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By John Pym Yeatman, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. 



HE historian has long essayed to learn something 

 about this great forest field, given over eight hundred 

 years ago by the Conqueror to William, founder 

 of the House of Peverel, a hero over whose per- 

 sonality there has always been a glamour and a cloud almost 

 impenetrable. The late Robert Eyton, in his marvellous " History 

 of Shropshire," gathered together many little facts which go far 

 towards bringing him back into the light of day, and the writer 

 of this article, in his " History of the House of Arundel," has 

 also published other facts, which he, too, has dug up from the 

 depths of the lumber stowed away in the Public Record Office ; 

 but it is still open to any industrious student of antiquity to 

 determine more accurately his actual relationship to the great 

 Conqueror, and the discovery by the writer of a vast mass of Peak 

 Forest Inquests of an early date, which had long been hidden in 

 the Record Office, may help towards the solution of the problem, 

 as they certainly supply the necessary history of Peak Forest. 



These Inquests are of themselves of the highest interest, not 

 only with regard to local history, but to the subject generally of 

 Forestry and Venery, so very few Forest Rolls remaining accessible. 

 The Record Office calendars show but a small collection, chiefly 

 copies, and always fragments. The Rolls recently discovered 



