The Crown’s right to regulate the marriages of wards had become an intolerable grievance. The origin of this feudal incident and its extension to male as well as female minors have been elsewhere explained.[404] John made a regular traffic in the sale of wards—young maids of fourteen and aged widows alike. No excuse would be accepted. The Pipe Roll of John’s first year[405] records how the chattels of a certain Alice Bertram were taken from her and sold because she refused “to come to marry herself” at the summons of the king. Only two expedients were open to those who objected to mate for life with the men to whom John sold them. They might take the veil, become dead in law, and forfeit their fiefs to escape the burdens inherent in them. Only the cloister could afford them shelter; nowhere in the outer world were they safe. The other way of escape was to outbid objectionable suitors. This was not always possible, for John was predisposed to favour the suit of his foreign gentlemen of fortune, thus befriending his creatures while adding to the slender number of personally loyal tenants-_in-capite_. John’s greed was insatiable, and brief entries in his Exchequer Rolls condense the story of many a tragedy. In the first year of his reign the widow of Ralph of Cornhill offered 200 marks, with three palfreys and two hawks, that she might not be espoused by Godfrey of Louvain, but remain free to marry whom she chose, and yet keep her lands. This was a case of desperate urgency, since Godfrey, for love of the lady or of her lands, had offered 400 marks for her, if she could show no reason to the contrary. It is satisfactory to learn that in this case the higher bribe was refused, and the lady escaped.[406] ----- Footnote 404: See _supra_, 75–8. Footnote 405: Cited Madox, I. 565. Footnote 406: See _Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus_, p. 37, and _Pipe Roll_, 2 John, cited by Madox, I. 515. ----- Sometimes John varied his practice by selling, not the woman herself, but the _right_ to sell her. In 1203 Bartholomew de Muleton bought for 400 marks the wardship of the lands and heir of a certain Lambert, along with the widow, to be married to whom he would, yet so that she should not be disparaged.[407] ----- Footnote 407: _Pipe Roll_, 4 John, cited by Madox, I. 324.