14 BRADSHAW HALL AND THE BRADSHAWES. 



a wood there, the pasture of which is not fit for deer."* The 

 tillage, however, which was gradually accomplished by the 

 foresters, soon brought about a different state of things, 

 (irants of land were from time to time made by the Lord of 

 the Manor to the foresters by way of payment for service done 

 in the forest of the High Peak, or De Campana, as it was 

 stvled in legal documents. The Conqueror had granted the 

 custody of the manor of " Alto Pecco," as it \vas commonly 

 called, to William Peverel. His son William succeeded, whose 

 son, William Peverel III., was bani.shed, and his estates 

 confiscated, circa 1155, by Henry \\., in consequence of his 

 alleged murder, by jjoison, of Ranulf de Gernons, Earl of 

 Chester. A portion of his estates was then granted to Robert 

 Ferrers, Earl of Derby, who had married Ranulf's daughter. The 

 manor was bestowed by Henry H. or Richard I. upon John, 

 and from the time when he succeeded to the throne, with the 

 exception of short periods during the reigns of Edward H., 

 Edward HI., and Richard H., the manor of the High Peak 

 has always been owned by a royal lord, as it is to-day. Edward HI. 

 granted the manor first to his wife, and at her death to his 

 son, John of Gaunt, and thus it became parcel of the Duchy 

 of Lancaster, reverting to the crown on the accession of his 

 son as Henry IV. The forest, however, was much neglected 

 in the Civil Wars, and the deer having been destroyed by a 

 heavy snow,f 10 Charles L, the freeholders petitioned the 

 king to disafforest it. | — this was eventually done by Charles H. 

 Ey these grants of land, made at various times by the sovereign 

 as lord of the manor for service rendered, the foresters in fee 

 became tenants in capilc of the king, and held the land granted 

 to themselves and their heirs for ever, by the service, also 

 hereditary, of guarding the king's forest. Thus not only did 

 portions of the land become cultivated, but the foresters, the 

 landed gentry of those times, gradually grew in prosperity and 

 importance, until in 1611, when St. George's visitation was 

 taken, § more than thirty families which had thus risen were 



* Reliquary, viii., p. 35. ^Reliquary, vol. viii., p. 43. 



% Archaol. Journal, vol. xxiv., p. 32. § Reliquary, vol. viii., p. 43. 



