During the tyrannical government of William the Norman, and his two sons who succeeded him, the restrictions concerning the killing of game were by no means meliorated. The privileges of hunting in the royal forests were confined to the king and his favourites; and, to render these receptacles for the beasts of the chase more capacious, or to make new ones, whole villages were depopulated, and places of divine worship overthrown; not the least regard being paid to the miseries of the suffering inhabitants, or the cause of religion. These despotic proceedings were not confined to royalty, as may be proved from good authority. I need not mention the New Forest, in Hampshire, made by the elder William, or the park at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, seven miles in circumference, and walled round with stone by Henry his son. [132] This park, Stowe tells us, was the first made in England. The royal example was first followed by Henry earl of Warwick, who made a park at Wedgenoke, near Warwick, to preserve his deer and other animals for hunting; after this the practice of park-making became general among persons of opulence.

This subject is delineated, with great force of colouring, by John of Salisbury, a writer of the twelfth century, when the severity of the game laws was somewhat abated. "In our time," says the author, "hunting and hawking are esteemed the most honourable employments, and most excellent virtues, by our nobility; and they think it the height of worldly felicity to spend the whole of their time in these diversions; accordingly they prepare for them with more solicitude, expense, and parade, than they do for war; and pursue the wild beasts with greater fury than they do the enemies of their country. By constantly following this way of life, they lose much of their humanity, and become as savage, nearly, as the very brutes they hunt." He then proceeds in this manner: "Husbandmen, with their harmless herds and flocks, are driven from their well cultivated fields, their meadows, and their pastures, that wild beasts may range in them without interruption." He adds, addressing himself to his unfortunate countrymen, "If one of these great and merciless hunters shall pass by your habitation, bring forth hastily all the refreshment you have in your house, or that you can readily buy, or borrow from your neighbours: that you may not be involved in ruin, or even accused of treason." [133] If this picture of Norman tyranny be correct, it exhibits a melancholy view of the sufferings to which the lower classes of the people were exposed; in short, it appears that, these haughty Nimrods considered the murder of a man as a crime of less magnitude than the killing of a single beast appointed for the chase.

VII.—HUNTING AND HAWKING AFTER THE CONQUEST.

King John was particularly attached to the spoils of the field; and his partiality for fine horses, hounds, and hawks, is evident, from his frequently receiving such animals, by way of payment, instead of money, for the renewal of grants, fines, and forfeitures, belonging to the crown. [134]

In the reign of Edward I. this favourite amusement was reduced to a perfect science, and regular rules established for its practice; these rules were afterwards extended by the master of the game belonging to king Henry IV. and drawn up for the use of his son, Henry prince of Wales. Both these tracts are preserved, and we shall have occasion to speak a little fuller concerning them in the course of this chapter.

Edward III. took so much delight in hunting, that even at the time he was engaged in war with France, and resident in that country, he had with him in his army sixty couple of stag hounds, and as many hare hounds, [135] and every day he amused himself with hunting or hawking.

It also appears that many of the great lords in the English army had their hounds and their hawks, as well as the king; to this may be added, from the same author, that is, Froissart, who was himself a witness to the fact, that Gaston earl of Foix, a foreign nobleman contemporary with king Edward, kept upwards of six hundred dogs in his castle for the purpose of hunting. He had four greyhounds called by the romantic names of Tristram, Hector, Brute, and Roland. [136]

James I. preferred the amusement of hunting to hawking or shooting. It is said of this monarch that he divided his time betwixt his standish, his bottel, and his hunting; the last had his fair weather, the two former his dull and cloudy. [137] One time when he was on a hunting party near Bury St. Edmunds he saw an opulent townsman, who had joined the chase, "very brave in his apparel, and so glittering and radiant, that he eclipsed all the court." The king was desirous of knowing the name of this gay gentleman, and being informed by one of his followers, that it was Lamme, he facetiously replied, "Lamb, call you him? I know not what kind of lamb he is, but I am sure he has got a fleece upon his back." [138] Thus it seems that even the puns of royalty are worthy of record.

It would be an endless, as well as a needless task, to quote all the passages that occur in the poetical and prose writings of the last three centuries, to prove that this favourite pastime had lost nothing of its relish in the modern times; on the contrary, it seems to have been more generally practised. Sir Thomas More, who wrote in the reign of Henry VIII., describing the state of manhood, makes a young gallant to say,

Man-hod I am, therefore I me delyght