1750 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART Il. 
1214, issued a mandate to his ‘chief admiral, ordering him to arrest, seize, and 
make prizes of all ships whatever found therein. In the reign of Edward L., 
the first admiral was appointed ; and, about 1380, cannons were first used on 
board ships. The first three-masted vessel was built by Henry VII.; and 
Henry VIII. not only built many fine ships, but established the royal dock- 
yards of Woolwich, Deptford, and Portsmouth ; and made laws for the planting 
and preservation of oak timber. He was also the last English monarch who 
employed foreign hired ships of war. Elizabeth and James greatly encouraged 
the navy, and the planting of oak timber; and Charles I., in 1635~37, built 
_a magnificent vessel, called the Sovereign of the Seas, an oak used in con- 
structing which produced four beams, each 44 ft. in length, and 4 ft. 9in. in 
diameter. This ship, which was afterwards called the Royal Sovereign, was 
destroyed by fire at Chatham in 1696, after having been upwards of sixty years 
in the service. (See Sat. Mag. for 1834.) : 
It is difficult to assign any exact date for the period when oak planta- 
tions were first made for profit. According to popular tradition, William 
Rufus was the first who is recorded to have planted oak trees, when, in 1079, 
he formed the New Forest in Hampshire. But Gilpin appears to think that 
it is much more probable that he merely thinned out chases in the woods 
already existing, than that he planted fresh trees. The district of Ytene, in- 
deed, appears to have been a forest in the time of the Saxons; and, from the 
poorness of its soil, to have been thinly populated. Henry of Huntingdon, 
and the other monkish writers, who relate that William destroyed about fifty 
parish churches, and as many villages, extirpating their inhabitants to make 
this forest, were therefore probably guided more by their hatred to the Nor- 
man monarch, than by a strict adherence to truth. Henry I. enlarged the New 
Forest, enacting severe laws for securing the timber in that and other woods ; 
and he appointed proper officers to enforce these laws, and to preserve the 
royal forests from decay. In Henry II.’s time, England appears to have been 
nearly covered with wood, consisting principally of oak trees ; and Fitzstephen 
tells us that a large forest lay round London, “ in the coverts whereof, lurked 
bucks and does, wild boars and bulls.’ As civilisation advanced, these woods 
became partially cleared away; and those which remained were called the 
Royal Forests, and were retained for the purpose of sheltering game for the 
diversion of the kings. Henry II. gave a right to the Cistercian Abbey of 
Flaxley, in the neighbourhood of the Forest of Dean, to erect an iron forge, 
together with liberty to cut two oak trees weekly, to supply it with fuel. But 
Henry III. revoked this latter grant, as being prejudicial to the forest ; and a 
wood, called the Abbot’s Wood, was gifted to the abbey in lieu of it. (See 
Lauder’s Gilpin, vol. ii. p. 67.) An inquisition was held, in the reign of 
Henry II., respecting Sherwood Forest, by which it appears that the right of 
hunting in it was then considered of great importance; and an act was passed, 
in the reign of Henry III. (1231), to define its boundaries. The Forest of 
Salcey was also formerly one of great importance, and it is frequently men- 
tioned in the forest laws of different English kings. The forest of Norwood, 
and several others, were entirely of oak, and, of course, valuable as producing 
naval timber; but the two great forests for this purpose were the New Forest 
and the Forest of Dean. Among all the laws that were passed at different 
times for regulating the forests, as late as the reign of Henry VII., there ap- 
pears to have been none enjoining planting ; the cares for the preservation of 
the forests being chiefly confined to directions as to the proper age and season 
for felling the trees. Forests, indeed, were so abundant, even in the reign of 
Henry VII., that we are told by Polydore Virgil that they covered one third 
part of all England; and the efforts of the people. must have been rather 
directed towards clearing away trees than planting them. About the time of 
Henry VIII., when, as we have already seen, the use of hired foreign ships of 
war was discontinued, and several English vessels were built of large size, 
the first fears respecting a scarcity of oak timber appear to have been felt. 
Tusser, who wrote about 1562, complains that “men were more studious to 
