FOREST LAWS. 



FOREST LAWS. 



ico 



The indirect influence ii the preservation of that due circulation of 

 moisture by which the fertilising riven of the earth's surface are 

 fiiroiahed with a perennial supply of water. Such, indeed, is the 

 importance of fore-its in thia respect, that if it were possible to annihi- 

 late at once all the (omit that now exiat, the earth would no longer be 

 habitable. The raina which fall in the mountains, no longer arrested 

 by the trunks and root* of the tret-n, would not have time to percolate 

 through the coil and fissures of the rocks to supply the reservoirs of 

 spring*, but would pour down in devastating torrents, leaving the 

 watercourses dry as soon aa the rain had ceased. This, in a limited 

 degree, has been already experienced in places where the heights have 

 been partially denuded of their forests ; and its effect on the riv.'i . in 

 mme paiU of the United States, where the portion of cleared land IB 

 considerable, is distinctly observed. Nor would this be all : lakes, for 

 want of supply, would soon be dried up ; and as no waters but those of 

 the ocean would then exist, the atmosphere would then be deficient in 

 moisture ; no vegetation could exist, and the animal world would perish 

 of thirst, hunger, and heat. Forests, then, are of primary importance in 

 the economy of the globe, independent of their utility ia a thousand 

 arts which are necessary now to our comfort. This consideration has 

 at length awakened governments to the necessity of protecting forests 

 from wanton spoliation by codes enacted for the purpose, and of 

 forming schools in which all that is necessary to be known for the 

 management of forests, so as to maintain a constant supply of timber 

 and fuel, shall be regularly taught. [FOREST SCIENCE.] 



FOREST LAWS. In this country even in the time of the Saxons 

 the crown lands consisted in part of forests, or tracts more <>i- Us* 

 covered with wood, in which the king was accustomed to take the 

 diversion of hunting, and from hunting in which all other persona 

 were prohibited. This distinctly appears from the laws of Canute. 

 But the prohibition against hunting in the royal forests was merely a_ 

 protection thrown around the property of the crown of the same kind 

 with that afforded to all other landed estates, in regard to which, uni- 

 versally, the law was, that every proprietor might hunt in his own 

 woods or fields, but that no other person might do so without his 

 leave. On the establishment, however, of the Norman government 

 the property of all animals of chase throughout the kingdom was held 

 to be vested in the crown, and no person without the express licence 

 of the crown was allowed to hunt even upon his own estate. This 

 however, is rather a conjecture deduced from the supposed principles 

 of feudalism, than a well-established fact. There are no laws respecting 

 the forests among those attributed to the Conqueror ; but after the 

 conquest the forests were guarded with greater strictness ; their 

 number was extended and their bounds enlarged ; trespasses were 

 punished with greater severity ; and, finally, a system of laws and of 

 courts for their administration was established, by which not only all 

 offences touching the royal forests were tried, but all persons living 

 upon these properties governed. This is the system properly called 

 the forest laws. Of this in its original integrity we have no complete 

 or authoritative record : our knowledge is derived from incidental 

 notices of the chroniclers ; the energetic language of complaint and 

 condemnation in which it is spoken of ; the legislative enactments for 

 ta reform which have been preserved ; and the remnants of it which 

 survived to a comparatively recent period. 



The Conqueror is said to have possessed 68 forests, 13 chases, and 

 781 parks. Forests and chases differ from parks in not being inclosed 

 by walls or palings, but only encompassed by metes and bounds ; and 

 a chase diners from a forest, both in being of much smaller extent (so 

 that there are some chases within forests) and in being capable of 

 being held by a subject, whereas a forest can only be in the hands of 

 the crown. The material distinction was, that forests alone were 

 subject to the forest laws. Every forest however was also a chase. 

 A forest is defined by Manwood, the great authority on the forest 

 laws, as being " a certain territory or circuit of woody grounds and 

 pastures, known in its bounds, and privileged, for the peaceable being 

 and abiding of wild beasts, and fowls of forest, chase, and warren, to 

 be under the king's protection for his princely delight ; replenished 

 with beasts of venery or chase, and great coverts of vert for succour of 

 the said beasts ; for preservation whereof there are particular laws, 

 privileges, and officers belonging thereunto." The beasts of park or 

 chase, according to Coke, are properly the buck, the doe, the fox, the 

 marten, and the roe ; but the term in a wider sense comprehends all 

 the beasts of the forest Beasts of warren are such as hares, conies, 

 and roes ; fowls of warren, such as the partridge, quail, rail, pheasant, 

 woodcock, mailard, heron, Ac. He afterwards however quotes a 

 decision of the justices and the king's council that roes are not beasts 

 of the forest, because they put to flight other wild beasts (eo quod 

 fugant alias feras), which seems an odd reason; perhaps the word 

 should be " fugiunt" (because they fly from other wild beasts). And 

 he adds, " beaut* of forest* be properly hart, hind, buck, hare, boar, 

 and wolf ; but legally all wild beasts of venery." (' Co. Litt., see. 387.) 



For the antiquity of the royal forests in England, " the best and 

 surest argument," says Coke, elsewhere (4 ' Inst.' 819), " is, that the 

 forests in England, being sixty-nine in number, except the New 

 Forest, in Hampshire, erected l.y William the Conqueror, and Hampton 

 Court Forest, by Henry VIII., and by authority of parliament, are so 

 ancient, as no record or history doth make any mention of their 

 history or beginning." Yet it appears, both from the great charter of 



John, and from a previous charter granted by Stephen, that some lauds 

 had been afloreatod (a* the term was) after the time of the lir.-t t\v.. 

