The ideal of feudalism, never realised in England, was that the king and his tenants-in-chief should hold law-courts, which the tenant or the sub-tenants should be bound to attend to have their cases tried according to statute rules. But the system was only imperfectly carried out, and the fact that the tenant-in-chief, or feudal lord, had the right to levy taxes (called "tallage" or "tailles") on his vassels, speedily led to all sorts of tyranny and abuse. Still, the feudal courts could not engross the legislation for the excellent reason that the quick-witted Conqueror had preserved the Witanagenot and the courts of the shire and the hundred to check the barons. The latter made a big effort to introduce the Continental system of feudalism, by which each of them would have been supreme in his domain; but the plans were defeated as we have seen. William's successors were men of a different stamp, and the system proved unworkable in the hands of weaker men. "The prince," says Hume, "finding that greater opposition was often made to him when he enforced the laws than when he violated them, was apt to render his own will and pleasure the sole rule of government, and on every emergency to consider the power of the persons whom he might offend rather than the rights of those whom he might injure." The mischievous course pleased none, and the royal prerogative was at last systematically assailed by the barons in the time of John, and the Magna Charta wrestled from him. The concessions then made were of benefit to the barons rather than to the landless and dependent classes, and it remained for the third Edward to diminish their power and increase the liberties of the populace.