundred pounds per year pension. Lord Fairfax V became the owner in 1689 and the proprietary itself was abolished by the Virginia General Assembly in 1786. In 1671, two explorers, Thomas Batts and Robert Fallon, traveled by horseback from Fort Henry (present Petersburg area) up the Roanoke Valley and across the Blue Ridge Mountains until they reached the top of the Allegheny Mountains. They proceeded to the New River and to an area in the present town of Narrows in Giles County. In order to claim this land for their King, Charles II of England, they had their Indian guides peel the bark off of four trees and then burn a symbol--the initials of King Charles, of Governor William Berkeley and of Colonel Abraham Wood (who was responsible for this expedition)--on each tree with a pair of marking irons. Thus, they took possession of this land and all the area west of it in the King's name and provided a basic claim of land in Southwest Virginia. In this same year, a unique attitude concerning public education was expressed by royal Governor Berkeley when he stated: "I thank God, there are no free schools or printing presses and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years: for learning has brought disobedience and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both."