[15] Plompton Park, upon the banks of the Peterill, in Cumberland, was formerly very large, and set apart by the kings of England for the keeping of deer. It was disafforested or disparked by Henry VIII. See Camden’s Britannia, by Bishop Gibson, who seems to confound this park with Inglewood forest, a district of sixteen miles in length, reaching from Carlisle to Penrith, where the kings of England used to hunt, and Edward I. is reported to have killed 200 bucks in one day (Ibid.)
[16] Anno 1194] Vicesima nona die mensis martii Richardus rex Angliæ projectus est videre Clipestone, & forrestas de Sirewode, quas ipse nunquam viderat antea: & placuerunt ei multum, & eodem die rediit ad Notingham (R. de Hoveden, Annales, p. 736).
Drayton (Polyolbion, song 26) introduces Sherwood in the character of a nymph, who, out of disdain at the preference shown by the poet to a sister-forest,
“All self praise set apart, determineth to sing
That lusty Robin Hood, who long time like a king
Within her compass liv’d, and when he list to range,
For some rich booty set, or else his air to change,
To Sherwood still retir’d, his only standing court.”
[17] It occurs in “Tarlton’s Newes out of Purgatory,” 1630, 4to (entered on the Stationers’ books in 1590).
[18] It likewise gives the proverb noticed in a preceding page thus: