Such difficulties were increased, as time went on, rather than removed. The Conqueror’s followers had possessed, like their lord, estates on both sides of the Channel: his wars were theirs. Before John’s reign, these simple relations had become complicated by two considerations. By forfeitures and the division of inheritances between sons of one father, holders of English fiefs and holders of Norman fiefs had become distinct; the English barons had in 1213 nothing at stake in the Crown’s selfish schemes of aggrandisement or defence. The England of John Lackland, like the England of William of Orange, objected to be entangled in foreign wars in the interests of foreign possessions of the King. On the other hand, the gradual expansion of the dominions of the wearers of the English Crown increased the number of their wars with the number of their interests, and increased, too, the trouble and expense of each expedition. The small wars with Wales and Scotland formed a sufficient drain on the resources of English magnates without their being summoned in intermediate years to fight in Maine or Gascony. The greater number of campaigns might well be reckoned a breach of the spirit of the original agreement. Were the barons bound to follow John in a forlorn attempt, of which they disapproved, to recover his lost fiefs from the French Crown? Or were they bound to support him only in his legitimate schemes as King of England? Or were they, by way of compromise, liable for services in the identical possessions held by William the Conqueror at the date when their ancestors first got their fiefs—that is, for wars in England and Normandy alone? Tenderness for legal subtleties or strict logic could hardly be expected from the malcontents of the northern counties, smarting under a dumb sense of wrong. Despising all nice definition, they declared roundly in 1213 that they owed no service whatsoever out of England.[119] This extreme claim put them clearly in the wrong, since John had many precedents to the contrary ready to lay before them. When the King, on his return from his unfortunate expedition in 1214, demanded a scutage from all who had not followed him to Poitou, the malcontents declared that they had no obligation either to follow him out of the kingdom, or to pay a scutage in lieu thereof.[120] Pope Innocent was probably correct in condemning this contention as founded neither on English law nor on feudal custom.[121] There is some ground for believing that a compromise was mooted on the basis that the barons should agree to serve in Normandy and Brittany, as well as in England, on being exempted from fighting elsewhere abroad.[122] ----- Footnote 119: See R. Coggeshall, p. 167; the barons argued _non in hoc ei obnoxios esse secundum munia terrarum suarum_. Footnote 120: W. Coventry, II. 217. Footnote 121: See his letter dated 1st April, 1215, in _New Rymer_, I. 128, ordering the barons to pay the scutage of Poitou. Footnote 122: