The New Forest: Its History and Its Scenery

by John R. Wise

CHAPTER IV.
ITS LATER HISTORY.

The Millaford Brook. Haliday’s Hill Wood.

We need not dwell so long upon this as the former portion of the History, for in many cases it is nothing but a bare recital of perambulations and Acts of Parliament. The true history of a forest is rather an account of its trees and its flowers and birds, than an historical narrative. Yet even here there are some important facts connected with the nation’s life, and illustrating the character of its kings.

We meet with no perambulation of the New Forest until the eighth year of Edward I.—the second ever made of an English forest—and, by comparing it with Domesday, we may see how, since the Conqueror’s time, the Forest had gradually taken the natural limits of the country—the Avon and the Southampton Water bounding it on the east and west, and the sea on the south, and the chalk of Wiltshire on the north.[44]

The next perambulation in the twenty-ninth year of the same reign is more noticeable,[45] as it disafforests so much. It is the same perambulation which we find made in the twenty-second year of Charles II., and nominally the same which is followed to this day.

To understand the cause of the difference in these perambulations, we must, in fact, thoroughly understand the great movements which had been going on during the previous years, and the increasing power of the nobles and the people. From Henry III. had been wrung the Charta de Forestâ, the terms of which had been settled before John’s death. Still, little, or scarcely anything, was put into practical effect. In 1297, however, the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk not only refused to accompany Edward I. to Flanders, but, upon their suspension from their offices, issued a proclamation, complaining that the two Charters of the liberties of the people were not observed. On the 10th of October, a Parliament was assembled, and his son passed the “Confirmatio Cartarum,” to which Edward, now at Ghent, assented. Still the two earls, from various causes, were not satisfied; and in 1298 demanded that the perambulations of the different Forests should be made. In consequence, during the summer of the next year, the King issued writs to the sheriffs, promising that the commissioners should meet about Michaelmas at Northampton.[46]

This was done: and the perambulation of the New Forest was carried out in strict accordance with the provisions of the Charta de Forestâ, for the jurors who were employed expressly state that the bounds which they have determined were those of the Forest before the reign of Henry II.; and that all those places mentioned in the perambulation of 1279 and now omitted, were afforested by his successors, though they cannot say to what extent or by whom.[47] Most probably it had been reserved for John to show here, as in other cases, to what absolute madness selfishness will carry a man.

After this, nothing, with one exception, of any general importance occurs.[48] Having in his prosperity incurred all the odium of attempting to revive the hated Forest Laws, in his adversity Charles I. granted as security the New Forest, and Sherwood, and other Crown lands to his creditors.[49] He had still learnt no lesson from the Ship-money, and would have pawned England itself, rather than yield to that obstinacy, which was but the other side of his weakness of character.

With the decline of hawking and hunting, the Forest Laws fell into decay, and the Forests themselves were less regarded, and their boundaries less strictly observed. Under the Stuarts, we find the first traces of that system, which at last resulted in the almost entire devastation of the New Forest. James I. granted no less than twenty assart lands—agri ex-sariti—there having been previously only three;[50] and gave the privilege of windfalls to various persons;[51] whilst officers actually applied to him for trees in lieu of pay for their troops:[52] and Charles II. bestowed the young woods of Brockenhurst to the maids of honour of his court.[53]