 Norman kings. " The forests," says Stephen, " which King William 

 my grandfather, and William II. my uncle, made and held, I reserve 

 to myutf ; all the others which King Henry superadded I render up 

 and concede in quiet to the churches and the kingdom." And 

 the concessions demanded from John and granted in Magna Cbarta 

 (8 47) was, that all the lands which bad been afforested in hia time 

 should be immediately deafforested. No additional forest* appear to 

 have been made from the reign of John till that of Hampton Court 

 was constituted by act of parliament in 1539 (31 II. n. \ 111 

 The name given to it in the statute is Hampton Court Chase ; but it is 

 enacted that all offenders in it shall incur such penalties as the like 

 offenders do in any other forest or chase. It was therefore made a 

 forest as well as a chase. 



Many historians tell us that King John granted a charter of forests 

 at the same time with Magna Charta. This ia indeed distinctly 

 asserted by Matthew Paris, who even professes to give the charter at 

 full length. But the statement is entirely unfounded ; the concessions 

 obtained from John in regard to the royal forests are, as mentioned 

 above, contained in the Great Charter ; the Carta de Foresta, which 

 M. Paris quotes, in a charter granted by Henry III. in the 9th year of 

 his reign (A.D. 1224). This was the first separate charter of forests. 

 It is commonly printed in the statutes from the Inspeximus, or con- 

 firmation of it, in the 28th of Edward I. (A. D. 1299). The subsequent 

 legislation upon this subject is principally to be found in the following 

 statutes : The Customs and Assize of the Forest, or the Articles of 

 Attachments of the Forests (of which the date is not known) ; the 

 Ordinatio Forests) of the 33 Edw. I. (1305) ; the Ordinatio Foreshe of 

 the 34 Edw. I. (1306); the 1 Edw. III. c. 8 (1327); and the 7 Hie. II. 

 c. 3 (1883). 



One of the chief things insisted upon in the early national demand 

 for the reform of the forest laws, was the mitigation of their severe 

 code of punishments. The Conqueror, who, as the ' Saxon Chronicle ' 

 says, loved the red deer as if he had been their father, is affirmed to 

 have visited the slaughter of one of these animals with a heavier 

 penalty than the murder of a human being. And it would appear 

 from the charter of Henry III. that the offence had previously been 

 punishable not only with mutilation, but with death. " No man from 

 henceforth," says the charter, " shall lose either life or member for 

 killing of our deer ; but if any man be taken and convict for taking of 

 our venison, he shall make a grievous fine, if he have anything whereof ; 

 and if he have nothing to lose, he shall be imprisoned a year and a day 

 and after the year and a day expired, if he can find sufficient sureties, 

 he shall be delivered ; and if not, he shall abjure the realm of 

 England." According to Matthew Paris (whose authority, hi> 

 on such a matter, is not worth much), Richard I. had already repealed 

 the penalties of mutilation for offences against the forest laws*. 



The forest laws, as already mentioned, were administered by their 

 own officers and courts. The officers were the justices in eyre of the 

 forest [EYRE]; the wardens or warders; the verderers, foresters, 

 agisters, regarders, keepers, bailiffs, beadles, &c. The courts were : 



1. The Court of Woodmote, or of Attachments, sometimes called the 

 Forty Days' Court, held once in every forty days before the verderers ; 



2. The Court of Swaiumote, held three times in the year before the 

 verderers as judges, and with a jury composed of the *init<, or free- 

 holders within the forest ; and 3. The Court of Justice-seat, which 

 was the supreme court, held every third year before the chief j > 



in eyre of the forest This was a court of record, and, at least in later 

 times, it was held that a writ of error lay from it to the Court of King's 

 Bench. With the exception, however, of one said by Roger North in 

 his life of Lord Keeper North to have been held pro forma soon after 

 the Restoration, no court of justice-seat has been held since 1632. A 

 minute survey of the forest was also taken every third year by its 

 twelve regarders ; and it was upon this occasion, and under the in- 

 spection of the regarders, that the lawing or expectation of all the 

 mastifs in the forest took place, which consisted in cutting off the 

 claws and ball (or pelote) of their forefeet, to prevent them from 

 running after the deer. 



The four principal forests in England were accounted to be, 

 the New Forest, Sherwood, Dean, and Windsor. Among the others 

 were Enping, in Essex ; Dartmoor, in Devonshire ; Wichwood, in 

 Oxfordshire ; Salccy. Whittloliury, and Rockingham, in Northampton- 

 shire ; Waltham, in Lincolnshire ; Richmond, in Yorkshire, 4c. 



The vexatious and oppressive powers vested in the crown by the 

 forest laws, after having to a great extent long ceased to be exercised, 

 were revived by Charles I., and endeavoured to be turned to account 

 in replenishing his exchequer. At the court of justice-seat, held in 

 1632, before the Earl of Holland as chief justice in eyre south of the 

 Trent, large sums of money were extorted from many persons, cliirlly 

 as compositions for alleged encroachments on the ancient boundaries 

 of the forests, although after a quiet possession of three or four 

 centuries. This accordingly was one of the grievances to which the 

 Long Parliament directed its earliest attention. One of the Acts u hich 

 that assembly passed in its first session (16 Car. I. c. 16), was entitled 

 ' An Act for the Certainty of Forests, and of the Meets, Meers, Limit*, 

 and Bounds of the Forests,' and it enacted that the bounds of every 

 forest shall be those commonly known, reputed, used, or taken to be 



