The Rural Life of England

by William Howitt

Various theories respecting the origin of this New Forest have occupied the attention, and divided the opinions of antiquarians and historians. Polydore Virgil asserted that the Conqueror’s motive for afforesting so large a tract of country here, was because it enabled him to maintain it secure from the intrusion of all but his own creatures, and thereby always to have a most convenient station for the escape of his followers, in case of any revolt, to their own country, or for the secret and secure arrival of fresh forces thence. Mr. Camden, however, has satisfactorily shewn, that no such object was attributed to him by the chroniclers of his own and immediately succeeding times, who certainly were sufficiently bitter against him, for his haughty temper, and the reckless atrocities which he committed in carrying into effect his system of policy, the thorough breaking of the Saxon spirit, and the establishment of his own noblesse. No such motive, however plausible, was attributed to him for five hundred years. As Mr. Carte very reasonably suggests, if such was his intention, he would have carried it into effect within the first five years of his reign, during which time he was engaged in putting down disaffection, and strengthening his position. In the pursuance of these objects he was not in the habit of stopping short at trifles on the score of humanity. “His horrible devastation,” says William of Malmsbury, “of great part of Yorkshire, and all the counties belonging to England north of the Humber, was made that the Danes and Scots invading his kingdom that way might find no subsistence, and to punish the people for disaffection to his government; without regarding what number of innocent persons would be involved in the destruction.” We are told, even by one of the Norman historians—Ord. Vit. iv. p. 314, 515, and by Ingulph. p. 79, who speak of it with horror, that above 160,000 men, women and children, perished by famine in those ruined counties. The devastation was such that, for above sixty miles, where before there had been many large and flourishing towns, besides a great number of villages and fine country-seats, not a single hamlet was to be seen; the whole country was uncultivated, and remained so till Henry II.’s reign.

If we date the making of this forest at the same time with the publishing of the forest laws, it will follow that it was made merely for the pleasures of the chase. This was natural enough, when we reflect that he had taken up his favourite residence at Winchester; and this is the reason assigned by all the authorities nearest to his own time. The Saxon Chronicler, believed to be cotemporary with William, assigns this sole reason, and adds—“William loved great deer, as if he had been their father;” which Henry of Huntingdon copies. No trace of other motive appears in Gemeticensis, his own chaplain, Knyton, Ordericus Vitalis, Simon Dunelmensis, Brompton, William of Malmsbury, Florence of Worcester, Matthew Paris, Hemingford, or other ancient authority. In such a man the passion for the chase was cause sufficient. In all early stages of a country, where it abounds with forests, and intellectual resources hardly exist, hunting must constitute the great passion of life. The Britons, the Saxons, were passionate hunters. Harold had already restrained all forests to his own use, and William put the finishing stroke to the system. Here, however, occurs a second point of difference of opinion in the historians. Some tell us that he made this forest, others, that he merely enlarged it. It is certain that the ancient forest of Ythene existed here before; but it is probable that it had become rather a woodland than a preserve of game; and that William’s enlargement was almost, in fact, a new creation: and strictly speaking, entirely so, as a forest, having its defined boundaries, its stock of deer, its appointed officers, and its code of laws and courts:—this, the very name of New Forest clearly implies.

Others, again, attribute to his son Rufus, the enlargement and the devastations, and thence look upon his own death, in the very spot where he had pulled down a church, as a direct divine judgment. There can be little doubt but that both had a hand in it. The Conqueror probably laid waste and depopulated so as to complete the boundaries of his forest, and carry out his conceived plans, and Rufus went on, on the old royal principle, of making a solitude and calling it peace, to pull down churches, and remove what hamlets or cottages yet remained to interfere with princely ideas of forest seclusion. That William did all that is attributed to him, is declared by all the historians of that and immediately succeeding times; and Gemeticensis, his own chaplain, distinctly declares that it was the popular belief that the death of his two sons, Richard and Rufus, and his grandson, the son of Robert, were judgments of God upon him for his atrocities committed here in the making of it. These atrocities consisted in laying waste the country to the extent of thirty miles in length, or ninety in circumference, the extent still attributed to it; destroying towns, chapels, manors and mansion-houses; according to some writers, twenty-two mother-churches, to others thirty-six, and to others thirty-two. Unquestionably the number was great; two churches only being mentioned in his own Survey in Doomsday Book, between A.D. 1083 and 1086, the 17th and 20th of his reign, as standing in all that space, while in the rest of the county there were 100. This violence he completed by driving out the inhabitants, and stocking the land with deer, stags, and other game.

