The New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery

by John R. Wise

FOOTNOTES

[1]Political Pieces and Songs relating to English History. Edited by Thomas Wright. Vol. ii., p. 199.

[2]It is worth noticing how, according to their natures, our English poets have dwelt upon the meaning of the woods, from Spenser, with his allegories, to the ballad-singer, who saw them only as a preserve for deer. Shakspeare touches upon them with both that joyful gladness, peculiar to him, and the deep melancholiness, which they also inspire. Shelley and Keats, though in very different ways, both revel in the woods. To Wordsworth they are “a map of the whole world.” Of course, under the names of woods, and any lessons from them, I speak only of such lowland woods as are known chiefly in England; not dense forests shutting out light and air, without flowers or song of birds, whose effect on national poetry and character is quite the reverse to that of the groves and woodlands of our own England. See what Mr. Ruskin has so well said on the subject. Modern Painters, vol. v., part vi., ch. ix., § 15, pp. 89, 90; and, also in the same volume, part vii., chap. iv., § 2, 3, pp. 137-39; and compare vol. iii., part iv., ch. xiv., § 33, pp. 217-19.

[3]In the lower part of the Forest, near the Channel, the effect is quite painful, all the trees being strained away from the sea like Tennyson’s thorn. It is the Usnea barbata which covers them, especially the oaks, with its hoary fringe, and gives such a character to the whole Forest.

[4]The reader must bear in mind that the word “forest” is here used, as it is always throughout the district, in its primitive sense of a wild, open space. And the moors and plains are still so called, though there may not be a single tree growing upon them. (See chap. iii., [p. 35], foot-note.)

[5]The woods, in Domesday, are, as we shall see, generally valued by the number of swine they maintain.

[6]For a justification of this general picture, I must refer the reader to the next chapter, where references to Domesday, as to the state of the district before its afforestation by the Conqueror, and the evidence supplied by the names of places, are given. I may add, as showing the former nature of the woods, that the charcoal found in the barrows, embankments, and the Roman potteries, is made from oak and beech, but principally the latter. Since, too, the deer have been destroyed, young shoots of holly are springing up in all directions, and another generation may, perhaps, see the Forest resembling its old condition. As a proof, beside the entry in Domesday, that the Hordle Cliffs were covered with timber, the fishermen dredging for the septaria in the Channel constantly drag up large boles of oaks, locally known as “mootes.” The existence of the chestnut is shown by the large beams in some of the old Forest churches, as at Fawley; but none now exist, except a few, comparatively modern, though very fine, at Boldrewood. Further, the Forest could never, except in the winter, have been very swampy, as the gravelly formation of the greater part of the soil supplies it with a natural drainage. Still, there were swamps, and in the wet places large quantities of bog-oak have been dug up, bearing witness, as in other countries, of an epoch of oaks, which preceded the beech-woods. Gough, in his additions to Camden’s Britannia, vol. i., p. 126, describes Godshill as being in his day covered with thick oaks. When, too, Lewis wrote in 1811, old people could then recollect it so densely covered with pollard oaks and hollies that the road was easily lost. (Historical Enquiries on the New Forest, p. 79, Foot-note.) No one, I suppose, now believes that wolves were extirpated by Edgar. They and wild boars are expressly mentioned in the Laws of Canute (Manwood: a Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest, f. 3, § 27, 1615), and lingered in the north of England till Henry VIII.’s reign. (See further on the subject, The Zoology of Ancient Europe, by Alfred Newton, p. 24.) I have hesitated, however, to include the beaver, though noticed by Harrison, who wrote in 1574, as in his time frequenting the Taf, in Wales (Description of England, prefixed to Holinshed’s Chronicle, ch. iv. pp. 225, 226.) The eggs of cranes, bustards, and bitterns, were, we know, protected as late as the middle of the sixteenth century. (Statutes of the Realm, vol. iii., p. 445, 25^o Henry VIII., ch. xi., § 4; and vol. iv., p. 109, 3^o, 4^o, Ed. VI., ch. vii.) The last bustard was seen in the Forest, some twenty-five years ago, on Butt’s Plain, near Eyeworth. It is a sad pity that the enormous collection of birds’ bones, described as chiefly those of herons and bitterns, found by Brander amongst the foundations of the Priory Church at Christchurch (see Archæologia, vol. iv., pp. 117, 118), were not preserved, as they might have yielded some interesting results. We must, however, still bear in mind that there are far more points of resemblance than of difference between the Forest of to-day and that of the Conqueror’s time; especially in the long tracts of fern and heath and furze, which certainly then existed, pastured over by flocks of cattle.

[7]Remarks on Forest Scenery, illustrated by the New Forest, vol. ii., pp. 241-46; third edition. Some mention should here be made of Gilpin, a man who, in a barren, unnatural age, partook of much of the same spirit as Cowper and Thompson, and whose work should be placed side by side with their poems. Unfortunately, much of his description is now quite useless, as the Forest has been so much altered; but the real value of the book still remains unchanged in its pure love for Nature and its simple, unaffected tone. It is well worth, however, noticing—as showing the enormous difficulty of overcoming an established error—that, notwithstanding his true appreciation of bough-forms (see vol. i., pp. 110-12, same edition), and his hatred of pollarded shapes, and all formalism (same vol., p. 4), he had not sufficient force to break through the conventional drawing of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, and his trees (see, as before, pp. 252-54) are all drawn under the impression that they are a gigantic species of cabbage. The edition, however, published in 1834, and edited by Sir T. D. Lauder, is, in this and many other respects, far better.

[8]The following measurements may have, perhaps, an interest for some readers:—Girth of the Knyghtwood oak, 17 ft. 4 in.; of the Western oak at Boldrewood, 24 ft. 9 in.; the Eastern, 16 ft.; and the Northern, in the thickest part, 20 ft. 4 in.; though, lower down, only 14 ft. 8 in.; beech at Studley, 21 ft.; beech at Holmy Ridge, 20 ft. The handsomest oak, however, in the district, stands a few yards outside the Forest boundary, close to Moyle’s Court, measuring 18 ft. 8½ in.

[9]England under the Anglo-Norman Kings. Ed. Thorpe, p. 214.

[10]The same, p. 266.

[11]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. p. 354. This, of course, must not be too literally taken. It is one of those stock phrases which so often recur in literature, and may be found, under rather different forms, applied to other princes.

[12]Voltaire was the first to throw any doubt on the generally received account (Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations, tom. iii. ch. xlii. p. 169. Panthéon Littéraire. Paris, 1836). He has in England been followed by Warner (Topographical Remarks on the South-Western Parts of Hampshire, vol. i. pp. 164-197), and Lewis, in his Historical Enquiries concerning the New Forest, pp. 42-55.

[13]Concerning the King’s prerogative to make a forest wherever he pleased, and the ancient legal maxim that all beasts of the chase were exclusively his and his alone, see Manwood—A Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest, ch. ii. ff. 25-33, and ch. iii. sect. i. f. 33, 1615. We must remember, too, that, before the afforestation, William not only owned by right of conquest, as being King, the large demesne lands of the Crown in the district, and also those estates of former possessors, who had fallen at Hastings, or fled into exile, but, as we know from Domesday, kept some—as at Eling, Breamore, and Ringwood—in his own hands.

[14]Bouquet. Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, tom. xi., pref., No. xii. p. 14; and tom. xii., pref., No. xlix. pp. 46-48. Some account of him may be found in tom. x. p. 184, foot-note a, and in the preface of the same volume, No. xv. p. 28. See also preface to tom. viii., No. xxxi., p. 24, as also p. 254, foot-note a.

[15]De Ducibus Normannis, book vii. c. ix.; in Camden’s Anglica Scripta, p. 674.

[16]Chronicon ex Chronicis. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. ii. p. 45. Published by the English Historical Society.

[17]Historia Ecclesiastica, pars. iii. lib. x., in the Patrologiæ Cursus Completus. Ed. J. P. Migne. Tom. clxxxviii. p. 749 c. Paris, 1855.

[18]De Nugis Curialium Distinctiones Quinque, distinc. v. cap. vi. p. 222. Published by the Camden Society.

[19]De Eventibus Angliæ, lib. ii. cap. vii., in Twysden’s Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem, p. 2373. I am almost ashamed to quote Knyghton, but it is as well to give the most unfavourable account. Spotswood, in his History of the Church of Scotland (book ii. p. 30, fourth edition, 1577), repeats the same blunder as Walter Mapes and Knyghton, adding that the New Forest was at Winchester, and that Rufus destroyed thirty churches.

[20]For the sake of brevity, let me add that William of Malmesbury (Gesta Regum Anglorum, vol. ii. p. 455, published by the English Historical Society, 1840), Henry of Huntingdon (Historiarum, lib. vi., in Savile’s Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, p. 371), Simon of Durham (De Gestis Regum Anglorum, in the Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem, p. 225), copying word for word from Florence, Roger Hoveden (Annalium Pars Prior, Willielmus Junior, in the Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, p. 468), Roger of Wendover (Flores Historiarum, vol. ii. pp. 25, 26, published by the English Historical Society), Walter Hemingburgh (De Gestis Regum Angliæ, vol. i. p. 33, published by the English Historical Society), and John Ross (Historia Regum Angliæ, pp. 112, 113. Ed. Hearne. Oxford, 1716), repeat, according to their different degrees of accuracy, the general story of the Conqueror destroying villages and exterminating the inhabitants.

[21]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, as before quoted. Nor does the writer, when another opportunity presents itself at Rufus’s death, mention the matter, but passes it over in significant silence. The same volume, p. 364.

[22]See Domesday (the photo-zincographed fac-simile of the part relating to Hampshire; published at the Ordnance Survey Office, 1861), p. xxix. b, under Bertramelei, Pistelslai, Odetune, Oxelei, &c.

[23]See in Domesday, as before, p. xxvii. b, the entry under Langelei—“Aluric Petit tenet unam virgatam in Forestâ.” See, too, p. iii. b, under Edlinges.

[24]See in Domesday, under Thuinam, Holeest, Slacham, Rinwede, p. iv. a; and Herdel, p. xxviii. b.

[25]See in Domesday, out of many instances, Esselei and Suei, p. xxix. b; Bailocheslei, p. xiv. b; Wolnetune and Bedeslei, p. xxviii. a; Hentune, p. xxviii. b; and Linhest, p. iv. a.

[26]It is possible that whilst the survey was being taken Saulf died. If this be so, we find an instance of feeling in allowing his widow to still rent the lands at Hubborn, which could little have been expected. The name seems to have been misspelt in various entries. See Domesday, p. xxix. b, under Sanhest and Melleford.

[27]Aluric is probably the physician of that name mentioned in Domesday, p. xxix. a, as holding land in the hundred of Egheiete. Not to take up further space, let me here only notice some few out of the many Old-English names of persons in Domesday holding lands in places which had been more or less afforested, such as Godric (probably Godric Malf) at Wootton, Willac in the hundred of Egheiete, Uluric at Godshill, in the actual Forest, and Wislac at Oxley. See Domesday under the words Odetune, Godes-manes-camp, and Oxelei, p. xxix. b. See, also, under Totintone, p. xxvii. a, where Agemund and Alric hold lands which the former, and the latter’s father, had held of Edward.

[28]Passing over the later and more highly-coloured accounts, we will content ourselves with Florence of Worcester, as more trustworthy, whose words are—“Antiquis enim temporibus, Edwardi scilicet Regis, et aliorum Angliæ Regum predecessorum ejus, hæc regio incolis Dei et ecclesiis nitebat uberrime.” (Thorpe’s edition, as before quoted.) Were this, even in a limited degree, true, the Forest would present the strange anomaly of possessing more churches then than it does now, with a great increase of population. The Domesday census, we may add, makes the inhabitants of that portion which is called “In Novâ Forestâ et circa eam,” a little over two hundred. See Ellis’s Introduction to Domesday, vol. ii. p. 450.

[29]In support of these statements, I may quote from the Prize Essay on the Farming of Hampshire, published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (vol. xxii., part ii., No. 48, 1861), and which was certainly not written with any view to historical evidence, but simply from an agricultural point. At pp. 242, 243, the author says: “The outlying New Forest block consists of more recent and unprofitable deposits. This tract appears to the ordinary observer, at first sight, to be a mixed mass of clays, marls, sands, and gravels. The apparent confusion arises from the variety of the strata, from the confined space in which they are deposited, and from the manner in which, on the numerous hills and knolls, they overlie one another, or are concealed by drift gravel.” And again, at pp. 250, 251, he continues: “Of the Burley Walk, the part to the west of Burley Beacon, and round it, is nothing but sand or clay growing rushes, with here and there some ‘bed furze.’... The Upper Bagshots, about Burley Beacon, round by Rhinefield and Denney Lodges, and so on towards Fawley, are hungry sands devoid of staple:” and finally sums up by saying, “half of the 63,000 acres are not worth 1s. 6d. an acre,” p. 330.

[30]In that portion under “In Novâ Forestâ et circa eam.”

[31]Warner, vol. ii. p. 33, says Hordle Church was standing when Domesday was made. This is a mistake. It was, however, built soon after, as we know from some grants of Baldwin de Redvers.

[32]Mr. Thorpe notices, in his edition of The Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 94, foot-note, its early use, in a document of Eadger’s, A.D. 964, in the sense of a town; but in the first place it certainly meant only an inclosed spot. There appears to have been at some time, in the south part of the Forest, a church near Wootton, the Odetune of Domesday, where its memory is still preserved in the name of Church Lytton given to a small plot of ground. Rose, in his notes to the Red King, p. 205, suggests that Church Moor and Church Place indicate other places of worship. Church Moor is a very unlikely situation, being a large and deep morass, and could well, from its situation, have been nothing else, and, in all probability, takes its name, in quite modern times, from some person. But Church Place at Sloden, like Church Green in Eyeworth Wood, is certainly merely the embankments near which the Romano-British population employed in the Roman potteries, once lived, and which ignorance and superstition have turned into sacred ground. The word Lytton, at Wootton, however, makes the former position certain, but by no means necessitates that the church was standing at the afforestation. Thus we know that in Leland’s time a chapel was in existence at Fritham (Itinerary, ed. Hearne, vol. vi. f. 100, p. 88), which has since his day disappeared. It would, of course, be absurd to argue that all ruins which have been, or yet may be found, were caused by the Conqueror. Further, with regard to the castles, had there been any, they would most certainly have been noticed in Domesday, and it is most unlikely, knowing how very few existed in England at the Conquest, that five or six should have been clustered together in the Forest. The fact, too, of Rose’s finding “minute fragments of brick and mortar,” lumps of chalk, and pieces of slate bored with holes, simply proves that persons have, subsequently to the Normans, found the New Forest a most ungrateful soil. I may, perhaps, add that Mr Akerman, the well-known archæologist, when, a few years since, exploring the Roman potteries in the Forest (for which see chapter [xvii.]), in vain tried there, or in other parts, to find any traces of old buildings. (Archæologia, vol. xxxv. p. 97.)

