If, however, Edgar’s and Dunstan’s Charters were brought forward for the purpose of shewing some sort of title to the manor of Paddington, when the first claim to the lordship was set up, which I think was most likely the case, it is very evident that the monks themselves had no great faith that these charters would bear any sort of legal examination, even in those days, when the wig was adopted to hide the shaven crown. {20b} For when a writ of Quo Warranto was issued in the twenty-second year of Edward the First to the then Abbot of Westminster—Walter of Wenlock—to enquire “by what authority he claimed to hold the Pleas of the Crown, to have free warren, a market, a fair, toll, a gallows, the chattels of persons condemned, and of runaways, the right of imprisonment,” and various other such like privileges, as well as “the appointment of the coroner in Eye, Knythbrugg, Chelchehethe, Braynford, Padynton, Hamstede, and Westburn,” besides in the town of Staines, and its dependencies; he did not claim manorial rights over Paddington and Westbourn on account of Edgar’s, or Dunstan’s grant of these manors; neither did he mention those charters, as he might have done had they been genuine or had they received the confirmation of Stephen, or Henry the Second, as Dart states they did. On the contrary, the Abbot appeared to the writ, and said that these places were parts of the town of Westminster—“sunt membra ville Westm’—;” and for Westminster, Staines, and their membræ, he claimed all their ancient privileges. {21a} Moreover, “he says, that the lord King Henry, father of the King that now is, hath granted to God and the Church of St. Peter of Westminster and the monks, serving God therein, and their successors, all his tenements, {21b} and hath commanded that they hold them with all their liberties and free customs, &c. * * * * And he produces the charter of the King which witnesses the same * * * * And he saith, that the Lord King hath inspected the Charter of the Lord King Henry, his father, which witnesseth that the same Lord King Henry hath granted to God and the blessed Edward, and to Richard, Abbot of Westminster, and to the monks serving God there, that they and their successors, should have for ever all the fines of their own people, from whatever cause they may arise, and before whatever justices of the Lord King they may have been ordained, and that they shall have all the returns of the King’s briefs in all their lands in England. ****** ” {21c} But we must not receive this statement of Walter de Wenlock with implicit confidence, or at all events without some further explanation; {21d} for it was this Abbot who transgressed one of those salutary laws, which had been recently enacted to stay the encroachments of the regular clergy.