The concept of absolute ownership of land is quite a modern one. Even our legal term for it, 'freehold', reflects the 'feudal' theory that everybody held land of somebody else in return for certain services. This resulted in a pyramid structure with the sovereign at the top. By Shakespeare's time, this was largely theory rather than practice, but this did not prevent the Crown insisting on certain rights and privileges derived from its status as chief lord: for example, on the death of anyone 'holding' land directly of the sovereign, his or her heir had to pay a 'relief' to enter into their inheritance; and, if the heir was under age, he or she became a royal ward. It was Charles I's attempt to enforce these rights, instead of asking Parliament to vote him money, that was a contributory cause of the Civil War, after which such exactions were abolished.