i8i 



I3ufftcltf iTovest m tt)c Stxtcentt) ^tnturg. 



By the Hon. Frederick Strutt and 

 the Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.^ 



|,HE Forest of Duffield, though one of the smallest of 



England's royal forests, was of no mean extent, 



for its considerably reduced area at the beginning of 



Elizabeth's reign was contained within a circuit ot 



thirty miles. It was usually known as Duffield Frith ; frith being 



the old name for a forest, which still survives in this county 



in Chapel-en-le-Frith. 



The history of Duffield Frith has yet to be written ; nothing 

 whatever has been printed on the subject save three pages in 

 the Reliquary (April, 187 1), and a doggerel poem on the forest 

 written by Anthony Bradshawe in 1588 and reproduced in the 

 same quarterly magazine in 1882.! The materials, however, for 

 such a history are bewildering in their amplitude. They are 

 chiefly to be found in the great stores of the Duchy of Lancaster 

 muniments at the Public Record Office ; but also among the 

 Woolley MSS. of the British Museum, the Talbot papers at the 

 College of Arms, the Shrewsbury papers at Lambeth Library, as 

 well as among various private manuscript collections. 



All that it is proposed to do in the present article is to give 

 some of the surveys and other documents that treat of the 

 extent and condition of the Frith in the reigns of Henry VHL 



* The two niemljers of the Society who contribute this article have long 

 had the intention of bringing out a liistory of the great parish of DuHield, 

 and have made considerable collections with that object. The materials are 

 almost overwhelming and so much work is involved before such a project 

 could be brought to a successful issue, that it is thought well to give in this 

 fotiriial some of the hitherto unpublished matter relative to Duffield Finest. 



t .See, however, the various references to Duffield and to Anthony Bradshawe, 

 in this vol. — Ed. 