[33]See Dr. Guest’s Early English Settlements in South Britain; Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, Salisbury volume, p. 57.

[34]“Nova Foresta, quæ linguâ Anglorum Ytene nuncupatur,” however, says Florence of Worcester (vol. ii. pp. 44, 45, ed. Thorpe); but the Keltic origin of the word is better.

[35]Ashley is connected with Esk and Usk, and refers to water rather than wood.—errata

[36]The names of the fields in the various farms adjoining the Forest—Furzy Close, Heathy Close, Cold Croft, Starvesall, Hungry Hill, Rough Pastures, &c. &c.—are not without meaning. The common Forest proverb of “lark’s-lees,” applied to the soil, pretty clearly, too, shows its quality.

[37]Manwood defines a forest “a certaine territorie of woody grounds and fruitful pastures.” A Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest. London, 1619. Chap. i. f. 18. Wedgwood (Dictionary of English Etymology, vol. ii. p. 34) shows the true meaning of the word, by connecting it with the Welsh gores, gorest, waste, open ground, and goresta, to lie open.

[38]See Mr. Davies’s paper on the Races of Lancashire, Transactions of the Philological Society, 1855, p. 258. In Domesday, as before, under Clatinges, p. xviii. a, we find, “Silva inutilis,” that is, a wood which has no beech, oak, ash, nor holly, but only yews or thorns, equivalent to the entry, “Silva sine pasnagio,” under Anne, p. xix. a. (See, too, Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, vol. i. p. 99.) Whilst under Borgate, p. iv. b, we find, “Pastura quæ reddebat xl porcos est in forestâ Regis.”

[39]See Manwood, as before, ff. 1-5.

[40]In the Charta de Forestâ of Canute (Manwood, f. 3, sect. 27) mention is made in the forests of horses, cows, and wild goats which are all protected; and from sect. 28 it is plain that, under certain limitations, people might cut fuel. These, with other privileges, such as killing game on their own lands (see sect. xxx. f. 4)—for, by theory, all game was the King’s—were compensations given to the forester for being subject to Forest Law.

Further, from the Charta de Forestâ of Henry III. (Manwood, ff. 6-11), we find that persons had houses and farms, and even woods, in the very centre of the King’s forests; and the charter provides that they may there, on their own lands, build mills on the forest streams, sink wells, and dig marl-pits, referring, most probably, in the last case, to the New Forest, where marl has been used, from time immemorial, to manure the land; and, further, that in their own woods, even though in the forest, they might keep hawks, and go hawking. (See f. 7, sects. xii., xiii.)

It shows, too, that there was a population who gained their livelihood, as to this day, by huckstering, buying and selling small quantities of timber, making brushes, and dealing in bark and coal, which last article evidently points to the Forest of Dean. (F. 7, sect. xiv.)

We must not imagine that the Charta de Forestâ of Henry III. was entirely a series of new privileges. They were, with some notable exceptions, simply those rights which had been received from the earliest times in compensation for some of the hardships of the Forest Laws, and which had been wrested away, probably by Richard or John, but which had never been granted to those who dwelt outside the Forest. (On this point see especially “Ordinatio Foreste,” 33rd Edward I., Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. p. 144. And again, “Ordinatio Foreste,” 34th Edward I., sect. vi., same volume, p. 149, where the rights of pasturage are re-allowed to those who have lost it by the recent perambulation made in the twenty-ninth year of the King’s reign.)

I think we may, therefore, gain from these clauses, especially when taken in conjunction with those of the Charta de Forestâ of Canute, a tolerably correct picture of an ancient forest—that it consisted not merely of large timber and thick underwood, a cover for deer, but of extensive plains,—still here preserved in the various leys—grazed over by cattle, with here and there cultivated spots, and homesteads inhabited by a poor, but industrious, population.

[41]See chapter ix. [p. 97], footnote.

[42]See Domesday, as before, p. xxix. b., under Einforde.

[43]See chapters viii. [p. 87], and x. [p. 114].

[44]The following translation is made from the original in the Record Office. Southt Plitai Foreste, A^o viii.^o E. I.^mi “The metes and boundaries of the New Forest from the first time it was afforested. First, from Hudeburwe to Folkewell; thence to the Redechowe; thence to the Bredewelle; thence to Brodenok; thence to the Chertihowe; thence to the Brygge; thence to Burnford; thence to Kademannesforde; thence to Selney Water; thence to Orebrugge; thence to the Wade as the water runs; thence to the Eldeburwe; thence to Meche; thence to Redebrugge as the bank of the Terste runs; thence to Kalkesore as the sea runs; thence to the Hurste, along the sea-shore; thence to Christ Church Bridge as the sea flows; thence as the Avene extends, as far as the bridge of Forthingebrugge; thence as the Avene flows to Moletone; thence as the Avene flows to Northchardeford and Sechemle; and so in length by a ditch, which stretches to Herdeberwe.” It is this old natural boundary which, as stated in the preface, we have adopted for the limits of the book. A copy of the original may be found in the Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xliv., appendix, p. 574, 1789.

[45]This may also be found, with the perambulation made in the twenty-second year of Charles II., in the Journal of the House of Commons, vol. xliv., appendix, pp. 574, 575, 1789. It is also given in Lewis’s Historical Enquiries upon the New Forest, appendix ii. pp. 174-177.

[46]This is not the place to say more on this most important chapter of English history. See, however, on the subject, The Great Charter: and the Charter of the Forest, by Blackstone, Introduction, pp. lx.-lxxii. 1759. For the oppressions which still existed under the shelter of the Forest Laws, see the preamble to the “Ordinatio Foreste,” 34th Edward I. Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. p. 147.

[47]“Quid et quantum temporibus cujuslibet regis nullo modo eis constare potest.” The conclusion of the perambulation. Some little difficulty attends these perambulations. From Domesday, it is certain that the Conqueror afforested land on the west of the Avon at Holdenhurst, Breamore, and Harbridge. And amongst the MSS of Lincoln’s Inn Library we find a copy of a charter of William of Scotland, dated, curiously enough, “Hindhop Burnemuth, in meâ Novâ Forestâ, 10 Kal. Junii, 1171.” (See Hunter’s “Three Catalogues,” &c., p. 278, No. 78, 1838.) It would seem, from what Edward’s commissioners say, that these afforestations, which had taken place since Henry II’s time, were all made inside the actual boundaries of the Forest. It has been generally supposed that the perambulation in the eighth year of Edward I. was the first ever made of an English forest. This is not the case, for in the Record Office, in the Plita Foreste de Cōm. Southt LIII^tio R. H. III., No. III., may be found the perambulation of a forest in the north of Hampshire.

[48]For a good account of all details connected with the history of the New Forest, see the Sub-Report by the Secretary of the Royal New and Waltham Forest Commission, Reports from Commissioners (11), vol. xxx. pp. 267-309, 1850, and also the Fifth Report of the Land Revenue Commissioners in 1789, published July 24th of that year, to be found also in the Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xliv. pp. 552-571.

[49]See “The humble petition of Richard Spencer, Esq., Sir Gervas Clifton, Knight and Baronet, and others, to enter upon the New Forest and Sherwood Forest,” &c. &c. Record Office. Domestic Series, Charles II., No. 8. f. 26, July 21st, 1660.

[50]MSS. prepared by Mr. Record-Keeper Fearnside, quoted in the Secretary’s Sub-Report of the Royal New and Waltham Forest Commission, Reports from Commissioners (11), vol. xxx. p. 342.

[51]See Grant Book at the Record Office, 1613, vol. 141, p. 127—“4th October, a Grant to Richard Kilborne, alias Hunt, and Thomas Tilsby (of) the benefitt of all Morefalls within the New Forest, for the terme of one and twenty years.”

[52]See “The humble petition of Captayne Walter Neale” for “two thousand decayed trees out of the New Forest, in consideracion” of 460l., which he had advanced to his company engaged in Count Mansfeldt’s expedition. Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 184, Feb., 1625, f. 62.

[53]See warrant from Charles II. to the Lord Treasurer Southampton, that “Winefred Wells may take and receive for her own use” King’s Coppice at Fawley, and New Coppice and Iron’s Hill Coppice at Brockenhurst. Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 96, April 1st, 1664, f. 16. Three years before this there had been a petition from a Frances Wells “to bestowe upon her and her children for twenty-one yeares the Moorefall trees in three walks in the New Forest, ... and seven or eight acres of ground, and ten or twelve timber trees, to build a habitation.” The petition was referred to Southampton, who wrote on the margin, “I conceive this an unfit way to gratify this petitioner, for under pretence of such Moorefall trees much waste is often committed.” Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 34, April 2nd, 1661, f. 14. Hence the reason of Charles’s warrant in the case of Winefred Wells, as he knew that the Lord Treasurer was so strongly opposed to any such grants.

[54]See the report of Peter Pett, one of the King’s master shipwrights, “Touching the fforests of Shottover and Stowood.” Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 216, f. 56. i. May 10th, 1632. The New Forest, however, seems from this report to have been much better in this respect.

[55]See “Necessarie Remembrances concerning the preservation of timber, &c.” Record Office. Domestic Series. Charles I., No. 229, f. 114. Without date, but some time in 1632.

[56]9th and 10th of William III., chap. xxxvi, 1693. An abstract of the Act may be found in the Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xliv., appendix, pp. 576-578.

[57]To show how for years the Forest was neglected and robbed, we find, from a survey made in James I.’s reign, 1608, that there were no less than 123,927 growing trees fit for felling, and decaying trees which would yield 118,000 loads of timber; whilst in Queen Anne’s reign, in 1707, only 12,476 are reported as serviceable. See Fifth Report of the Land Revenue Commissioners, Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xliv. p. 563. The waste in James I.’s and Charles I.’s time must have been enormous, for from the “Necessarie Remembrances” before quoted we find that there were not in 1632 much above 2,000 serviceable trees in the whole Forest.

[58]See, as before, Fifth Report of the Land Revenue Commissioners, pp. 561, 562, and especially the evidence of the under-steward, Appendix, 583. As far back as February 20th, 1619, we find that James I. gave the Earl of Southampton 1,200l. a year as compensation for the damage which the enormous quantity of deer in the Forest caused to his land. Letter from Gerrard to Carleton, Feb. 20, 1618/1619, Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 105, f. 120. Gilpin (vol. ii. pp. 32, 33, third edition) states that in his day two keepers alone robbed the Forest to the value of 50,000l.

[59]Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xlvii. pp. 611-792; vol. lv. pp. 600-784.

[60]See the evidence in the Parliamentary Papers, 1849, Nos. 513, 538. Of the Forest Rights and Privileges, the secretary to the New Forest Commission writes: “The present state of the New Forest in this respect is little less than absolute anarchy.” (Reports of Commissioners (11), vol. xxx. p. 357, 1850.) It should be distinctly understood, as was shown in the last chapter, that these Rights had their origin as a compensation to those whose lands had been afforested by the King, and who were, in consequence, subject to the Forest Laws, and the injury done by the deer. Now that the injury is no longer sustained, and the exercise of the Prerogative has ceased, so ought also the privileges. The Crown, however, has not pressed this, and the Rights are thus still enjoyed. A Register of Decisions on Claims to Forest Rights, with each person’s name, and the amount of his privileges, was published in 1858.

[61]The present statistics of the Forest are—Freehold estates, being private property, within the Forest boundaries, 27,140 acres; copyhold, belonging to her Majesty’s manor of Lyndhurst, 125; leasehold, under the Crown, 600; enclosures belonging to the lodges, 500; freeholds of the Crown, planted, 1,000; woods and wastes of the Forest, 63,000: total, 92,365 acres. The value of timber supplied to the navy during the last ten years has been, on the average, nearly 7,000l. a year. The receipts for the year ending 31st of March, 1860, derived from the sale of timber, bark, fagots, marl, and gravel, and rent of farms and cottages, &c., were 23,125l. 6s. 6d.; whilst the expenses for labour, trees, carriage of timber, and salaries, were 12,913l. 1s. 7d.; thus showing a considerable profit. (From the Thirty-eighth Report of the Commissioners of her Majesty’s Woods and Forests.) The management of the Forest is now in the hands of a deputy-surveyor, three assistants, and eight keepers; whilst four verderers try all cases of stealing timber, turf, and furze.

[62]See further, on the condition of the Forest population, chapters [xv.] and [xvi.] When stripping bark and felling timber in the spring, the men can earn considerably more than at other times. The average wages are two shillings a day for ordinary labourers, but all work, which can be, is done by the piece.

[63]In the Rolls of Parliament, vol. i. p. 125, A.D. 1293, 21st Edward I., is an account of a vessel, the All Saints, “de Hethe juxta Novam Forestam,” which, laden with wine from Rochelle, was wrecked and plundered on the Cornish coast.

[64]A little beyond Hythe is a good example of Mr. Kemble’s test (see the Saxons in England, vol. i., Appendix A, p. 481) for recognizing the Ancient Mark. To the north lies Eling, the Mark of the Ealingas, and in regular succession from it come the various hursts, holts, and dens, now to be seen in Ashurst, Buckholt, and Dibden. The last village has a very picturesque church, its roof completely thatched with ivy, disfigured, however, by a wretched spire. In Domesday it possessed a saltern and a fishery, and a wood with pannage for six hogs (sylva de 6 porcis). Two hydes were taken into the Forest. Eling, at the same time, maintained two mills, which paid twenty-five shillings, a fishery and a saltern, both free from tax. The manor was bound, in the time of Edward the Confessor, to find half-a-day’s entertainment (firma) for the King. For a curious extract from its parish register, see [chapter xix.] Staneswood (Staneude), which is more southward, also, according to Domesday, possessed a mill which paid five shillings, and two fisheries worth fifty pence. Farther north lies Redbridge, the Rodbrige of Domesday, which also maintained two mills, rented, however, at fifty shillings. This was the Hreutford and Vadum Arundinis of Bede, where lived Cynibert the Abbot, who, failing in his attempt to save the two sons of Arvald from Ceadwalla, delayed their death till he had converted them to Christianity. (Bede, Hist. Eccl., tom. i., lib. iv., cap. xvi., p. 284, published by the English Historical Society.) All these places, with the exception of Redbridge, were more or less afforested. The district, however, seems to have been by far the most flourishing of any adjoining the New Forest, owing, no doubt, to the immigration which the various creeks invited, and the remains of salterns still show its former prosperity. Next to it came the Valley of the Avon, its mills often rented, in Domesday, by a payment of the eels caught in the river.

[65]Colonel Hammond, Governor of the Isle of Wight, in a letter to the Committee of Derby House, dated from Carisbrook Castle, June 25th, 1648, speaks of “Caushot Castle as a place of great strength.” (Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii., book ix., p. 383.) In the reign of Elizabeth there were stationed here a captain, with a fee of one shilling a day; a subaltern with eightpence; four soldiers and eight gunners with sixpence each; and a porter with eightpence. (Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i., book ii., p. 66.) And in 1567, we find the queen ordering “the mountyng of ordinance,” probably to pay attention to Philip, who was expected to pass through “the narrowe seas.” Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 43, Aug. 27, 1567, f. 52.