Such was the origin and extent of the ancient royal forests of England, all preserved and maintained for the especial and exclusive pastime of the kings. Truly the state of a king was then kingly indeed: 69 forests, 13 chases, and upwards of 750 parks existing in England. There were, in Yorkshire alone, in Henry VIII.’s time, 275 woods, besides parks and chases, most of them containing 500 acres. Over all these the king could sport; for it was the highest honour to a subject to receive a visit from the king to hunt in his chase, or free warren, while no subject, except by special permission and favour, could hunt in the royal parks. These 69 forests of immense extent, lying in all parts of England, and occupying no small portion of its surface, all stood then for the sole gratification of the royal pleasure of the chase, and supplying the king’s household; and few persons have now any idea of the state, dignity, and systematic severity of this great hunting establishment of England, maintained through all succeeding reigns to the time of the Commonwealth, and some part of it much longer. Each forest was an imperium in imperio, having its staff of officers,—the lord warden, his deputy, a steward and bow-bearer, rangers, keepers or foresters, verdurers, agistors, regarders, bailiffs, woodwards, beadles, etc. etc., with their own courts. First the Court of Attachment, held every forty days, in which all attachments against offenders in the forest were received, evidence heard upon them, and were enrolled to be presented at the Court of Swainmote. This swainmote was held three times every year, which all the swains, or free tenants, were bound to attend. The warder or his steward presided, and the foresters, verderers, and other ministers of the forest were the judges. Here all the attachments enrolled in the records of the Court of Attachment were received and examined, but no award or judgment was made or executed by this court; but it swore in a grand jury to examine these attachments, of which all that appeared made on sufficient grounds and evidence were reserved for the decision of the Justice-Seat, or highest court of the forest. The justice-seat, or Court of Eyre in the forest, was held once in three years. Two justices in Eyre were appointed as supreme judges in these courts: one having jurisdiction in all the forests north, and the other over those south of the Trent. Yet there appears in the early reigns to have been great irregularity in the appointment of these justices. Sometimes there were two, according to the legitimate ordinance; at others we find three going the circuit, or jornay, as it was called, in Edward I.’s reign, when in the 15th year of that reign, three are named as going the jornay of the north; viz. Sir William Vesey, Thomas Normanville, and Richard of Gryppinge, justices. This Sir William Vesey, Richard of Gryppinge, and their fellows, justices, are repeatedly mentioned in the king’s writs. This might arise from the discovery that collusion and bribery to cover peculation had been the consequence of one justice going alone; for it is complained, that it “was fonden that oure lorde the kynge had sustained grete and many folde hurte fro the jornay of Robert Neville.” Great peculation and appointment of his own creatures for his own purposes were proved against Robert Evringham, and he was “deposed from his office of chief forestershippe of fee in the Forest of Sherwood for ever.”[16]

[16] MS. documents respecting Sherwood Forest, in Bromley House Library, Nottingham.

Every officer was sworn to present to the court of attachment, every offender against the laws of the forest, for the decision of the justices, through the process already described; a system of most summary rigour, without favour or concealment; yet abuses still crept in; and the long term between the coming of the justices—three years—tended greatly to this; for as no case could be finally decided till then, it afforded vast scope for the powerful and wealthy to try the force of bribery on the justice, as well as made the case fearfully severe on those who could not find bail or give security, and must therefore be in gaol all that time; especially as a man might be taken up on presumption. This, therefore, became a gross injustice to the innocent.

