In the Confessor’s charter the mention of “the wood at Kyngesbyrig” gives, I consider, an index to what the state of the place was then. It doubtless formed a portion of the great forest which Fitzstephen describes as belting the metropolis. It owned no lord, and the few inhabitants enjoyed free chase and other rights in it. In 1218 it was disafforested by order of Henry III., whom we afterwards find owned lands here; and in the reign of his son, Edward I., Knightsbridge, according to Lysons, is mentioned as a manor of the Abbey. The monks of Westminster gradually acquired other lands here, additional to those granted by the Confessor. At Westbourn also they had lands, as the decree of 1222 proves; how possession of them was gained is not, however, known. These properties the monks erected into a manor, called “The Manor of KNIGHTSBRIDGE and WESTBOURN;” and by such name it is still known. The whole of the isolated part of St. Margaret’s, including a part of Kensington, its palace and gardens, are included in the manor of Knightsbridge. That there was a suspicion of the integrity of the monks’ proceedings, however, we have proof in the fact that, in the twenty-second year of the reign of Edward I. (1294–5), a writ of _Quo Warranto_ was issued to Abbot Walter of Wenlock, to inquire “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 similar privileges, as well as “the appointment of coroner in Eye, Knythbrigg, Chelcheheth, Braynford, Padyngton, Hamstede, and Westburn,” &c.; to which he answered, that these places were “members” of the town of Westminster, and that King Henry III. had granted to God and the church of St. Peter of Westminster, and the monks therein, all his tenements, and had commanded that they hold them with all their liberties and free customs, &c.; and he produced the charter proving the same. Such was the reply of Abbot Walter of Wenlock, who appears, however, to have been by no means over chary of the ways by which he could bring wealth to his abbey; for we find that, in the twelfth year of Edward II., his successor, Richard de Kedyngton, was fined ten pounds because he (Abbot Walter) had appropriated lay fees in Knythbrigg, Padyngton, Eye, and Westbourne, without licence of the king. We also find that in the same reign two inquisitions were held to ascertain what, if any, injury the king would sustain if certain properties were allowed the Abbey:— INQUISITIO AD QUOD DAMNUM 9: EDW. II., No. 105. MIDDLESEX.