[66]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. p. 24. Florence. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. pp. 3, 4.

[67]Compare his edition of The Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 13, with note 1 at p. 4, vol. i., of Florence.

[68]Early English Settlements in Great Britain—The Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, the Salisbury volume, pp. 56-60. It is, of course, not without much consideration that I presume to differ from Dr. Guest; but surely the passages quoted from Bede refer to nearly 200 years after the arrival of Cerdic and his nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar, when their descendants would have been sure to have crossed over, finding the east side far richer than the cold, barren district where the New Forest afterwards stood.

[69]The Early and Middle Ages of England, p. 56, foot-note. I may, perhaps, add, that Camden also placed it at Yarmouth; Carte, at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire; and Milner, at Hengistbury Head. Gibson, with some others, in his edition of The Chronicle (under nominum locorum explicatio, pp. 19, 20), alone seems to have fixed on this spot. Lappenburg, however, says that the site is no longer known. England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings. Ed. Thorpe, p. 107.

[70]In a letter of Southampton’s to Cromwell, 17th September, 1539 (State Papers, vol. i. p. 617), it is called Calsherdes; whilst in another letter of his, also to Cromwell (Ellis’s Letters, second series; vol. ii. p. 87), he writes Calshorispoynte. Leland, in his Itinerary (Ed. Hearne, second edition, vol. iii., p. 94, f. 78), speaks of both “Cauldshore” and “Caldshore Castelle;” and again (p. 93, f. 77), calls it Cawshot, as it is also spelt in Baptista Boazio’s Map of the Isle of Wight, 1591; whilst in the State papers of Elizabeth we find Calshord. (Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 43, f. 52. Aug. 27th, 1567.) I give these examples to show the number of variations through which the name has passed. No form is too grotesque for a corruption to assume. How names become corrupted, let me give an instance in the word Hagthorneslad (from the Old-English “hagaþorn;” a hawthorn), as it is written in the perambulation of the Forest in the twenty-ninth year of Edward I., which in Charles II.’s time is spelt Haythorneslade, thus losing its whole significance, although to this day the word “hag” is used in the Forest for a “haw,” or “berry.”

[71]The simple termination “ore”—“ora,” and not “oar,” as spelt in the Ordnance Map, may be found within a stone’s-throw of Calshot, in Ore Creek.

[72]See previously, chapter iv. [p. 40], foot-note.

[73]The derivation of Leap as given in the text is very doubtful.—errata

[74]At the date of the Dauphin’s leaving England, William de Vernon was dead, which makes his embarkation at Leap less probable. Neither Roger of Wendover (vol. iv. p. 32. Ed. Coxe), nor Walter Hemingburgh (vol. i. p. 259. Ed. Hamilton), nor Ralph Coggeshale (Chronicon, Anglicanum Bouquet Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, tom. xviii. p. 113 C.), nor the Chronicon Turonense (in the Veterum Scriptorum Amplissima Collectio of Martène and Durand, tom. v. p. 1059 B), nor Rymer’s Fœdera (“De salvo conductu Domini Ludovici,” tom. i. p. 222), say anything of the place of embarkation.

[75]I believe on that of the Oglander MSS. in the possession of the Earl of Yarborough, but which I have never seen. Neither the Iter Carolinum, Herbert’s Memoirs (London, 1572, p. 38), Huntington’s account (same volume, p. 160), Berkeley’s Memoirs (second edition, 1702, p. 65), The Ashburnham Narrative (London, 1830, vol. ii. p. 119), nor Whalley’s letter in Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa (tom. ii., lib. ix., pp. 374, 375), nor Hammond’s, in Rushworth’s Collection (part iv., vol. ii., p. 874), mention the place, though the latter would seem to indicate that the King sailed direct from Tichfield to Cowes. Ashburnham and Berkeley had, we know from Berkeley (Memoirs, same edition as before, p. 57) and Ludlow (Memoirs, 1771, p. 93), previously gone by Lymington to the Island.

[76]The road is marked in the map which accompanies Dr. Guest’s paper on “The Belgic Ditches.” The Archæological Journal, vol. viii. p. 143.

[77]As the passage is so important, I give it in full:—Ἀποτυποῦντες δ’ εἰς ἀστραγάλων ῥυθμοὺς κομίζουσιν εἴς τινα νῆσον προκειμένην μὲν τῆς Βρεττανικῆς, ὀνομαζομένην δὲ Ἴκτιν. κατὰ γὰρ τὰς ἀμπώτεις ἀναξηραινομένου τοῦ μεταξὺ τόπου ταῖς ἁμάξαις εἰς ταύτην κομίζουσι δαψιλῆ τὸν καττίτερον. Ἴδιον δέ τι συμβαίνει περὶ τὰς πλησίον νήσους τὰς μεταξὺ κειμένας τῆς τε Εὐρώπης καὶ τῆς Βρεττανικῆς. Κατὰ μὲν γὰρ τὰς πλημμυρίδας τοῦ μεταξὺ πόρου πληρουμένου νῆσοι φαίνονται, κατὰ δὲ τὰς ἀμπώτεις ἀποῤῥεούσης τῆς θαλάττης καὶ πολὺν τόπον ἀναξηραινούσης θεωροῦνται χεῤῥόνησοι.—Lib. v., cap. xxii., vol. i., p. 438. Ed. Dindorf. Leipsic, 1828-31. Pliny, as Wesseling remarks, in his note on this passage, quoted by Dindorf, vol. iv. p. 421, by some mistake, makes the Isle of Wight (Mictis) six days’ sail from England. See Sir G. C. Lewis’s Astronomy of the Ancients, chap. viii., sect. iii. p. 453.

[78]As before, sect. iv. p. 462.

[79]The South-Western Parts of Hampshire, vol. ii. pp. 5, 6, 1793.

[80]For an account of the barrows on Beaulieu Heath, see ch. xvii.

[81]Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum. Ed 1825, vol. v., p. 682. Num. ii. See Chronica de Kirkstall. Brit. Mus. Cott. MSS. Domitian. A. xii., ff. 85, 86. The cause of John’s enmity against the Cistercian Order may be gathered from Ralph Coggeshale, Chronicon Anglicanum, as before in Bouquet, Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, tom. xviii. pp. 90, 91.

[82]Carta Fundationis per Regem Johannem, given in Dugdale (Ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 683); and Confirmacio Regis Edwardi tertii super cartas Regis Johannis, Brit. Mus., Bib. Cott. Nero, A. xii., No. v., ff. 8-15, quoted in Warner (South-West Parts of Hampshire, vol. ii., Appendix, pp. 7-14). There are, however, no less than three dates given for its foundation. The Annals of Parcolude, according to Tanner (Notitia Monastica, Ed. Nasmyth, Hampshire, No. vi. foot-note h), say 1201, which is manifestly wrong; whilst John of Oxnede, better known as the chronicler of St. Benet’s Abbey at Hulme (Chronica. Ed. Ellis, p. 107), with the Chronicon de Hayles et Aberconwey (Brit. Mus., Harl. MS., No. 3725, f. 10), and Matthew Paris, according to Dugdale, say respectively 1204 and 1205, though I have not been able to verify the last reference.

[83]Roger of Wendover. English Historical Society. Ed. Coxe, vol. iii. p. 344.

[84]See the previous chapter, pp. [57], [58], foot-note.

[85]Curiously enough, as Warner remarks (vol. i. 267), Matthew Paris gives two dates for the dedication, the first 1246 (Hist. Angl., tom. i. p. 710, Ed. Wats., London, 1640); and the second (p. 770) 1249; not, however, 1250, as Warner says, and who, followed by all later writers, totally misunderstands the passage, which means that, although the abbot spent so large a sum, yet the King would not remit him the fine he had incurred by trespass in the Forest,—“Nec tamen idcirco aliquatenus pepercit rex, quin maximum censum solveret illi pro transgressione quam dicebatur regi fecisse in occupatione Forestæ.”

[86]See Matthew Paris, in praise of the Cistercian Order. Same edition as before, tom. i. p. 916.

[87]Not Margaret of Anjou, as the common accounts say, who, landing at Weymouth, took refuge at Cerne Abbey. See Historie of the Arrival of Edward IV. in England, pp. 22, 23, printed for the Camden Society, 1838; and Hollinshed’s Chronicles, vol. iii. p. 685; and Speed, B. ix. p. 866. Hall, however (The Union of the Families of Lancaster and York, p. 219), with Grafton, in his prose continuation of Hardyng (Ed. Ellis, 1812, p. 457), says it was to Beaulieu that Margaret fled. But they are evidently mistaken, as Speed and Hollinshed, and the explicit and circumstantial narrative of the author of the Historie, show.

[88]The following list of books at Beaulieu, taken by Leland (Collect. de Rebus Brit., vol. iv. p. 149), just before the dissolution, will show what was in those days an average ecclesiastical library:—“Eadmerus de Vitâ Anselmi, et Vitâ Wilfridi Episcopi. Stephanus super Ecclesiasticum, Libros Regum, et Parabolas Salomonis. Joannes Abbas de Fordâ super Cantica Canticorum. Damascenus de Gestis Barlaam eremitæ, et Josaphat regis Indiæ. Libellus Candidi Ariani” (most probably the De Generatione Divinâ). “Libellus Victorini, rhetoris, contra Candidum” (the Confutatorium Candidi Ariani, written against the preceding work). “Tres libri Claudiani de Statu Animæ ad Sidonium Apollinarem. Gislebertus super Epistolas Pauli. Prosper de Vitâ contemplativâ et activâ.”

[89]Ellis’s Letters, second series, vol. ii. p. 87. For Henry VIII.’s enforcement of Wolsey’s levies on Beaulieu, see State Papers, vol. i., part ii., p. 383.

[90]Accounts of this palace—probably, as Mr. Walcott says, the King’s hunting lodge—may be found in the Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, 1846, p. 32, and the Rev. Makenzie Walcott’s Church and Conventual Arrangement, p. 115.

[91]Her remains were lately discovered near the high altar, with part of the inscription on her gravestone. (See the Rev. F. W. Baker’s account in the Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. ccxiv. p. 63.) A carved head with a crown in the refectory preserves the memory of her husband, crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle King of the Romans, and whose heart was buried, in a marble vase, beside his wife. (Leland, as before, iv. 149.) Tradition says that Eleanor of Acquitaine was also buried here, but she lies with her husband at Fontevraud.

[92]Warner (vol. i. 255) mentions that in his time there was still brandy in the steward’s cellars made from the vines growing on the spot. Domesday gives several entries of wines (see Ellis’s Introduction, vol. i. pp. 116, 117), though none in the Forest district. But the term ‘Vineyards’ is still frequently found hereabouts as the name of fields generally marked by a southern slope, as at Beckley and Hern, near Christchurch, showing how common formerly was the cultivation of the vine, first introduced into England by the Romans.

[93]In Brit. Mus., Harl. MS. 892, f. 40 b, is an extract from a most interesting letter written in 1648, describing the state of the refectory, which seems, with the exception of the alterations made in 1746, to have been much the same as at present.

[94]Corrected from “the injunction which the Bishop of Hippo gives to the canons of his own order”—errata

[95]Quoted from Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, by Warner, vol. i. p. 249.

[96]It is pleasant to have to add that the present noble owner, the Duke of Buccleuch, has shown not only good taste and judgment in the restoration of the guest-house and the excavation of the church, but a wise liberality in throwing the grounds open to the public.

[97]In Parker’s Glossary of Architecture is given a list of some of these old barns. Vol. i. pp. 240, 241.

[98]Some curious leaden pipes, soldered only on one side, were dug up close by, which are worth seeing, as they show how late the process of running hollow lead pipes was invented. The earthenware pipes found with them are as good as any which are now made. At Otterwood Farm, on the other side of the Exe, pavement and tiles have also been discovered.

[99]The chapel was standing in Warner’s time. South-Western Parts of Hampshire, vol. i. pp. 232, 233.

[100]In Brit. Mus., Bib. Cott., Nero, A. xii., No. vii. f. 20 a b, is a copy of a Bull from Alexander I., giving permission to all the Cistercian Houses to hold service at their granges.

[101]Even Layton saw their kindness, and pleaded for the poor wretches whom they had protected. Letter regarding Beaulieu Sanctuary from Layton to Cromwell, Ellis’s Letters, third series, vol. iii. pp. 72, 73.

[102]Blount’s Fragmenta Antiquitatis. Ed. Beckwith, p. 80, 1815. Testa de Nevill, p. 235 a (118). We know, however, that our forefathers, long before this, possessed beds, or rather cots, hung round with rich embroidered canopies. For their general love, too, of comfort and personal ornament and dress, we need go no further than to Chaucer’s description of “Richesse,” in his Romaunt of the Rose. Englishmen, however, were still then, as now, ever ready to lead a rough life if necessary, and to make their toil their pleasure.

[103]In that portion of it which comes under the title of “In Forestâ et circa eam.” See chap. iii. [p. 31].

[104]All over England did the church towers serve as landmarks, alike in the fen and forest districts. Lincolnshire and Yorkshire can show plenty of such steeples. At St. Michael’s at York, to this hour, I believe, at six every morning, is rung the bell whose sound used to guide the traveller through the great forest of Galtres; whilst at All Saints, in the Pavement, in the same city, is shown the lantern, which every night used to serve as a beacon.

[105]The following measurements may have some interest, and can be compared with those of the oaks and beeches in the Forest, given in chap. ii. [p. 16], foot-note:—Circumference of the oak, twenty-two feet eight inches. Yew, seventeen feet. An enormous yew, completely hollow, however, stands in Breamore churchyard, measuring twenty-three feet four inches. There are certainly no yews in the Forest so large as these; and their evidence would further show that at all events the Conqueror did not destroy the churchyards. As here, too, there remains some Norman work in the doorway of Breamore church.

[106]For some account of these barrows, see [chapter xvii.]

[107]The word is from the French merise. At Wood Green, in the northern part of the Forest, a “merry fair” of these half-wild cherries is held once a week during the season, probably similar to that of which Gower sung.

[108]An objection, that the lime-tree was not known so early in England, has been taken to this derivation. This is certainly a mistake. In that fine song of the Battle of Brunanburh, we find—

“Bordweal clufan

Heowan heaþolinde

Hamora lafan.”

(The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. p. 200.)

The “geolwe lind” was sung of in many a battle-piece. Again, as Kemble notices (The Saxons in England, vol. i., Appendix A, p. 480), we read in the Cod. Dip., No. 1317, of a marked linden-tree. (See, also, same volume, book i., chap. ii., p. 53, foot-note.) Then, too, we have the Old-English word lindecole, the tree being noted for making good charcoal, as both it and the dog-wood are to this day. Any “Anglo-Saxon” dictionary will correct this notion, and names of places, similarly compounded, are common throughout England.

