In the early years of his reign, he had issued an edict by which he forbade all men save his own officers to go armed in time of peace--an edict particularly galling to the Karls, who regarded the bearing of arms as the inherent right of a freeman, and to deprive them of it was, in their estimation, and perhaps also in the estimation of the Count, to deprive them of their personal liberty. The Karls, it is true, were a cruel and a quarrelsome race. The territory in which they dwelt was often drenched with blood. Scenes of rapine and murder were with them matters of everyday occurrence; their hereditary feuds and petty wars were a constant menace to the State. Charles was determined to put an end to all this, and he knew of but one way of doing so--to submit the territory of the Karls to the tender mercies of feudalism, for, in his estimation, law and order were matters of far greater moment than mere personal freedom. This, however, was not the opinion of the Erembalds. Although they themselves, as officers of the Count, were in no way touched by the edict in question, they opposed it with all their might, and from that moment Charles determined to crush them. To attack his old friends openly was an undertaking too hazardous. It was to the Erembalds, as Bertulph used to boast, that Charles owed his crown, and he had repaid the debt with gold and favours. Their power was now as great as his own, and their popularity perhaps greater. Moreover, to strike at them was to strike at the Church, for Bertulph, their chief, was chief also of the clergy of Flanders. It behoved Charles, then, to be very wary. He determined therefore for the moment to keep himself in the background, to bide his time, and when the plot was ripe to act through trusty agents. He had not long to wait, the crisis came early in 1126. It happened thus. Richard of Raeske, one of the many barons allied by marriage to the house of Erembald, and a man of no little repute in Flanders, fell out about this time with Walter of Straten and defied him in the Count's presence to mortal combat. To the surprise of every one the challenge was refused, and the ground of the refusal was still more astounding. "I will never measure my sword," hissed 'the Winged Lie,' "with any but a free man, and the Lord of Raeske, by wedding a serf, has forfeited his right to that title." He was alluding to one of Charles's own edicts, perhaps made in anticipation of the quarrel, by which it was decreed that 'the freeman (_liber_) who married a slave (_ancillam_) should, after a year's wedlock, cease to be free, and sink to his wife's condition.'