"It is scarce necessary that I should say any thing to this jury, seeing that if the evidence of Sir Yvo de Taillebois be received as credible, the case is at an end. But I would say that, without his testimony, the defense might have rested safely, when they had shown that the alleged fugitive, 'Kenric,' was a resident here in Westmoreland, on the day, and long before the day, when he is charged on oath to have been a serf in Yorkshire. For if A claim a horse, now in the possession of B, swearing, and bring in witnesses to swear, that he, A, lost, or had stolen from him, the said horse, on such a day; and B bring sufficient and true witnesses to satisfy the jury that the said horse, so claimed was in his, B's, possession, days, weeks, or months before the 'such a day' on which A avers to have lost or had the said horse stolen from him--then it is to be presumed, not that A and his witnesses are mistaken as to the day, on which the horse was lost, seeing that he and they have sworn positively to the day, and that it is in him and them, alone, and on no others, truly to know the day on which the said horse was lost or stolen--but that the horse is another horse altogether, and not that horse lost or stolen on the day averred; inasmuch as this horse claimed was, on that day, and theretofore and thereafter, standing here, and could not therefore be lost or stolen elsewhere. This is the law, gentlemen, of an ox, or an ass, or a goat, or a piece of furniture, or of any thing that is property, dead or living. Much more so, therefore, of the liberty of a man. For God forbid that on this earth of England the liberty of a man, which is even the dearest thing he hath on earth, should be more lightly jeoparded, or less securely guaranteed to him, than the value of his ox, or his ass, or his goat, or his chattel, whatsoever it may be, that is claimed of him. And now, gentlemen of the jury, I will detain you no longer. You may retire, if you wish to deliberate on your verdict, whether the person at the bar be 'Eadwulf the Red,' gross thrall of Sir Foulke d'Oilly, or 'Kenric the Dark,' and a true freeman." "So please the court, we are agreed," was the unanimous answer of the jurymen. "And how will you render your verdict?" "By our foreman, Sir Ralph Egerton, of Egerton." "We find," said the foreman, in answer to the eye of the justiciary, "that the person at the bar, 'Kenric, surnamed the Dark,' is a free man, and that Sir Foulke d'Oilly hath no claim against his liberty or person. And we farther recommend that the witnesses for the plaintiff, more especially Ralph Brito, and Andrew of Spyinghow, be taken into custody, and held to answer to a charge of perjury."