You would imagine from the oaths of the different officers, that their duties were all alike, for they bound them all to seize, secure, and present for attachment all persons committing any depredations on vert or venison; vert, curiously enough Anglicized—Green Hugh, i. e. green hue, and so continually written in the Assisæ Forestæ, meaning every thing having a green leaf, and therefore extending from the forest trees to the underwood and shrubs which formed cover for the game, and also to the grass which was the food of the game. All persons seen suspiciously strolling about on the highways, especially if in cloaks, with dogs in leash, or out of it, pursuing small birds, squirrels, or vermin, cutting turf, peat, or boughs, or fallen timber, heath, or fern, without proper authority. The dwellers in the purlieus of the forest were kept a strict eye upon; and all gates, or fences, or dykes were presentable which were too high for the deer to pass from one part of the forest to another. The forests were very systematically divided into walks, or keepings, wards or regards, over which was a properly subordinate succession of officers. The ranger had surveillance over the principal keepers; they over their deputy keepers, and night-walkers. The verderers had especially to look after the vert, although sworn to watch for and bring to punishment, offenders of all kinds, and to them must all offenders be brought to give surety to appear at the attachment. Besides these, there were in every township, and every regard, woodwards and their men, who attended to the felling and accounting for all timber. There were agistors also to look after the agistment of cattle. The swainmote was empowered to inquire and to see that all officers punctually performed their forest duties, going regularly their rounds; and that they paid the wages of their deputies, so that none might be tempted to commit depredations on the game, wood, browze, peat, turf, deers’ horns, or any other product of the forest. A sharp vigilance was kept up on this head, and severe punishment awarded for such offenders. No produce of the forest might be taken out of it without a direct warrant from the justice or warden; neither cattle, timber, dead deer, vert, nor anything whatever. Those who had freeholds within the forest, as came to be the case in time, through grants from kings to favourites of one kind or another, were subject to the same restriction. And where warrant was granted for any of these purposes, or for supplying the religious houses with wood for burning, etc., the verderers were to see that no more was actually taken out than the warrant allowed, and were punished if convicted of failing in this duty.[17] Perambulations at stated periods were made throughout each forest, its enclosures, purlieus, and boundaries, to ascertain that all was kept in order, and that there was neither waste of vert nor venison, which included all game; nor encroachment within, nor without. The external boundaries of a forest, were not like those of a park, walls or pales, but metes and bounds, meres, rivers, and hills, otherwise it was not a forest.

[17] Yet a curious instance is recorded in one of the Inquisitions of Sherwood Forest, of the way in which the vigilance of these laws was evaded. The Countess of Newcastle, whose husband was probably at that time governor of Newark Castle, had procured large quantities of timber out of the forest, under a warrant to furnish such timber for the necessary repairs of that castle. The quantity delivered led to an inquiry, and it was found that the castle was not repaired at all, but that the timber had been sold, and the countess had got the cash. Yet after this it was again found, that not being able to procure another warrant for timber, she had, however, got one for the delivery of cord-wood for burning, and under the title of cord-wood, the deputy-warden had supplied her with some of the best oaks of the forest. On a second investigation it turned out that the deputy-warden was a partner in a timber trade—that timber was thus procured through the means of the countess’s plea of public service, and that she and the deputy shared the spoil.

Drifts of the forest were made at least twice in the year. “By the Assises of Pickeringe and Lancaster, the officers of the forest did use to make drifts at least twice in the year: the first, fifteen days before Midsummer, at the beginning of the fencemonth, that the forest might be avoided and emptied of all cattle during that time. And every commoner was then forced to come and challenge his beasts, and take them away, or they were taken by the officers of the forest as strays. The second drift was at Holyrood-day, when the agistors did begin to agist the king’s demesne woods, and all beasts and cattle of all sorts then found in them were driven by the officers of the forest to some convenient place, and impounded, and then warning was given that every man should come and fetch his own. Forests are driven for three causes. First, for the avoiding of surcharging; secondly, for the avoiding of forreners, who have no right; thirdly, that no beasts be commoned that are not legally commonable, as geese, goats, sheep, and swine, which are not commonable. Swine, however, were admitted to the woods of the king’s forests if their noses were duly ringed, and paid for their run there, a sum called pannage; and owners of woods in the forests might run such swine in their own woods. Upon reasonable causes the officers of the forest may make their drifts oftener if they will.” Manwood’s Forest Laws, pp. 86-7.

Such was the general constitution of a forest, with its courts, officers, laws, and customs; and so systematic does it seem; surveillance and subdivision so regularly descending downward, till it included watch and ward over every part, and the familiar acquaintance of every forester with his own location, that one really wonders how any Robin Hood could long escape amongst them. The difficulty of the thing no doubt it was that contributed so much to raise his renown. But the vast extent of the forests, the obscurity of the wooded parts, and the immense out-boundaries laying them open to the nocturnal incursions of marauders, still account for the traditionary exploits of deer-stealers, in spite of the then forest-law, which itself gave a strong spice of interest to the adventurer.