certain barons in pledge for the arrears of their dues to the crown, and that this may have been one of the grievances referred to in the demand of the barons that Richard’s successor “should restore to each of them his rights.” John’s demand for the castles of some of the barons in 1201 was in all likelihood a proceeding of the same kind, based on the same ground, and, as it seems, equally ineffectual in compelling payment; all that the king obtained was the surrender not indeed of the castles, but of some of the barons’ sons as hostages. The deadlock was probably inevitable; but every year of its continuance aggravated both the financial difficulties of the government, and the unfriendliness of the relations between the barons and the king; and this latter evil was yet further aggravated by the measures which had necessarily to be taken in order to meet the former one. Plunged as he was from the very moment of his accession in a costly struggle with France, John had been forced to lay continually fresh burdens upon that very class among his subjects who already were, or considered themselves to be, overburdened by the demands of his predecessor. The “first scutage of King John” seems to have been assessed immediately after his coronation; it appears in the Pipe Roll made up at Michaelmas 1199. In the financial year ending at Michaelmas 1201, and in every one of the five following years, there was another new scutage;[518] and these scutages were independent of the fines paid by the barons who did not accompany the king on his first return to Normandy in 1199, of the money taken from the host as a substitute for its service in 1201, of the equipment and payment of the “decimated” knights in 1205, and the fines claimed from all the tenants-in-chivalry after the dismissal of the host in the same year, as well as of the actual services which many of those who had paid the scutage rendered in the campaigns of 1202–1204 and 1206.