7IO The yo7irnal of Forestry. 



knaves and fuols, both of which," she says, " I hate." She complains, 

 too, that the Duke of St Albans, the Constable of the Castle, " besieged 

 her in both parks," and broke open a door at Cranborne Lodge with- 

 out her leave, for which offence she forbade his driving through the 

 Park. " I have forbid it," she writes to the Duke of Newcastle. 

 " He urges a necessity for it on account of his supervising the 

 fortifications — a term in my mind extremely odd and ridiculous. If 

 he means by it the ditch that is inside the castle, I am so far from 

 desiring to prevent the constable from doing his duty in his military 

 capacity, and putting the place in a proper condition of defence, 

 that " — and here she contemptuously promises that her keepers, or 

 " any other engineers," shall attend him when he pleases; but she 

 sees " no immediate probability of an attack." 



Windsor Forest has inspired several poets, and among them Pope 

 sang here as a boy, though his juvenile "Windsor Forest'' is not a 

 definite description of any forest in particular. As in other forests, 

 most of the old trees are pollards or " dottards," produced by the 

 custom of lopping for firewood, or to feed the deer. The largest of 

 the old pollards is about 27 feet round the stem. Maiden oaks^ 

 however, grew up under the protection of thorns and bushes, which 

 were the nurses of trees growing upon common land, protecting them 

 in infancy from the devastations of the cotters. Many of the 

 "commoners" of Windsor Forest, by the way, acquired their titles 

 by night. Any idle " loafer," aspiring to become a "commoner," 

 found his opportunity on a moonlight Christmas Eve, when the 

 forest officers were engaged in the annual ceremony of tapping 

 their elder wine. 



The encroachment was effected by erecting a hut of turf, and en- 

 closing a quarter of an acre of garden ground with a bank and ditch. 

 In the morning the astonished officers would arrive upon the scene of 

 trespass, after their carouse ; but by that time a fire would have been 

 lighted, and one more " loafer's " pot boiled in that " castle " which the 

 winds of heaven might enter, but which the forest officers dared not. 



A short time since the Crown purchased a cottage and garden near 

 the park, and on inquiring for the title the following was the reply of 

 the owner : — " You see, sir, my wife's father as was, so I have been 

 told, lived in another house near this about seventy or eighty 

 years agone, and there was a piece of waste land, as was part o' the 

 common that was handy, and so he first plants taturs on it, and 

 then he got some bricks and some sods, and he put up a bit of 

 a place to take shelter in, and at last he got to live in it, and 

 there was a deal o' bother made about it one way and the other ; 

 but he was a servant to a gentleman as was a magistrate in the 

 neighbourhood, and he was friendly to the poor people, and said 