[109]The entry in Domesday (facsimile of the part relating to Hampshire, photo-zincographed at the Ordnance Survey, 1861, p. iv. a) is as follows:—“In Bovere Hundredo. Ipse Rex tenet Linhest. Jacuit in Ambresberie de firmâ Regis. Tunc, se defendebat pro ij hidis. Modo, Herbertus forestarius ex his ij hidis unam virgatam (tenet), et pro tanto geldat; aliæ sunt in forestâ. Ibi modo nichil, nisi ij bordarii. Valet x solidos. Tempore Regis Edwardi valuit vi. libras.” It is worth noticing that Lyndhurst is here put by itself, and not with Brockenhurst and Minestead, and other neighbouring places under “In Novâ Forestâ et circa eam;” a clear proof, which might be gathered from other entries, that the survey was not completed.

[110]Blount’s Fragmenta Antiquitatis. Ed. Beckwith, p. 183. 1815. Here the place is called Lindeshull.

[111]Let me especially call attention to the exquisite carving of some thorns and convolvuluses in the chancel. It is a sad pity that this part of the church should be disfigured by glaring theatrical candlesticks and coarse gaudy Birmingham candelabra.

[112]I have only seen but the slightest portion of this fresco, so that it is impossible to properly judge of even the merits of this part. No criticism is true which does not consider a work of Art as a whole. At present, the angel with outstretched hands, full of nervous power and feeling, seems to me very admirable, though the position and meaning of the cloaked and clinging figure below is, at the first glance, difficult to make out; but this will doubtless, as the picture proceeds, become clear. The richness, however, of the colouring can even now be seen under the enormous disadvantage of being placed beneath the strong white glare of light which pours in from the east window. Further, Mr. Leighton must be praised for his boldness in breaking through the old conventionalities of Art, and giving us here the owl as a symbol of sloth, and the wretchedness it produces.

[113]Herbert’s Memoirs of Charles I., p. 95.

[114]William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum. Ed. Hardy, tom. ii., lib. iv., sect. 333, p. 508.

[115]Vitalis: Historia Eccl., pars. iii., lib. x., cap. xii., in Migne: Patrologiæ Cursus, tom. clxxxviii. pp. 751, 752; where occurs (pp. 750, 751) a most remarkable sermon, on the wrongs and woes of England, preached at St. Peter’s Abbey, Shrewsbury, on St. Peter’s Day, by Fulchered, first abbot of Shrewsbury, a man evidently of high purpose, ending with these ominous words:—“The bow of God’s vengeance is bent against the wicked. The arrow, swift to wound, is already drawn out of the quiver. Soon will the blow be struck; but the man who is wise to amend will avoid it.” Surely this is more than a general denunciation. On the very next day William the Red falls.

[116]Malmesbury, as before quoted, p. 509. Vitalis, however, in Migne, as before, p. 751, says there were some others.

[117]William of Malmesbury says nothing about the tree, from which nearly all modern historians represent the arrow as glancing. Vitalis, as before, p. 751, expressly states that it rebounded from the back of a beast of chase (fera), apparently, by the mention of bristles (setæ), a wild-boar. Matthew Paris (Ed. Wats., tom. i. p. 54) first mentions the tree, but his narrative is doubtful.

[118]Malmesbury, as before, p. 509. The additions that it was a charcoal-cart, as also the owner’s name, are merely traditional.

[119]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364.

[120]Vitalis, as before, p. 752. Neither William of Malmesbury nor Vitalis, who go into details, mentions the spot where the King was killed. The Chronicle and Florence of Worcester most briefly relate the accident, though Florence adds that William fell where his father had destroyed a chapel. (Ed. Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 45). Henry of Huntingdon (Historiarum, lib. vii., in Saville’s Scriptores Rerum Anglicarum, p. 378) says but little more, dwelling only on the King’s wickedness and the supernatural appearance of blood. Matthew Paris brings a bishop on the scene, as explaining another dream of the King’s, and gives the King’s speech of “trahe arcum, diabole” to Tiril, which has a certain mad humour about it, as also the incident of the tree, and the apparition of a goat (Hist. Major. Angl. Ed. Wats., pp. 53, 54), which are not to be found in Roger of Wendover (Flores Hist. Ed. Coxe, tom. ii., pp. 157-59), and therefore open to the strongest suspicion. Matthew of Westminster (Flores Hist. Ed. 1601, p. 235) follows, in most of his details, William of Malmesbury. Simon of Durham (De Gestis Regum Anglorum, in Twysden’s Historian Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem, p. 225), as, too, Walter de Hemingburgh (Ed. Hamilton, vol. i. p. 33), and Roger Hoveden (Annalium Pars Prior, in Saville’s Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, pp. 467, 468), copy Florence of Worcester. So, too, in various ways, with all the later writers, who had access to no new sources of information. Peter Blois, however, in his continuation of Ingulph (Gales’s Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, tom. i. pp. 110, 111; Oxford, 1684) is more vivid, and adds that the dogs were chasing the stags up a hill; but his whole book is very doubtful, and his account in this particular instance is irreconcilable with the others. Gaimar (L’Estorie des Engles. Ed. Wright. Caxton Society, pp. 217-224), who says that the King was hunting near Brockenhurst (Brokehest), gives a still more detailed account, but we are met by the same difficulties. Of later writers, Leland, in his Itinerary (vol. vi. f. 100, p. 88) states that the King fell at Thorougham, where in his time there was still a chapel standing, evidently meaning Fritham, called Truham in Domesday. Gilpin (Forest Scenery, vol. i. p. 166) mentions a similar tradition; so that there is a very reasonable doubt as to the spot itself being where the Stone stands, especially since, with the exception of the vague remark of Florence, none of the best Chroniclers say one word about the place. Thierry, in many minor particulars, follows Knyghton, whose authority is of little value, and I have therefore omitted all reference to him.

[121]Very much against my inclination, I give a sketch of the iron case of the Stone, which the artist has certainly succeeded in making as beautiful as it is possible to do. The public would not, I know, think the book complete without it. It stands, however, rather as a monument of the habit of that English public, who imagine that their eyes are at their fingers’ ends, and of a taste which is on a par with that of the designer of the post-office pillar-boxes, than of the Red King’s death, for the spot where he fell is, as we have seen from the previous note, by no means certain. We must, too, remember that there is no mention made by the Chroniclers of Castle Malwood, but the context in Vitalis, as also the late hour mentioned by Malmesbury when William went out to hunt, show that he was at the time staying somewhere in the Forest.

[122]See, as before, Lappenberg’s History of England under the Norman Kings, pp. 266-8; and Sharon Turner’s History of England during the Middle Ages, vol. iv. pp. 166-8.

[123]“Tabidi aëris nebulâ” are the words of William of Malmesbury. (Gesta Regum Anglorum. Ed. Hardy, tom. ii., lib. iii., sect. 275, pp. 454, 455.)

[124]Gul. Gemeticensis de Ducibus Normannorum, lib. vii., cap. ix. To be found in Camden’s Anglica Scripta, p. 674.

[125]This seems to be the meaning of a not very clear passage in William of Malmesbury. Same edition as before, p. 455. Vitalis, however, Historia Ecclesiastica, pars 3, lib. x., cap. xi. (in Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, tom. clxxxviii. pp. 748, 749), says he was shot by a knight, who expiated the deed by retiring to a monastery, and speaks in high terms both of him and his brother William, who fell in one of the Crusades.

[126]Ed. Thorpe, vol. ii. p. 45. Lewis, in his Topographical Remarks on the New Forest, pp. 57-62, is hopelessly wrong with regard to Richard, the son of Robert, a grandson of the Conqueror, whom he calls Henry, and confounds at p. 62 with his uncle; and makes both William of Malmesbury and Baker (see his Chronicle, p. 37, Ed. 1730) say quite the reverse of what they write.

[127]As I am not writing a History of England during this period, my space will not permit me to enter into those details which, when viewed collectively, carry so much weight in an argument; but at all events, it will be well for some of my readers to bear in mind the character of William II., who in a recent work has lately been elevated into a hero. Without any of his father’s ability or power of statesmanship, he inherited all his vices, which he so improved that they became rather his own. From having no occupation for his mind, he sank more and more into licentiousness and lust. (“Omni se immunditiâ deturpabat,” is the strong expression of John of Salisbury. Life of Anselm, part ii. ch. vii., in Wharton’s Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 163. See, also, Suger, Vita Lud. Grossi Regis, cap. i., in Bouquet: Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, tom. xii. p. 12. D. E.) Being lustful, he naturally became cruel; not as his father was, on, at least, the plea of necessity, but that he might enjoy a cultivated pleasure in gloating over the sufferings of others. From being cruel, too, he became, in its worst sense, an infidel; not from any pious scruple or deep conviction, but simply that he might indulge his passions. (See that fearful story of the trial of forty Englishmen told in Eadmer: Hist. Nov., lib. ii., p. 48, Ed. 1633, which illustrates in a twofold manner both his cruelty and his atheism.)

To a total want of eloquence he joined the most inveterate habit of stammering, so that, when angry, he could barely speak. His physical appearance, too, well harmonized with his moral and mental deformities. His description reads rather like that of a fiend than of a man. Possessing enormous strength, he was small, thick-set, and ill-shaped, having a large stomach. His face was redder than his hair, and his eyes of two different colours. His vices were, in fact, branded on his face. (Malmesbury, Ed. Hardy, tom. ii., lib. iv., sect. 321, p. 504, whom I have literally translated.)

Let us look, too, at the events of his reign. Crime after crime crowds upon us. His first act was to imprison those whom his father had set free. He loaded the Forest Laws with fresh horrors. Impartial in his cruelty, he plundered both castle and monastery (The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364). He burnt out the eyes of the inhabitants of Canterbury, who had taken the part of the monks of St Augustin’s. At the very mention of his approach the people fled (Eadmer: Hist. Nov., lib. iv. p. 94). Unable himself to be everywhere, his favourites, Robert d’Ouilly harried the middle, and Odineau d’Omfreville the north of England; whilst his Minister, Ralph Flambard, committed such excesses that the people prayed for death as their only deliverance (Annal. Eccles. Winton., in Wharton’s Anglia Sacra, tom. i. p. 295).

As The Chronicle impressively says, “In his days all right fell, and all wrong in the sight of God and of the world rose.” Norman and English, friend and foe, priest and layman, were united by one common bond of hatred against the tyrant. It could only be expected that as his life was, so his death would be; that he would be betrayed by his companions, and in his utmost need deserted by his friends.

[128]Eadmer: Vita Anselmi, Ed. Paris, 1721, p. 23. John of Salisbury: Vita Anselmi, cap. xi.; in Wharton’s Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 169. William of Malmesbury: Ed. Hardy, vol. ii., b. iv., sect. 332, p. 507; and Roger of Wendover, Ed. Coxe, vol. ii. pp. 159, 160.

[129]Vitalis: Historia Ecclesiastica, pars 3, lib. x.; in Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, tom. clxxxviii., pp. 750 D, 751 A. See previously, [p. 94], foot-note.

[130]Eadmer: Vita Anselmi, Ed. Paris, 1721, p. 6.

[131]Baxter, in his Preface to his Glossarium Antiquitatum Britannicarum, Ed. 1719, p. 12, entirely misquotes Alanus de Insulis (see Prophetica Anglicana Merlini Ambrosii cum septem libris explanationum Alani de Insulis. Frankfort, 1603. Lib. ii. pp. 68, 69), and completely misunderstands the passage. Alanus, however (p. 69), seems to have no doubt that the King fell by treachery,—“spiculo invidiæ,” as was foretold by Merlin, though he gives no other reason; and which by itself, resting on nothing further, would carry no weight. His account, though, of the general detestation of the Red King immediately before his death, as also the conversation of Hugh, Abbot of Cluny, with Anselm (p. 68), is very suggestive, especially by the way in which it is introduced. Alanus must have possessed far too shrewd an intellect to have believed in Merlin; though it might have suited his purpose to have appeared to have so done, as a veil and a blind, so that he might better say what his high position and authority would not in any other form have well permitted, but which still give to many points, as here, enormous significance and weight.

Besides Gaimar and Alanus, Nicander Nucius also hints at treachery (Second Book of Travels, published by the Camden Society, pp. 34, 35), but his account is too vague to be of any service. We should, however, constantly bear in mind, with Lappenberg, that the best authority, The Chronicle, simply relates that the King was shot at the chase by one of his friends, without any allusion to an accident. Not one word or fact else is given, except the appearance of a pool of blood in Berkshire (at Finchhamstead, according to William of Malmesbury), which we know, from other sources, was supposed to foretell some calamity, and which phenomenon science now resolves into merely some species of alga, probably either Palmella cruenta or Hæmatococcus sanguineus. Eadmer, with some others, in his Historia Novorum, lib. ii. (Migne: Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, tom. clix. p. 422 B) mentions a report, prevalent at the time, that the King accidentally stumbled on an arrow. Then follows, in the very next book (Migne, as before, p. 423 B), a singular passage, to be found also in his Life of Anselm, book ii. ch. vi. (Migne, as before, tom. clviii. p. 108 D), where, on the news of the Red King’s death, Anselm bursts into tears, and, with sobs, cries, “Quod si hoc efficere posset, multo magis eligeret se ipsum corpore, quam illud, sicut erat, mortuum esse.” Whether this wish sprang from the effects of some pangs of conscience as to William’s death, or from an honourable feeling of natural emotion under the circumstances, as suggested by Sharon Turner, it is hard to determine. From John of Salisbury (Vita Anselmi, pars ii., cap. xi., in Wharton’s Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 169), it would seem that Anselm thought that he was the direct cause, through God, of his death. Wace, quoted by Sharon Turner (vol. iv. p. 169), says that a woman prophesied to Henry his speedy accession to the throne; but I am not inclined to put any faith in this story, especially as Wace’s account is in poetry, where a prophetical speech might after the event be given dramatically true, without being so historically. The same criticism must be applied to the still more detailed account of Gaimar, who vaguely accuses Tiril of conspiracy. No one, however, was likely to declare, for so many reasons, that the King was murdered. We must not expect such a statement, or even look for it in the Chroniclers; we must seek for it in the contradictions, and absurdities, and prophecies which have gathered round the event.

[132]Let no one be startled at the fact of ecclesiastics being assassins. We have on record during this very reign the deliberate confessions by monks of plots to murder their abbots, deeming they were doing God a service. We must further keep steadily in mind that prelates then united in their own persons both sacred and military offices. How much Henry was under the influence of the monasteries his marriage and his various appointments show. Their power was enormous. In fact, I believe that the Conqueror owed his success as much to them as Rufus his death, and Henry his crown.

[133]At the time of his death he held in his hand the archbishopric of Canterbury, the bishoprics of Winchester and Salisbury, besides eleven abbacies, all let out to rent. The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 364.

[134]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 356.

[135]William of Malmesbury, Ed. Hardy, tom. ii., lib. iv., sect. 306, p. 488.

