J. E. HAETH^G HERXFOEDSHIEE DEEE-PAEKS. 105 



Tlio rod-deer were imported from Denmark in 161 2.* There were 

 still wild red-deer liowever outside the park walls. Salmon says : 

 " Besides the park he walled in, he could hunt in Eppiug Forest, 

 Enfield Chase, and Hoddesdon Woods both red- and lallow-deer." 

 It is probable that he also turned out in this park some of the wild 

 boars which he caused to be imported from France and Germany,! 

 although, perhaps, these went to Windsor Forest, where we know 

 on g-ood authority he hunted the wild boar in 16174 Here he had 

 a heronry, and a largo pigeon-house, wherein he kept pigeons for 

 his hawks; and he also kept silkworms. On a large pond with an 

 island in it he kept wild-fowl which he had netted in Lincolnshire. 

 We do not learn that he cared much for fishing, except fishing with 

 trained cormorants, with which he sometimes amused himself. His 

 chief delight was in hunting and hawking, and to these sports 

 nearly all his time was devoted while staying at Theobalds. § It 

 was here that the King died on the 27th of March, 1625. It was 

 also during a hunt in this park that Heniy Cary, Lord Falkland, 

 lost his life, by falling from a " stand" which had been erected 

 in one of the glades for the purpose of shooting deer as they were 

 driven past. By this accident he broke his leg, and gangrene 

 setting in, it had to be amputated, and he died the next day.|l 



From a survey made in 1650, before the palace here was de- 

 stroyed, it appears that the park contained 2508 acres, valued 

 together with six lodges at £1545 15s. 4d. per annum; the deer 

 were valued at £1000 ; the rabbits at £15 ; the timber at £7259, 

 exclusive of 15,608 trees marked for the use of the navy, and others 

 already cut down for that purpose. The park contained an avenue 

 a mile long between a double row of trees. Lysons, quoting from 

 an old work, tells us that in the gallery of the palace, 120 feet by 

 21, were "divers large stagges heads sett round the same, and 

 fastened to the sayd room, which were an excellent ornament to 

 the same."^ Although there have been deer in this park since its 

 occupation by the present Sir Henry Meux, the last was killed 

 there some years ago, and the park has not been re-stocked. 



Close to Theobalds was Cheshtjnt,** or Cheston, so called perhaps 

 from the chestnut-trees which formerly abounded there (for most 

 of the old houses in the neighbourhood are built of chestnut). A 

 park is indicated by Saxton (S.E.), and it appears that the grant of 

 this manor by James the First to Sir Henry Cock, in 1606, included 

 all those four-and-twenty acres in the Frith, and all those woods, 



* ' Pell Records,' p. 150. 



t ' Pell Records,' pp. 86. 143, 144. 



X Harting, ' Extinct British Animals,' p. 102. 



§ A hunting-seat was built at Eoyston by James the First, and was for 

 many years the occasional rendezvous of that monarch and Charles the First. 

 A portion of the building is still standing. King James's stables too, now used 

 as cottages, are on the outskirts of Eoyston Heath. 



II State Paper Office, Domestic, Sept. 27, 1633. 



IT Lysons, ' En^-irons,' vol. ii, p. 770. 



•* Saxton, S.E. ; Chauncy, p. 296 ; Salmon, p. 6 ; Clutterbuck, vol. ii, p. 77 ; 

 Cussans, 'Hertford,' p. 17. 



