ON BRITISH OAKS. Biff 
“T may mention, with respect to oak trees and oak wood in 
this neighbourhood, that there are trees still alive in this park 
estimated to be 1100 or 1200 years old ; there are others reckoned 
to be 600, 500, and 400 years old. Sometimes a smaller tree is 
known to be considerably older than a larger one, and I should 
myself estimate the tree at Boscobel to be 400 or 450 years old ; 
but it would have been equally capable of affording a hiding-place 
for a man in the middle of a thick wood, whether it was then 
some 220 years old, as I estimate it, or whether it was 100 years 
younger or older.” 
Against this evidence as to its being the original ‘‘ Royal” oak, 
another witness says “that he measured it in 1857, and again 
twenty-one years later, and found that its girth had increased 11 
inches, or half an inch annually.” In summing up the evidence 
for and against, it is necessary to bear in mind that the original 
tree was in a thick wood, and not a detached tree, or in any way 
conspicuous, which would have been sure to attract the attention 
of the Parliamentary troopers. Further, this wood seems to have 
subsequently been cleared by the Fitzherberts, the successors of 
the Giffards, but at what date is not stated. Now this fact would 
have gone far to establish the identity of the tree or otherwise, 
because, if the date of clearing or grubbing up of the wood was 
not long after the event, then it would be probable that the 
Fitzherberts knew the real tree, as they surrounded a@ tree by a 
brick wall; but if this took place very long after, then a doubt 
would still remain notwithstanding Lord Bradford’s testimony, as 
the tree is certainly of small girth for say 450 years. 
The “ Parliament Oak” in Clipstone Park, Notts, is so called 
from an informal parliament having been held under it by 
King John, in 1212. Bailey says, ‘‘ John this year perpetrated 
the enormous cruelty of putting to death, by hanging, at Notting- 
ham Castle, twenty-eight youths belonging to the most illustrious 
families of Wales, which youths he had brought with him after 
the rebellion as hostages for the future peace and submission of 
the principality. At the time this event took place, the king was 
indulging himself in the pleasures of the chase at Clipstone Palace, 
-when a messenger arrived from his sister Joan, who was married 
to Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, informing him of a fresh revolt, 
and at the same time another came with a letter from his friend 
and ally, David L., king of Scotland, apprising him of the exist- 
ence of a widespread conspiracy against him in the northern parts 