[136]The same, tom. ii., lib. iv., sect. 319, p. 502.

[137]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 362.

[138]Suger: Vita Lud. Grossi Regis, cap. i. (to be found, as before, in Bouquet, tom. xii. p. 12 E.) See, also, John of Salisbury: Vita Anselmi; Migne: Patrologiæ Cursus Completus, tom. cxcix., cap. xii., p. 1031 B.; or, as before, in Wharton’s Anglia Sacra, tom. ii. p. 170.

[139]Quoted by Sharon Turner: History of England, vol. iv. p. 167. See, as before, Migne: tom. cxcix., cap. xii., p. 1031 B.

[140]The word, however, is going out of use, and is more generally now softened into hill. We meet with it in the perambulation of the Forest made in the twenty-second year of Charles II.—“The same hedge reaches Barnfarn from the right hand, right by Helclose, as far as to a certain corner called Hell Corner.”

[141]For the geology of this part of the Forest see [chapter xx.]

[142]Testa de Nevill, p. 237 b. 130. See, also, p. 235 b. (118). Throughout the Forest, as we have seen at Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst, were similar feudal tenures. Some held their lands, as the heirs of Cobbe, at Eling, by finding 50; and others, again, as Richard de Baudet, at Redbridge, 100 arrows. Testa de Nevill, as in the first reference; and p. 238 a. (132).

[143]See previous chapter, [p. 96], foot-note.

[144]For some account of the contents of these barrows and potteries, see chapters [xvii.] and [xviii.]

[145]Lewis: Topographical Remarks on the New Forest, p. 80, foot-note. I have not, however, been able to find his authority. A tradition of the sort lingers in the neighbourhood. Blount (Fragmenta Antiquitatis, Ed. Beckwith, p. 115. 1815) says that Richard Carevile held here six librates a year of land in chief of Edward I., by finding a sergeant-at-arms for forty days every year in the King’s army. See, also, the Testa de Nevill, p. 231 (101), No. 3.

[146]Dugdale: Monasticon Anglicanum, Ed. 1830, vol. vi., part ii., p. 761. Leland, however (Itin., vol. iii., f. 72, p. 88, Ed. Hearne), says it was given to King’s College, Cambridge.

[147]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 26. Florence of Worcester, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 4.

[148]Same edition as before, p. iv. a. Its manor then belonged to that of Rockbourne, and was held in demesne by the Conqueror, as it had also been by Edward the Confessor. Two hydes and a half, and a wood capable of supporting fifty swine, were taken into the Forest. From the mention of a priest (presbyter), who received twenty shillings from some land in the Isle of Wight, there may have been, though by no means necessarily, a church, situated, as the old yew would perhaps show, in the present churchyard, and of which the Norman doorway may be the last remains.

The Valley of the Avon, as was mentioned in chapter v., [p. 51], foot-note, appears from its nature to have been, with the exception of the east coast, the most flourishing district of any in the neighbourhood of the Forest. It is worth, however, noticing that many of its mills were rented not only by a money value, but by the additional payment of so many eels. Thus at Charford (Cerdeford) the mill is rented at 15s. and 1,250 eels, and at Burgate (Borgate) the mill paid 10s. and 1,000 eels, whilst at Ibbesley (Tibeslei) the rental was only 10s. and 700 eels (Domesday, as before, pp. xix. a, iv. b, xviii. a). The latter place had two hydes, and Burgate its woods and pasture, which maintained forty hogs, taken into the Forest; but Charford with its ninety-one acres of meadow-land, seems not to have been afforested, which, taken with other instances, shows that the best land was, as a rule, spared.

[149]In the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1828, vol. 98, part, ii., p. 17, is a sketch of the house, taken fifty years ago, which, with the exception of some parts now pulled down, much resembles its present condition.

[150]Monmouth, like a second Warbeck, was in all probability on his way through the Forest to Lymington, where Dore, the mayor, had raised for him a troop of men, and would assist him to embark. At Axminster, in Dorsetshire, there is a local MS. record, “Ecclesiastica, or the Book of Remembrance,” made by some member of the Axminster Independent Chapel, of the sufferings of Monmouth’s followers, which appears to have been unknown to Macaulay.

[151]There was formerly a cell here, subordinate to the Abbey of Saint Saviour le Vicomte in Normandy, to which it was given by William de Solariis, A.D. 1163, but dissolved by Henry VI., and its revenues annexed to Eton. Tanner’s Notitia Monastica, Hants., No. xii. See, also, Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, Ed. 1830, vol. vi., part. ii., p. 1046.

[152]Same edition as before, p. iv. a. The entry is remarkably interesting. Out of its ten hydes, four were taken into the Forest. In the six which were left, there dwelt fifty-six villeins, twenty-one borderers, six serfs, and one freeman. There were here 105 acres of meadow, a mill which paid 22s., and a church with half a hyde of land. On the four hydes which were taken into the Forest, fourteen villeins, and six borderers, who had seven ploughlands, used to dwell. How very much the woodland preponderated over the arable we may tell by the additional entry, that the woods maintained 189 hogs, whilst a mill in that part was only assessed at 30d., which facts may help us to form some opinion of the kind of soil that was in general afforested. The meadows, as usual, were not touched.

[153]See Yarrell’s History of British Fishes, vol. ii. pp. 399-401.

[154]On this phenomenon, see Lyell’s Antiquity of Man, p. 139.

[155]The Ordnance map here falls into an error, placing Sandford a mile too far to the south; whilst it omits the neighbouring village of Beckley, the Beceslei of Domesday, and “The Great Horse,” a clump of firs, so called from its shape, a well-known landmark in the Forest, and to the ships at sea, as also “Darrat,” or “Derrit” Lane.

[156]In Archæologia, vol. v. pp. 337-40, is a description, illustrated with a plan of these entrenchments, together with the adjoining barrows, most of which have been opened, but the accounts are very scanty and unsatisfactory.

[157]See Dr. Guest on the “Belgic Ditches,” vol. viii. of the Archæological Journal, p. 145.

[158]Gibson, in his edition of The Chronicle—in the “nominum locorum explicatio,” p. 50, seems to think that Yttingaford, where peace was made between the Danes and Edward, was somewhere in the New Forest, deriving the word from Ytene, the old name of the district. Mr. Thorpe, however, in his translation of The Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 77, suggests that it may be Hitchen.

[159]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 178. Florence of Worcester, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. pp. 117, 118.

[160]Grose, in his Antiquities (vol. ii., under Christchurch Castle), gives the following curious extract from a survey, dated Oct. 1656, concerning the duties of Sir Henry Wallop, the governor:—“Mem.: the constable of the castle or his deputy, upon the apprehension of any felon within the liberty of West Stowesing, to receive the said felon, and convey him to the justice, and to the said jail, at his own proper costs and charges; otherwise the tything-man to bring the said felon, and chain him to the castle-gate, and there to leave him. Cattle impounded in the castle, having hay and water, for twenty hours, to pay fourpence per foot.” The fee of the Constable in the reign of Elizabeth was 8l. 0s. 9d. Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i., book ii., part. 5, p. 71. In the Chamberlain’s Books of Christchurch we are constantly meeting with some such entry as, “1564, ffor the castel rent for ij yeres—xiijs. vd.” “1593, ffor the chiefe rent to the castel—vis. xid.”

[161]Descriptions of it will be found in Hudson Turner’s Domestic Architecture of England, vol. i. pp. 38, 39. Parker’s Glossary of Architecture, vol. i. p. 167. Grose’s Antiquities, vol. ii. Hampshire; in whose time it appears to have been cased with dressed stones. In the Chamberlain’s Books of the Borough, under the date of the sixth year of Edward VI., 1553, we meet with repairs “for the house next the castle,” which entry probably refers to some buildings belonging to the house, which, according to Grose, stretched away in a north-westerly direction to the castle.

[162]England’s Improvements by Sea and Land. By Andrew Yarranton. Ed. 1677, pp. 67, 70.

[163]As we have said, the muniment chest of the Christchurch Corporation, like that of all similar towns, is full of interest. It contains absolutions from Archbishops to all those who assist in the good work of making bridges;—letters from absolute patrons directing their clients which way to vote;—bonds from others that they will not require any payment from the burgesses, or put the borough to any expense;—old privileges of catching eels and lampreys with “lyer,” and “hurdells de virgis,” by all of which the past is brought before us. So, too, the Chamberlain’s Books are most interesting. From them we can learn, year by year, the prices of wheat and cattle, the fluctuation of wages, the average condition of the day, and both the minutest outward events as also the innermost life of the town. The true social history of England is written for us in our Chamberlain’s Books. They have unfortunately never been made use of as they deserve. Thus let me give a few general quotations from those of Christchurch. In 1578 lime was 6d. a bushel, from which price it fell within two years to 2d. Stone for building we find about 1s. a ton. Wages then averaged, for a skilled mechanic, from 7d. to 1s. a day, and for a labourer, 4d.; whilst night-watchmen, in 1597, were only paid 2d. Timber, contrary to what we should have expected, was comparatively dear. Thus in 1588 we find 9d. paid for two posts, and 20d. for a plank and two posts, whilst a few years afterwards a shilling is paid for making a new gate. Of course in all these calculations we must bear in mind that money was then three times its present value. Turning to other matters, we learn that in 1595, “a pottle of claret wine and sugar” cost 2s., whilst a quart of sack is only 12d. In 1582, a quart of “whyte wine” is 5d., and twenty years before this a barrel and a half of beer cost 4d. Again, in 1562, the fourth year of Elizabeth, large salmon, whose weights are not specified, appear to have averaged 7d. a piece. A load of straw for thatching came to 2s. 6d., and in some cases 3s., which in 1550 had been as low as 8d., and never above 20d. Drawing it, or passing it through a machine, cost 4d.; whilst a thatcher received 1s. 4d. for his labour of putting it on the roof.

At the same time a load of clay, either for making mortar or for the actual material of the walls, the “cob,” or “pug” of the provincial dialect, was 5d., a price at which it had stood with some slight variations for many years.

To conclude, the smallest things are noted. Thus a thousand “peats,” perhaps brought from the Forest, cost, in 1562, 15d., whilst a load of “fursen,” still the local plural of furse, perhaps also from the same place, was 8d. Nothing in these accounts escapes notice. In 1586 a “coking stole,” the well-known cathedra stercoris, the Old-English “scealfing-stol,” is charged 10d.; whilst a collar, or, as it is elsewhere in the same book called, “an iron choker for vagabonds,” cost 14d.

[164]In Archæologia, vol. iv. pp. 117, 118, is a letter from Brander, the geologist and antiquary, describing a quantity of spurs and bones of herons, bitterns and cocks, found on a part of the monastic buildings, showing that the site had been previously occupied.

[165]Holdenhurst had ten hydes and a half taken into the Forest (Domesday, as before, iv. a). It then possessed a small church, and, as we find one mentioned in the charter of Richard de Redvers in Henry I.’s reign, we may fairly conclude that this, too, was not destroyed by the Conqueror. There were also there fisheries for the use of the hall.

[166]Cartularium Monasterii de Christchurch Twinham. Brit. Mus., Cott. MSS., Tib. D. vi., pars ii., f. 194 a. This chartulary was much injured in the fire of 1731, but has been restored by Sir F. Madden. Quoted in Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. vi. p. 303, Ed. 1830.

[167]For further information, especially on the fortunes of the De Redvers family, and minor details, which I think would hardly interest the general reader, see Brayley’s and Ferrey’s work on the Priory of Christchurch, London, 1834, pp. 6, 11, 22: and Warner’s South-west Parts of Hampshire, vol. ii. pp. 55-65, which, notwithstanding some errors, is a most painstaking history.

[168]Collectanea de Rebus Britannicis, Ed. Hearne, vol. iv. p. 149.

[169]The possessions of the house were large, and brought in above 600l. a year. Yet we find that the brethren were in debt in every direction. At Poole, Salisbury, and Christchurch, they owed 41l. 19s. 6d. for mere necessaries. There was due 24l. 2s. 8d. to the Recorder of Southampton for wine; and a bill of 8l. 13s. 2d. to a merchant of Poole, for “wine, fish, and bere.” Certificate of Monasteries, No. 494, p. 48. Record Office. Quoted by Brayley and Ferrey, Appendix No. vi., pp. 9, 10.

[170]Brit. Mus., Bibl. Cott., Cleopatra, E. iv., f. 324 b.

[171]“Petition of John Draper.” Amongst the Miscellaneous MSS. of the Treasury of the Exchequer, Record Office.

[172]Archæologia, vol. v. pp. 224-29.

[173]I know nothing equal to this last screen in the delicacy of its carving, seen in bracket, and canopy, and the flights of angels; in the deep feeling especially manifest in the central bracket, with the Saviour’s head crowned with thorns, but surrounded with fruit and flowers, typical of His sufferings and the world’s benefits; and in the grave humour, not out of place, as allegorical of the world’s pursuits, which peeps forth in the figures over the two doorways.

[174]Lord Herbert’s Life and Reyne of King Henry VIII., p. 468. 1649. See, however, Froude: History of England, vol. iv. p. 119, foot-note.

[175]The year, as was generally the case, is not given to this letter, but simply December 2nd. From internal evidence, however, it was certainly written in 1539; for we know that the Priory was surrendered Nov. 28th of that year. Why, then, two years before her death, the commissioners should speak of the “late mother of Raynolde pole” I know not.

[176]Below the north transept, part, perhaps, of Edward the Confessor’s church, is a vault, which, when opened, was stacked with bones, like the carnary crypts at Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and of the beautiful church at Rothwell, in Northamptonshire—the “skull houses,” to which we so often find reference in the old churchwardens’ books.

[177]In the south choir aisle the broken sculptures represent the Epiphany, Assumption, and Coronation of the Virgin. Little can be said in praise of any of the modern monuments. The best are Flaxman’s “Viscountess Fitzharris and her three Children,” and Weekes’s “Death of Shelley.” Some of the others should never have been permitted to be erected, especially those which disfigure the Salisbury chapel. The new stained window at the west end adds very much to the beauty of the church.

[178]For further details the student of architecture should consult Mr. Brayley and Mr. Ferrey’s work, before referred to, of which a new edition is much needed, as also Mr. Ferrey’s paper in the Gentleman’s Magazine for Dec., 1861, p. 607, on the naves of Christchurch and Durham Cathedral, both built by Flambard, and a paper on the rood-screen in the Archæological Journal, vol. v. p. 142; and also a paper read at Winchester, September, 1845, before the Archæological Institute, on Christchurch Priory Church, by Mr. Beresford Hope, and published in the Proceedings of the Society, 1846. An excellent little handbook, by the Rev. Makenzie Walcott, the Honorary Secretary of the Christchurch Archæological Association, may be obtained in the town.

