Minerals and Mmes. 27 



ore "by charity and grace," but not by right, raised no opposi- 

 tion to an arrangement which apparently ceded them the sub- 

 stance, and only deprived them of the shadow. They naturally 

 imagined that if they could retain the kernel they might throw 

 away the husk, forgetting that the former was reliant on its 

 outer sheath for protection. But on the first favourable oppor- 

 tunity the landlords reminded them of this unwelcome fact, 

 and the miners found themselves fettered by an arrangement 

 which had transposed the onus of illegality from seignorial to 

 popular shoulders, and left their original liberties entangled in 

 the meshes of the manorial net. That they never forgot their 

 ancient privileges is evidenced by the struggle which took 

 place in the present century. Throughout its fourth decade 

 the Forest Commissioners appointed by the Act of 1831 held 

 frequent sessions with the object of adjudicating between 

 popular and seignorial rights ; but all the miners could expect 

 to prove was, that, by the older understanding, they, to the 

 exclusion of every one else, were entitled to mine in the Forest. 

 By this time, however, the "foreigners" were able to show so 

 strong a prescriptive right to Grovernment protection — firstly, 

 on account of the immense amount of capital sunk in the work- 

 ings ; secondly, because ever since 1675 they had carried on 

 such workings without any objection being raised by the free 

 miners ; and thirdly, because they had done so with the sanc- 

 tion of the Crown — that the commissioners found their office 

 of adjudication no sinecure. Their decision was necessarily 

 adverse to the free miners, and manorial claims finally 

 triumphed.^ 



In the laws and orders of the Mendip miners we find another 

 instance of conflicting seignorial and popular rights. In the 

 reign of Edward IV, the Lord Chief Justice of England went 

 down into Somerset and presided at a court on Mendip at a 

 place called the Forge, where he summoned all the commoners 

 and the four lords royal of the district to appear. Some ten 

 thousand persons assembled, and agreed to allow their rights 

 to be adjudicated by the four lords of the royalties. The latter 



' For information concerning the Forest of Dean mining interest I am 

 indebted to the Eev. H. G. Nicholls' History of the Forest of Dean. 



