. 
By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 35 
of the inquisition held at Malmesbury mentioned above, the jury 
particularly state that the Abbot of Stanley had committed a 
trespass, by some hinderance to the Pewe rivulet, which had caused 
it to overflow and flood the king’s highway, to the annoyance of 
his liege subjects and all passers-by. 
The Forest was granted by King James I. to Christopher Villiers, 
Earl of Anglesey, (brother of the Duke of Buckingham who was 
stabbed by Felton). It was disafforested in the year 1630. The 
people of Chippenham, (as well as the monks of Stanley, Farley, 
and Bradenstoke,) had certain rights of feeding within it, and the 
loss of these rights seems to have given rise to a serious riot in the 
neighbourhood. This fact is incidentally obtained from Sir William 
Davenant’s poetical works, amongst which is “A copy of verses 
written to the Countess of Anglesey, upon being led away captive 
by the rebels at the disafforesting of Pewsam.” John Aubrey also 
preserves a doggerel rhyme, current in his day, (1670), relating to 
the same event. 
‘‘ When Chip’nam stood in Pewsam’s wood, 
Before it was destroyed, 
A cow might have gone for a groat a year, 
But now it is denyed.” 
“The metre,” he adds, justly enough, “is lamentable ; but the cry 
of the poor was more lamentable.” He also says that “he knew 
several, amongst them Robert Smyth of the White Hart, that did 
remember the going of a cow for 4d. a year. The order was, how 
many they could winter they might summer; and pigges did cost 
nothing the going.” 
The Earl of Anglesey, to whom the Forest had been granted, 
had two grand-daughters, coheiresses. One of them married Mr. 
Edward Cary of Torr Abbey in Devonshire, by whose son, George 
Cary, the principal part of Pewsham was sold in 1791, to Mr. 
Montagu of Lackham; and on the breaking up of his property, it 
was bought by Mr. Lysley, whose family are now the owners of 
the Lodge Farms. Elizabeth, the other grand-daughter of Lord 
Anglesey, married James Touchet, Lord Audley and Earl of 
_ Castlehaven; and her portion of the Forest now belongs by purchase 
to Mr. Ludlow Bruges. 
F 2 