[179]Scott used to admire the Red King; but his praise must have been far more the result of friendship than of unbiassed criticism. The following lines, from Rose’s MS. poem of “Gundimore” (quoted in Lockhart’s Life of Scott, p. 145, foot-note), are interesting from their subject, and at the conclusion, though the idea is borrowed, are really fine:—

“Here Walter Scott has wooed the Northern Muse,

Here he with me has joyed to walk or cruize;

And hence has pricked through Ytene’s holt, where we

Have called to mind how under greenwood tree,

Pierced by the partner of his ‘woodland craft,’

King Rufus fell by Tiril’s random shaft.

Hence have we ranged by Keltic camps and barrows,

Or climbed the expectant bark, to thread the Narrows

Of Hurst, bound westward to the gloomy bower

Where Charles was prisoned in yon island tower.

* * * * * * *

Here, witched from summer sea and softer reign,

Foscolo courted Muse of milder strain.

On these ribbed sands was Coleridge pleased to pace

Whilst ebbing seas have hummed a rolling base

To his rapt talk.”

[180]Antiquities, vol. ii., where there is a sketch of the Grange as it was in 1777.

[181]For the geology of High Cliff, Barton, and Hordle Cliffs, see chapter xx. There are not many fossils in either the grey sand or the green clay before you reach the “bunny.” Plenty, however, may be found in the top part of the bed immediately above, known as the “High Cliff Beds,” and which rise from the shore about a quarter of a mile to the east of the stream.

[182]Chewton is not mentioned in Domesday. Beckley (Beceslei), which is close by, where there was a mill which paid thirty pence, had a quarter of its land taken into the Forest; whilst Baishley (Bichelei) suffered in the same proportion. Fernhill lost two-thirds of its worst land, and Milton (Mildeltune) half a hyde and its woods, which fed forty hogs, by which its rental was reduced to one-half.

[183]At this point the Marine Beds end, and the Brackish-Water series crop up; and then, lastly, the true Fresh-Water shells commence—the Paludinæ and Limnææ, with scales of fish, and plates of chelonians, and bones of palæotheres, and teeth of dichodons. See, further, chapter xx.

[184]See Lappenberg’s England under the Anglo-Norman Kings. Ed. Thorpe, p. 89.

[185]Yarranton, in that strange but clever work, England’s Improvement by Land and Sea (Ed. 1677, pp. 43-63), dwells at length on the quantity of iron-stone along the coast, and the advantage of the New Forest for making charcoal to smelt the metal. He proposed to build two forges and two furnaces for casting guns, near Ringwood, where the ore was to be brought up the Avon.

[186]

“That narrow sea, which we the Solent term,

Where those rough ireful tides, as in her straights they meet,

With boisterous shocks and roars each other rudely greet;

Which fiercely when they charge, and sadly when they make retreat,

Upon the bulwark forts of Hurst and Calshot beat,

Then to Southampton run.

Polyolbion, book ii.

[187]Hall’s Union of the Families of Lancaster and York, xxxi. year of King Henry VIII., ff. 234, 235, London, 1548.

[188]From Peek (Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i., b. ii., part iv., p. 66) we find that in Elizabeth’s reign the captain received 1s. 8d. a day; the officer under him, 1s.; and the master-gunner and porter, and eleven gunners and ten soldiers, 6d. each, which in Grose’s time had been increased to 1s. (Grose’s Antiquities, vol. ii., where a sketch is given of the castle). Hurst, on account of its strength, was to have been betrayed, in the Dudley conspiracy, to the French, by Uvedale, Captain of the Isle of Wight. (Uvedale’s Confession, Domestic MSS., vol. vii., quoted in Froude’s History of England, vol. vi. p. 438.) Ludlow mentions the great importance of Hurst being secured to the Commonwealth, as both commanding the Isle of Wight and stopping communication with the mainland (Memoirs, p. 323). Hammond, in a letter from Carisbrook Castle, June 25th, 1648, says it is “of very great importance to the island. It is a place of as great strength as any I know in England” (Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii., b. ix., p. 383).

[189]Sir Thomas Herbert’s Memoirs of the two last Years of the Reign of King Charles I., Ed. 1702, pp. 87, 88.

[190]Warwick calls the King’s rooms “dog lodgings” (Memoirs, p. 334); but it is evident from Herbert (Memoirs, p. 94) that both Charles and his attendants were well treated, which we know from Whitelock (Memorials of English Affairs, p. 359; London, 1732) was the wish of the army, as also from the letter of Colonel Hammond’s deputies given in Rushworth (vol. ii., part iv., p. 1351). Of Colonel Hammond’s own treatment of the King we learn from Charles himself, who, besides speaking of him as a man of honour and feeling, said “that he thought himself as safe in Hammond’s hands as in the custody of his own son” (Whitelock, p. 321).

[191]Evidently a misprint for three-quarters of an hour.

[192]Herbert’s Memoirs, pp. 85-86.

[193]A Keltic derivation for both places has been proposed, but it is not on critical grounds satisfactory.

[194]Gough possessed a brass coin inscribed Tetricus Sen. rev. Lætitia Augg., found here; and adds that in 1744 nearly 2 cwt. of coins of the Lower Empire were discovered in two urns. Camden’s Britannia, Ed. Gough, vol. i. p. 132.

[195]The grant is given in the Appendix to Warner’s South-West Parts of Hampshire, vol. ii., p. i., No. 1.

[196]Like those of Christchurch, the Corporation books of Lymington are full of interest, though they do not commence till after 1545, the previous records being generally supposed to have been burnt by D’Annebault in one of his raids on the south coast. Du Bellay, however, who, in his Mémoires, has so circumstantially narrated the French movements, says nothing of Lymington having suffered, nor can I find the fact mentioned in any of the State papers of the time. Take, for instance, the following entries from the Chamberlain’s books:—

“1643.	Quartering 20 soldiers one daie and night, going westward for the Parliamt service	xvi.s.	ij.d.
1646.	For bringinge the toune cheste from Hurst Castell	ij.s.
1646.	Watche when the allarme was out of Wareham	iiij.s.
1646.	For the sending a messenger to the Lord Hopton, when he lay att Winton with his army, with the toune’s consent	xiiij.s.
1648.	For keeping a horse for the Lord General’s man	iij.s.	x.d.
1650.	Paid to Sir Thomas Fairfax his souldiers going for the isle of Wight with their general’s passe	xij.s.”

Such entries to an historian of the period would be invaluable, as showing not only the state of the country but of the town, when the town-chest had to be sent four miles for safety; and proving, too, that here (notice the fourth entry), as elsewhere, there were two nearly equally balanced factions—one for the King, the other for the Commonwealth. I may add that a little book has been privately printed, of extracts from the Lymington Corporation books, from which the foregoing have been taken. It would be a very good plan if those who have the leisure would render some such similar service in other boroughs.

[197]Warner’s Hampshire, vol. i., sect. ii., p. 6; London, 1795. See, too, previously, ch. xi., [p. 122], foot-note.

[198]See Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. vi., part ii., p. 800. Tanner’s Notitia Monastica. Ed. Nasmyth, 1787. Hampshire. No. iv.

[199]I may seem to exaggerate both here and in the next chapter. I wish that I did. For similar cases in the neighbouring counties of Dorset and Sussex let the reader turn to the words “hag-rod,” “maiden-tree,” and “viary-rings,” in Mr. Barnes’s Glossary of the Dorset Dialect; and vol. ii. pp. 266, 269, 270, 278, of Mr. Warter’s Seaboard and the Down. I hesitate not to say that superstition in some sort or another is universal throughout England. It assumes different forms: in the higher classes, just at present, of spirit-rapping and table-turning, more gross than even those of the lower; and I am afraid really seems constitutional in our English nature.

[200]Of the extreme difficulty of classification of race in the New Forest I am well aware. I have, however, taken such typical families as Purkis, Peckham, Watton, &c., whose names are to be met in every part of the Forest, as my guide. Often, too, certain Forest villages, as Burley and Minestead, though far apart, have a strong connection with each other, and a family relationship may be traced in all the cottages. A good paper was read, touching upon the elements of the New Forest population, by Mr. D. Mackintosh, before the Ethnological Society, April 3rd, 1861. Of the Jute element, which we might have expected from Bede’s account of the large Jute settlement in the Isle of Wight, and Florence of Worcester’s language (as before, ed. Thorpe, vol. i., p. 276), few traces are to be found. See, however, on this point, what Latham says in his Ethnology of the British Isles, pp. 238, 239.

[201]See Dr. Guest’s paper on “The Early-English Settlements in South Britain,” Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, Salisbury volume, 1851, p. 30.

[202]This, of course, is not the place to go into so difficult a subject. I need not refer the reader to Mr. Davies’s paper in the Philological Society’s Transactions, 1855, p. 210, and M. de Haan Hettema’s Commentary upon it, 1856, p. 196. On the great value of provincialisms, see what Müller has said in The Science of Language, pp. 49-59. In [Appendix I.], I have given a list of some of those of the New Forest, which have never before been noticed in any of the published glossaries.

[203]In the charter of confirmation of Baldwin de Redvers to the Conventual House of Christchurch, quoted in Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. iii., part i., p. 304, and by Warner, vol. ii., Appendix, p. 47, it is called Hedenes Buria, which may suggest that the word is only a corruption. I do not for one moment wish to insist on the personal reality of Hengest, but simply to notice the fact of the High-German word for a horse being prominent in the topography of a people whose ancestors used so many High-German words. See Donaldson, Cambridge Essays, 1856, pp. 45-48.

[204]On this word as explaining Shakspeare’s “gallow” in King Lear (act iii. sc. 2), see Transactions of the Philological Society, part i., 1858, pp. 123, 124.

[205]See ch. iii., [p. 33].

[206]In the parish of Eling we have Netley Down and Netley Down-field, the Nutlei of Domesday. Upon this word—which we find, also, in the north of Hampshire, in the shape of Nately Scures and Upper Nately (Nataleie in Domesday)—as the equivalent of Natan Leah, the old name of the Upper portion of the New Forest, see Dr. Guest, as before quoted, [p. 31].

[207]A Keltic derivation has, I am aware, been proposed for this word. It is to be met with under various forms in all parts of the Forest. The Forest termination den (denu) must, however, be put down to this source. See Transactions of the Philological Society, 1855, p. 283.

[208]See what Mr. Cooper says with regard to the affinity of the western dialect of Sussex, as distinguished from the eastern, to that of Hampshire, in the preface (p. i.) to his Glossary of Provincialisms in the County of Sussex. For instance, such Romance words as appleterre, gratten, ampery, bonker, common in Sussex, are not to be heard in the Forest; whilst many of the West-Country words, as they are called, used daily in the Forest, as charm (a noise—see next chapter, [p. 191]), moot, stool, vinney, twiddle (to chirp), are, if Mr. Cooper’s Glossary is correct, quite unknown in Sussex.

[209]It is surprising, in looking over the musters of ships in the reigns of Edward II. and Edward III., to see how few Northern ports are mentioned. The importance, too, of the South-coast ports, which were sometimes summoned by themselves, arose not only from the reasons in the text, but from being close to the country with which we were in a state of chronic warfare. See, too, the State Papers, vol. i., p. 812, 813, where the levies of the fleets in 1545, against D’Annebault, with the names of each vessel and its port, are given; as also p. 827, where the neighbouring coast of Dorset is described as deserted, in consequence of the sailors flocking to the King’s service. I think that I have somewhere seen that our sailors were once rated as English, Irish, Scotch, and the “West Country,” the latter standing the highest.

[210]From an old chap-book, The Hampshire Murderers, with illustrations, without date or publisher’s name, but probably written about 1776.

[211]That is to say, the smuggled spirits were concealed either below the fireplace or in the stable, just beneath where the horse stood. The expression of “Hampshire and Wiltshire moon-rakers” had its origin in the Wiltshire peasants fishing up the contraband goods at night, brought through the Forest, and hid in the various ponds.

[212]See Dictionary of Americanisms, by J. R. Bartlett, who does not, however, we think, refer nearly often enough to the mother-country for the sources of many of the phrases and words which he gives. Even the Old-English inflexions, as he remarks, are in some parts of the States still used, showing what vitality, even when transplanted, there is in our language. Boucher, too, notices in the excellent introduction to his Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words, p. ix., that the whine and the drawl of the first Puritan emigrants may still in places be detected.

[213]All over the world lives a similar fairy, the same in form, but different in name. His life has been well illustrated in Dr. Bell’s Shakspeare’s Puck and his Folk-lore. In England he is known by many names—“the white witch,” “the horse-hag,” and “Fairy Hob;” and hence, too, we here get Hob’s Hill and Hob’s Hole. For accounts of him in different parts see especially Allies’ Folk-lore of Worcestershire, ch. xii. p. 409, and Illustrations of the Fairy Mythology of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by J. O. Halliwell. Published by the Shakspeare Society.

[214]The most popular songs which I have noticed in the Forest and on its borders are the famous satire, “When Joan’s ale was new,” which differs in many important points from Mr. Bell’s printed version: “King Arthur had three sons;” “There was an old miller of Devonshire,” which also differs from Mr Bell’s copy; and

“There were three men came from the north,

To fight the victory;”

made famous by Burns’ additions and improvements; but which, from various expressions, seems to have been, first of all, a West-Country song, sung at different wakes and fairs, part of the unwritten poetry of the nation.

[215]The Repression of Over-much Blaming the Church, edited by Churchill Babington, vol. i., part. ii., ch. iii., p. 155.

[216]Dr. Bell takes quite a different view of these passages in his Shakspeare’s Puck and his Folk-lore. Introduction to vol. ii. p. 6. The simple explanation, however, seems to me the best.

[217]See ch. xviii. [p. 197].

[218]The best cheese, the same as “rammel,” as opposed to “ommary,” which see in [Appendix I].

[219]In the Abstract of Forest Claims made in 1670 some old customs are preserved, amongst them payments of “Hocktide money,” “moneth money,” “wrather money” (rother, hryðer, cattle-money), “turfdele money,” and “smoke money,” which last we shall meet in the Churchwardens’ Books of the district. The following is taken from the Bishop of Winchester’s payments:—“Rents at the feast of St. Michael, 3s. 8d. For turfdeale money, 3s. 0d. Three quarters and 4 bushels of barley at the feast of All Saints. Three bushels of oats, and 30 eggs, at the Purification of the Virgin Mary.”—(p. 57.)

[220]Against tracking hares on the snow and killing them with “dogge or beche bow,” was one of the statutes of Henry VIII., made 1523 (Statutes of the Realm, vol. iii., p. 217).

[221]In that winter 300 deer were starved to death in Boldrewood Walk. Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xliv., pp. 561, 594.

[222]I have never in the Forest met the old phrase of “shaketime,” or rather “shack-time,” as it should be written, and still used of the pigs going in companies after grain or acorns, according to Miss Gurney, in Norfolk. Transactions of the Philological Society, 1855, p. 35.

[223]On this word, see Appendix I., under “Hoar-Withey,” [p. 283].

