They left him the reversionary right on the failure of heirs.

These changes in the relative power of the sovereign and the nobles
took place to enable Edward to enter upon the conquest of France;
but that monarch, conferred a power upon the barons, which was used
to the detriment of his descendants, and led to the dethronement of
the Plantagenets.

The line of demarcation between the two sets of titles, those
derived through the ANGLO-SAXON laws and those derived through the
grants of the Norman sovereigns, was gradually being effaced. The
people looked back to the laws of Edward the Confessor, and forced
them upon Edward II. But after passing the laws which prevented
nobles from selling, and empowering FREEMEN to do so, Edward III.
found it needful to assert his claims to the entire land of
England, and enacted in the twenty-fourth year of his reign:

"That the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all
land in his kingdom; that no man doth or can possess, any part of
it but what has mediately or immediately been derived as a gift
from him to be held on feodal service."

Those who obtained gifts of land, only held or had the use of them;
the ownership rested in the Crown. Feodal service, the maintenance
of armed men, and the bringing them into the field, was the rent
paid.

The wealth which came into England after the conquest of France
influenced all classes, but none more than the family of the king.
His own example seems to have affected his descendants. The