Richard I. a few years before his death presented the Honor of Lancaster to his brother, the earl of Moreton, who subsequently became King John, and it is asserted that this nobleman, when residing at the castle of Lancaster, was occasionally a guest at Staining Hall, and that during one of his visits he so admired the strength and skill displayed by a person called Geoffrey, and surnamed the Crossbowman, that he induced him to join his retinue. How far truth has been embellished and disguised by fiction in this traditional statement we are unable to conjecture, but there are reasonable grounds for believing that the story is not entirely supposititious, for the earl of Moreton granted to Geoffrey l’Arbalistrier, or the Crossbowman, who is said to have been a younger brother of Theobald Walter, senior, six carucates of land in Hackinsall-with-Preesall, and a little later, the manor of Hambleton, most likely as rewards for military or other services rendered to that nobleman. John, as earl of Moreton, appears to have gained the affection and respect of the inhabitants of Lancashire by his liberal practices during his long sojourns in their midst. He granted a charter to the knights, thanes, and freeholders of the county, whereby they and their heirs, without challenge or interference from him and his heirs, were permitted to fell, sell, and give, at their pleasure, their forest woods, without being subject to the forest regulations, and to hunt and take hares, foxes, rabbits, and all kinds of wild beasts, excepting stags, hinds, roebucks, and wild hogs, in all parts within his forests beyond the desmesne hays of the county.[23] On ascending the throne, however, he soon aroused the indignation of all sections of his subjects by his meanness, pride, and utter inability to govern the kingdom. His indolent habits excited the disgust of a nobility, whose regular custom was to breakfast at five and dine at nine in the morning, as proclaimed by the following popular Norman proverb:— Lever à cinque, dîner à neuf, Souper à cinque, coucher à neuf, Fait vivre d’ans nonante et neuf.[24] Eventually his evil actions and foolish threats so incensed the nation, that the barons, headed by William, earl of Pembroke, compelled him, in 1215, to sign the Magna Charta, a code of laws embodying two important principles—the general rights of the freemen, and the limitation of the powers of both king and pope.