[224]By a decree of the Court of Exchequer, in the twenty-sixth year of Elizabeth, the keepers were allowed to take all the honey found in the trees in the Forest.

[225]A local name for a sieve, called, also, a “rudder;” which last word is, in different forms, used throughout the West of England.

[226]For other words applied to cows of various colours, see Barnes’s Glossary of the Dorset Dialect, under the words “capple-cow,” p. 323; “hawked cow,” p. 346; and “linded cow,” p. 358.

[227]Glossary of the Provincial Words and Places in Wiltshire, pp. 37, 38. London, 1842.

[228]See Müller’s Science of Language, pp. 345-351; and compare Wedgwood, Dictionary of English Etymology, introduction, pp. 5-17.

[229]Dictionary of English Etymology, p. 260. Manwood uses “bugalles” as a translation of buculi. A Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest, f. iii., sect. xxvii., 1615.

[230]Cunning, I need scarcely add, is here used in its original sense of knowing, from the Old-English cunnan, as we find in Psalm cxxxvii. v. 5.

[231]See ch. xvi. [p. 178].

[232]Apology for Smectymnus, quoted by Richardson. The word is even used by Locke.

[233]Corrected from ”literally the raw-mouse”—errata

[234]Miss Gurney, in her Glossary of Norfolk Words, gives “ranny” as a shrew-mouse. Transactions of the Philological Society, 1855, p. 35. The change of e into a is worth noticing, as illustrative of what was said in the previous chapter, [p. 167], of the pronunciation of the West-Saxon.

[235]The word “more” was in good use less than a century ago; whilst the term “morefall,” as we have seen in chapter iv. [p. 43], foot-note, was very common in the time of the Stuarts. Mr. Barnes, in his Glossary of the Dorset Dialect, pp. 363, 391, gives us “mote,” and “stramote,” as “a stalk of grass,” which serve still better to explain St. Matthew.

[236]Thorpe’s Preface to the English translation of Pauli’s Life of Alfred the Great, p. vi.

[237]Thorpe’s Preface to The Chronicle, vol. i., p. viii., foot-note 1. See, however, Lappenberg’s History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings; translated by Thorpe, Literary Introduction, p. xxxix.; and the Preface to Monumenta Historica Britannica, p. 75, where, as Mr. Thorpe notices, the examples quoted, in favour of the Mercian origin of the manuscript, are certainly, in several instances, wrong.

[238]I may as well add that a little way from where the Bound Oak formerly stood, near Dibden, and between it and Sandy Hill, lies a small mound, thirty yards in circumference, and three feet high in the centre, surrounded by an irregular moat, from which the earth had been taken. This I opened in 1862, driving a broad trench from the east to the centre, and another from the south to the centre, which, as also the west side, we entirely excavated; digging below the natural soil to the depth of four feet. Nothing, however, was found, though I have no doubt charcoal was somewhere present.

Beyond this, in Dibden Bottom, rises a large mound, from twenty to thirty feet high, apparently of a sepulchral character, known as Barney Barns Hill. Proceeding, close to Butt’s Ash End Lane, and near the Roman, or rather British, road to Leap (see chap v., [p. 56]), stand two barrows, the northernmost one hundred and the southernmost eighty yards in circumference. Farther away, in Holbury Purlieu, are three more, each with a circle of about seventy yards. To the west of these, in the Forest, as shown in the illustration at [page 213], rise four more, the three farthest forming a triangle. Beyond these, again, about three-quarters of a mile distant, near Stoneyford Pond, lie four others, respectively ninety, one hundred, and seventy yards in circumference. To the north rise three more, known as the Nodes, the westernmost about one hundred yards in circumference; the other two, which are ovaler and form twin barrows, being one hundred and fifty and one hundred yards. Two more stand on the side of the Beaulieu road to Fawley. All these, with others on Lymington Common and near Ashurst Lodge, and on the East Fritham Plain, still remain to be explored. For the barrows opened by the Rev. J. Pemberton Bartlett, on Langley Heath, see farther on, [page 211].

[239]South-Western Parts of Hampshire, vol. i. pp. 69-79.

[240]Warner probably meant an overhanging brim, such as is common to most of the early Keltic cinerary urns, or, perhaps, one like that of the left-hand urn in the illustration at [p. 196], which is more contracted than the others. He unfortunately gives us no dimensions.

[241]This camp was probably, since coins of Claudius have been found there, occupied by Vespasian, when he conquered the Isle of Wight. A bronze celt was found here some eighty years ago, and came into the possession of Warner. Others have been discovered, in great quantities, in various parts of the Forest, two of which are engraved in Archæologia, vol. v., plate viii., figs. 9 and 10. Brander, too, the well-known antiquary, found others at Hinton, on the west border of the Forest (Archæologia, vol. v. p. 115). Mr. Drayson has also picked up two flint knives at Eyeworth, which are figured, showing both the under and upper surfaces, at [p. 206].

[242]As in Derbyshire all barrows are marked by the terminal low—hlœw, a grave, so in the Forest they seem particularized by a reference to the Old-English lic. Thus, near the Beaulieu barrows we find Lytton Copse and Common, and at the west end of the Forest, not far from Amberwood, meet another Latchmoor. I may notice that just outside the Forest, in Darrat’s Lane—a word which often occurs—we find a place, near some mounds, called “Brands,” equivalent to the “Brund” of Derbyshire, and having reference to the burning funeral pyre. (See Bateman’s Ten Years’ Diggings, Appendix, p. 290.)

[243]I certainly think that these urns were fired, though imperfectly. As Mr. Bateman remarks, sun-baked specimens soon return to their original clay. See Appendix to Ten Years’ Diggings, p. 280.

These three urns, with all the other fragments of cinerary vessels found in the Forest, I have placed in the British Museum, where they have been restored. The artist has represented them exactly as they appeared on the second day of digging. The fractures in the central urn were caused by an unlucky blow from a pick-axe. The measurements are as follows:—

The north-eastern urn—	Circumference at	top	3 ft.
”	”	bottom	1 ” 6 in.
”	Total height		1 ” 4½ ”
The central urn—The same.
The south-western urn—	Circumference at	top	2 ” 9 ”
”	”	bottom	1 ” 4½ ”
”	Total height		1 ” 1¼ ”

[244]I am inclined to think that here, as in the similar instance on Fritham Plain, the urns were put in the mound entire, and not, as is sometimes the case, in fragments. The pieces had no appearance of being burnt after the fractures had taken place, which were here simply the result of decay. See on this point Bateman’s Ten Years’ Diggings, pp. 191, 192, where Mr. Keller’s letter to Sir Henry Ellis on the subject is given.

[245]Instances have been known where the top of a Roman cinerary urn has been taken off, and replaced; but, from the narrowness of the neck, I hardly think this vessel was used for such a purpose. I give with it also a late British urn found, some twenty years ago, in a barrow outside the present Forest boundary, in a field known as Hilly Accombs, near Darrat’s Lane, which has been previously mentioned. It measures 6 inches in height, and has a circumference of 1 foot 9 inches round the top, and 1 foot at the base. With it was discovered another, but I have been unable to learn in whose possession it now is, or what has become of the Roman glass unguent bottle found in Denney Walk (see the Antiquities of the Priory of Christchurch, by B. Ferrey and E. W. Brayley, p. 2, foot-note). The two flint knives were discovered by Mr. Drayson, near Eyeworth Wood, and somewhat resemble the chipping found in the largest barrow at Bratley, and were, perhaps, cotemporary. The conchoidal fracture may be well seen in specimen on the right-hand side. The celts found by Warner and Brander, with others in the possession of Gough, mentioned at [p. 199], foot-note, were bronze.

[246]There are two large heathy tracts known as Fritham Plain; the one to the east, where stand several large trenched barrows, which still remain to be opened; and the West Plain, where these excavations took place.

[247]An attempt to examine this barrow had been previously made, but the explorers had opened a little to the south-west of the spot where the pottery lay. It is just possible that the large square in Sloden may be of the same character. I cut a small opening at the western end, but it is impossible, on account of the trees, to make any satisfactory excavation. Whatever might have been its original purpose, it was certainly never the site of a church, as is commonly supposed. See ch. iii., [p. 32], foot-note.

[248]To assist the archæologist, I have marked on the map the sites of all the barrows of which I am aware. In the British Museum is a small urn, found in a barrow at Broughton, on the borders of Hampshire, about twelve miles north of the Forest, measuring three inches in height, and, though so much less, somewhat resembling, with its two small ears, as also in the general character and texture of its ware, those found in the Bratley barrow. The Rev. J. Compton also informs me that some years ago a plain urn was discovered in a barrow on his father’s property at Minestead, in the Forest. I hear, too, that other urns have been found in barrows near Burley on the west, and near Butt’s Ash Lane on the east side of the Forest, but they have long ago been lost or destroyed, and I am unable to learn even their general form. I trust, therefore, permission will not be granted to open the mounds which are unexplored, except to those who can produce some credentials that they are fitted for the task, and are doing it from no idle curiosity, but legitimate motives. Too much harm has been already done, and too many barrows have been already rifled, without any record being made of their contents. Nearly all that we know of Kelt or Old-English we learn from their deaths. Their history is buried in their graves.

[249]In Mr. Birch’s Ancient Pottery, vol. ii. pp. 382, 383, will be found a list of the notices of the various discoveries of Keltic urns, scattered through the different Archæological Journals and Collections, which will save the student much time and labour. A most valuable paper on the subject, by Kemble, was published in the Archæological Journal vol. xii. number 48, p. 309.

[250]Archæologia, vol. xxxv. pp. 91-93.

[251]See, too, Mr. Carrington’s “Account of a Romano-British Settlement near Wetton, Staffordshire,” in Bateman’s Ten Years’ Diggings, pp. 194-200. I have never found any stone floors, but this may be accounted for by the difficulty of procuring paving-stones in the district. The best guide which I know for discovering any ancient settlements is the presence of nettles and chickweed, which, like the American “Jersey-weed,” always accompany the footsteps of man. These plants are very conspicuous in the lower parts of Sloden, as also at the Crockle and Island Thorn potteries.

[252]The spot where these banks intersect each other is known as Sloden Hole, and is well worthy of notice. The annexed plan will best show the character of the place. The largest bank is that which runs to the south-west, measuring four yards across, and proving by its massiveness that it is a Roman work. Upon digging, as shown in the plan, at the point of intersection, we found pieces of iron and iron slag, sandstone, charcoal, and Roman pottery similar to that made in Crockle. Many of these banks run for long distances. That to the south-east reaches the top of Sloden Green, about half a mile off, whilst the north-east bank stretches for nearly a mile to Whiteshoot. There are, too, other banks scattered about Sloden, which, if examined, would doubtless yield similar results, but none are so well defined as these. The largest bank which I know in the district stretches from Pitt’s Enclosure, in a south-easterly direction across Anderwood, and so through the southern parts of Sloden.

[253]The most noticeable specimens which I discovered were a strainer or colander, a funnel, some fragments of “mock Samian” ware; part of a lamp, with the holes to admit air, as also for suspension; and some beads of Kimmeridge clay, proving, by being found here, their Roman origin. The iron tools of the workmen had been dropped into the furnace, and were a good deal melted. The wood owed its preservation to the ferruginous soil in which it was imbedded, and was in a semi-fossilized state. Nothing less slight than a plank could have lasted so long. The finger-marks and impress of the hand were very plain on one of the masses of brick-earth. The coin, I am sorry to say, is too much worn to be recognized. These, with the other vessels, pateræ, urceoli, lagenæ, pocula, acetabula, &c., I have placed in the British Museum, where is also Mr. Bartlett’s rich collection. The patterns, with the necks of ampullæ and gutti, as also the specimens at pages [214], [225], will, I trust, give some general idea of the beauty of the ware, and can be compared with those given by Mr. Akerman in Archæologia, vol. xxxv. p. 96, and by Mr. Franks in the Archæological Journal, vol. x. p. 8. The commonest shape for a drinking-vessel is the right-hand figure at [page 225], known in the Forest, from the depressions made by the workman’s thumb, as a “thumb pot.” Sometimes it is met with considerably ornamented, and varies in height from three to ten inches. The principal part of the pottery is slate-coloured and grey, and faint yellow, but some of a fine red bronze and morone, caused by the overheating of the ovens. The patterns are thrown up by some white pigment, though a great many are left untouched by anything but the workman’s tool. When chipped, the ware, by being so well burnt, is quite siliceous. This manufactory, as its size would show, was not confined to merely supplying the wants of the immediate neighbourhood, but probably, with others at Alice Holt and elsewhere, furnished a great part of the South of England with its earthenware, for fragments of the same make, shape, and texture, have been found at Bittern (Clausentum), and Chichester, though doubtless a similarity of workmanship prevailed amongst many of the potteries. The so-called crockery of the southern part of the Forest is nothing else but the plates of turtles imbedded in the Freshwater marls.

[254]Archæologia, vol. xxxv. pp. 95, 96.

[255]See Journal of the Archæological Association, vol. xii. pp. 141-145, where some figures of the jars are given.

[256]In Eyeworth Wood I have found pieces of Roman wine and oil flasks, but they were left here by the former inhabitants, and not made on the spot. The place known as Church Green is evidently the site of a habitation. In the autumn of 1862 I made several excavations; but there was some difficulty attending the work, as the ground had been previously explored by the late Mr. Lewis, the author of the Historical Inquiries on the State of the New Forest. The evidence, however, of the Roman pottery was sufficient to show its occupation during the Roman period, and to dispel the illusion that it was ever the site of a church. On the north-east side of the wood are the remains of a fine Roman camp, the agger and vallum being in one place nearly complete.

[257]I may add that Mr. Drayson also possesses coins of Victorinus, and Claudius Gothicus, found in various parts of the Forest, the last in one of the “thumb-pots,” with 1700 others, perhaps, indicating the period when the Crockle and Island Thorn Potteries were in their most flourishing condition.

[258]In Archæologia, vol. xxxv. p. 99, Mr. Akerman has given a series of patterns, which show the variety of designs according to the fancy of each workman. The pattern on the right-hand side of our second illustration at [p. 223] is used as a border in the toga of the later Roman empire. The height of the wine vessel at [p. 214] is seven inches and a half; of the oil-flask at [p. 225], five inches; of the largest drinking cup, five inches; and the smallest, three inches and three-quarters; the jar, two inches.

[259]The following dates prior to 1700 of the Parish Registers in the Forest district are taken from the Parish Register Abstract: Accounts and Papers: 1833, vol. xxviii. (No. 13), p. 398:—

Eling	1537
Christchurch	1586
Milford	1594
Boldre	1596
Ellingham	1596
Bramshaw (loose leaves)	1598
Fordingbridge	1642
Beaulieu	1654
Ibbesley	1654
Milton	1654
Lymington	1662
Dibden	1665
Fawley	1673
Breamore	1675
Sopley	1678
Minestead	1682
Ringwood	1692
Brockenhurst	1693

[260]See chapter v., [p. 51], foot-note.

[261]Part of the Act is quoted in Burn’s History of Parish Registers, second edition, pp. 26 and 27, and where, at pp. 159, 160, 161, are given several examples of this kind of marriage—amongst them, that of Oliver Cromwell’s daughter Frances, in 1657, from the Register of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

[262]Burn, in his History of Parish Registers, second edition, pp. 171, 172, 173, gives several similar instances of such licences. These most valuable books at Ellingham are, notwithstanding the incumbent’s care, in a shocking state of preservation. I trust some transcript of them may be made before they quite fall to pieces. Ellingham also possesses another book containing the names of the owners of the different pews in the church in 1672, invaluable to any local historian. In the beginning of this book are inserted a number of law-forms of agreements, wills, and indentures, probably for the use of the clergyman, who was, perhaps, consulted by his parishioners in worldly as also spiritual matters. In the Register there is, unfortunately, no mention of the death of Alice Lisle, as the burials are torn out from 1664 to 1695.

[263]See Notes and Queries. First Series, vol. ii., pp. 344, 345. In the Churchwardens’ Books of Fordingbridge we find—“1609. For smoke-mony, for makynge and deliveringe of the bills xvj^d,” which would confirm the first explanation given in the text.

[264]30 Car. II., cap. iii. See Journals of the House of Commons, vol. viii., p. 650; ix., p. 440. In Burn’s History of Parish Registers, second edition, p. 117, may be found a much more complicated affidavit than those given in the text.

[265]See chap. v., pp. 57, 58. It is just possible that by his “τὰς πλησίον νήσους,” Diodorus may mean the Shingle Islands, which we have described in chapter xiv. [p. 151], and whose sudden appearance and disappearance would lead to the most extravagant reports.

[266]“On the Newer Deposits of the Sussex Coast:” Geological Journal, vol. xiii. pp. 64, 65.

[267]In the coast-map at [p. 148], the principal beds are marked, so that, I trust, there will be no difficulty in finding them.

[268]For the direction of the river from east to west, see a paper “On the Discovery of an Alligator and several New Mammalia in Hordwell Cliff,” by Searles Wood, F.G.S.: London Geological Journal, No. 1., pp. 6, 7.

[269]“The Freshwater Strata of Hordwell Cliff, Beacon Cliff, and Barton Cliff:” Transactions of the Geological Society, second series, vol. ii., p. 287.

[270]“Stratigraphical Account of the Section of Hordwell, Beckton, and Barton Cliffs:” The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, June, 1851. In making these measurements I was very greatly assisted by the Rev. W. Fox, who was most untiring to ensure accuracy.

[271]See the Geological Journal, vol. iv., p. 17; as also, Professor Owen’s Monograph on “The Fossil Reptilia of the London Clay,” published by the Palæontographical Society, 1850, p. 48.

[272]Some of the most characteristic shells in this bed may perhaps be mentioned:—

Pleurotoma exorta. Sol. Terebellum fusiforme. Lam. Murex minax. Sol. Murex asper. Sol. Murex bispinosus. Sow. Typhis pungens. Sol. Voluta ambigua. Sol. Voluta costata. Sol. Voluta luctatrix. Sol. Dentalium striatum. Sow. Scalaria reticulata. Sow. Scalaria semicostata. Sow. Littorina sulcata. Pilk. Solarium plicatum. Lam. Hipponyx squamiformis. Lam. Fusus porrectus. Sol. Fusus errans. Sol. Fusus longævus. Lam. Bulla constricta. Sow. Bulla elliptica. Desh.

I scarcely need, I hope, refer the reader either to Mr. Edwards’ Monograph on the Eocene Mollusca, 1849, 1852, 1854, 1856, or to Mr. Searles Wood’s Monograph on the same subject, both in course of publication by the Palæontographical Society. There is an excellent table of the Barton shells, by Mr. Prestwich, in the Geological Journal, vol. xiii. pp. 118-126.

[273]For the High Cliff Beds, see Mr. Fisher’s paper on the Bracklesham Sands of the Isle of Wight Basin, in the Proceedings of the Geological Society, May, 1862, pp. 86-91, whose divisions are here followed.

[274]All these beds are shown in the large map by the word “Fossils,” there not being space enough to particularize each bed.

[275]These beds were discovered by Mr. Fisher in 1861, and for the following measurements I am indebted to Mr. Keeping. We find, about one hundred yards in a south-eastward direction from the point where the footpath from Brook to Fritham crosses the stream, (1) the Coral Bed, the equivalent of that at Stubbington, full of crushed Dentalia and Serpulæ, six inches. (2) Sandy light blue clay, with very few fossils, seven feet. (3) Verdigris-green and slate-coloured clay, characterized near the top by a new species of Dentalium, Serpulorbis Morchii (?), and Spondylus rarispina. The other typical shells are Voluta Maga, several species of Arca and Corbula gallica, five feet. It is in this bed that large roots of trees and ferns are found.

No persons, however, I should suppose, would think of examining any of these beds without first consulting Mr. Fisher’s most valuable paper on the Bracklesham Beds in the Proceedings of the Geological Society, May, 1862. And I should further most strongly advise them, if they wish to become practically acquainted with the beds, to procure the assistance of Mr. Keeping, of Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight.

I may here also mention that a well is at the present moment being sunk at Emery Down, and which, as I learn from Mr. Keeping, gives the following interesting measurements:—(1) Beds of marl, containing Voluta geminata, discovered forty years ago, at Cutwalk Hill, by Sir Charles Lyell, and now re-discovered, and a small Marginella, seven feet. (2) Bed of bluish sandy clay, which becomes, when weathered, excessively brown. This bed, very rich in fossils, which are in a good state of preservation, is equivalent to what is now called the Middle Marine Bed, at Hordle and Brockenhurst, sixteen to nineteen feet. (3) Hordle Freshwater Beds, containing two species of Potanomya, and comminuted shells, fifteen feet. (4) Upper Bagshot Sands, measuring, as far as the workmen have gone, twenty feet, and below which lies the water at the top of the clay. The important point to be noticed is the extreme thinning out of the Hordle Freshwater Beds, which, from the depth of two hundred and fifty feet at Barton, have here shrunk to fifteen. Mr. Prestwich has suggested that these beds, as they advance in a north-easterly direction, become more marine, which seems here to be confirmed.

[276]I say probably, for Professor Owen, who examined the specimen, states that it is of a bovine animal of about the same size as Bos longifrons, but does not yield sufficiently distinct characters for an exact specific identification.

[277]I had intended to have accompanied this description with a group of some of the best fossils from this pit, including the fruit, fish-spines, and palates, and the large Pleurotoma attenuata. It was, in fact, commenced by the artist. But the specimens were obliged to be so greatly reduced, that the drawing gave no complete idea of their form and beauty, and would only have confused the reader. I have, therefore, contented myself with figuring at [p. 249], in its matrix of clay, the rare Natica cepacea (?), which has passed into Mr. Edwards’ fine collection, and who has kindly allowed me the use of it, with the characteristic Cassidaria nodosa, and a lovely Calyptræa trochiformis, found, as mentioned, inside a Cardita. At [p. 244], the specimens given from the Shepherd’s Gutter Beds are Cerithium trilinum (Edw. MS.), Voluta uniplicata, and, in the centre, a shell, showing oblique folds on the columella, which Mr. Edwards thinks may be identical with Fusus incertus of Deshayes.

[278]In one place only in the Forest, on some waste ground at Alum Green, have I seen this plant.

[279]On this point see what Bromfield observes in his Introduction to the Flora Vectensis, p. xxvi.

[280][In Appendix II.] I have given a list of all the characteristic plants of the New Forest to assist the collector; and, I trust, comprehensive enough for the botanist to make generalizations.

[281]Besides these we have all over the Forest Lastrea Filix-mas, and dilatata, and Asplenium adiantum nigrum, and Polystichum angulare, with its varieties, angustatum and aculeatum, found near Fordingbridge. My friend, Mr. Rake, who discovered angustatum, found also, in February, 1856, near Fordingbridge, Lastrea spinulosa, but it has never since been seen in the locality.

[282]The Forest would afford a good field for deciding the controversy as to whether our tame pigs are descended from the European Wild Boar. (See Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1861, p. 264; and Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Third Series, vol. ix. p. 415.) Certain it is that here are some breeds distinct in their markings. I must not, too, forget to mention Coronella lævis (Boie), which is found in the Forest, as also in Dorsetshire and Kent. This is the Coronella austriaca of Laurenti, and afterwards the Coluber lævis of Lacépede. It might be mistaken for the common viper (Pelias berus), but differs in not being venomous, as also from the ringed snake (Natrix torquata) in having a fang at the hinder extremity of its jaws, the peculiarity of the genus Coronella. It feeds on lizards, which its fang enables it to hold; drinks a great deal of water; and Dr. Günther, of the British Museum, to whom I am indebted for the above information, tells me that it crawls up the furze and low bushes to lick the rain off the leaves. For a list of the Lepidoptera of the New Forest, see [Appendix IV.]

[283]Vol. i. p. 26.

[284]Illustrations of the Eggs of British Birds, by W. C. Hewitson, vol. i. p. 27.

[285]As so few opportunities occur of weighing the eggs of the honey-buzzard and hobby, the following notes, most carefully made by Mr. Rake and myself, may not be without interest:—

Honey-buzzard’s nest, taken June 16th, in a low fork of an oak-tree in Anses Wood, contained two fresh-laid eggs:—
First egg (apothecaries’ weight)	1oz.	3dr.	1sc.	5gr.
Second egg (very slightly dinted)	1oz.	2dr.	2sc.	10gr.
Honey-buzzard’s nest, taken June 24th, in Ravensnest Wood, near Brook, in the higher branches of a tall beech, overhanging the road. This nest had been deserted, and the two eggs were very much addled and hard set:—
First egg	1oz.	4dr.	0sc.	10gr.
Second egg	1oz.	3dr.	2sc.	10gr.
Hobby’s nest, placed in a nest which, in 1861, had been occupied by a honey-buzzard, was taken in Prior’s Acre, June 21st, and contained three fresh-laid eggs, now in Mr. Rake’s cabinet:—
First egg		6dr.	0sc.	0gr.
Second egg		5dr.	2sc.	10gr.
Third egg (very slightly dinted)		5dr.	2sc.	0gr.
Hobby’s nest, taken in South Bentley Wood, July 12, contained two eggs hard sat upon and addled:—
First egg		5dr.	2sc.	15gr.
Second egg (cracked)		5dr.	0sc.	14gr.

With these weights may be compared the following:—Egg, supposed to be that of a merlin, taken with two others which were broken, June 17th, 1862, near Alum Green, in the hole of a beech, rather sat upon, weighed 4dr. 1sc. 10gr. Two fresh-laid eggs of kestrels, taken at the same time, weighed 4d. 2sc. 15gr. Other eggs of kestrels, however, have weighed considerably more; and two others, also laid about the same time, came to 5dr. 5 gr.

[286]As the instances of the breeding of the merlin, especially under these circumstances, will always be very rare, I may as well add my own personal observations. In the spring of 1861 I received three eggs taken not far from the Knyghtwood Oak, and said to have been found in the hole of a beech. As I am not in the habit of paying any attention to the mere stories which are so plentiful, I did not, therefore, examine them with any attention, and put them aside as merely kestrel’s. After, however, Mr. Farren’s communication to me, I looked out particularly for this little hawk, but only once saw it in the open ground, near Warwickslade Cutting, from whence it flew up, perching for a moment on a holly, and then making off to the woods. On June 4th, however, I observed a hen bird fly out of a hole, about twenty feet from the ground, in an old beech in Woolstone’s Hill, on the east side of Haliday’s Hill Enclosure. There were, however, no eggs. On the 5th I went again, and the bird, when I was about fifty yards from the tree, again flew off. Still, there were no eggs. I did not return till the 9th, when the nest, now pulled out of the hole, had been robbed. It was made of small sticks, and a considerable quantity of feather-moss, and some fine grass, and in general character resembled the nests of the bird found by Mr. Hewitson in Norway. In the holes were the bones of young rabbits, but these had, from their bleached appearance, been brought by a brown owl, who had reared her brood there in the previous summer. I afterwards learnt where the three eggs had been taken in 1861; but there was nothing, with the exception of a few sticks, in the hole, which was in this case about ten feet from the ground, and placed also in a beech on the edge of Barrowsmoor. Great caution, however, must be exercised regarding the merlin’s eggs; for I am inclined to think that the kestrel, contrary to its usual practice, sometimes also breeds in the Forest in the holes of trees. The egg mentioned at [p. 264], foot-note, brought to me on June 17th, 1862, I have every reason to believe is a merlin’s, but could not quite satisfy myself as to the evidence.

[287]For some account of the little owl (Strix passerina), see [Appendix III.] under the section of Stragglers, [p. 314].

[288]Vol. ii. p. 57.

[289]Yarrell, vol. ii. p. 139.

[290]Passed in the twenty-fourth year of Henry VIII., 1532. Statutes of the Realm, vol. iii., p. 425, 426. It should, however, be remembered that under the term chough was in former times included the whole of the Corvidæ. Shakspeare’s “russet-pated choughs” are evidently jackdaws.

[291]In [Appendix III.] is given a list of all the birds hitherto observed in the New Forest District, as also more special information, which I thought would not interest the general reader.

[292]Collections for the History of Hampshire, by Richard Warner, vol. iii., pp. 37, 38. A brief list of Hampshire words will also be found in Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. x., No. 250, p. 120. Mr. Halliwell, in his account of the English Provincial Dialects, p. xx., prefixed to his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, mentions a MS. glossary of the provincialisms of the Isle of Wight, by Captain Henry Smith, of which he has made use.

[293]The numbers after a plant refer to its numerical place in the London Catalogue, whose nomenclature, and arrangement have been followed. The English synonyms have been chiefly taken from Smith.

[294]Scirpus parvulus (R. and S.), mentioned by Rev. G. E. Smith as growing “on a mud-flat near Lymington,” is now extinct. See Watson’s Cybele Britannica, vol. iii. p. 78; and Bromfield, in the Phytologist, vol. iii., 1028.

THE END.

London: Printed by Smith, Elder & Co., Little Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey, E.C.

---

By the same Author.

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SHAKSPERE:
His Birthplace and its Neighbourhood.

Selection from Notices by the Press.

(The Westminster Review.)

‘A most elegant volume. Artist, printer, and author have vied with each other in its production. All the well-known spots are taken from their most favourable points of view, and engraved with a skill for which Mr. Linton’s name is a sufficient guarantee. Mr. Wise is peculiarly fitted for his task. He revels in painting the beauties of his native county with an enthusiastic admiration, in which he makes Shakspere share, by the readiness with which he localises descriptions in the poet’s works that would have no such home-like effect on an ordinary reader. He does this, too, without any arbitrary forcing, and gives a new grace to the character of the universally beloved poet by connecting him by hitherto unobserved ties with the home of his youth.’

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