56 History of the 



and the severest penalties were inflicted, with the most relentless 

 and savage cruelty, upon the unhappy law-breaker. 



The haughty Normans ruled with a high hand, and the Anglo- 

 Saxon and Danish population groaned under the iron despotism of 

 the conquerors. The king became the sole proprietor of the 

 game throughout the country, and no person might hunt even on 

 his own property. The life of a human subject was accounted of 

 less value than that of a buck or a doe, for the punishment of 

 death was awarded upon those who were known to kill either. If 

 found taking a boar, the unfortunate culprit paid the forfeit with 

 his eyes, which were pulled out of his head ; the lopping of a 

 limb was a common punishment for illegally hunting the roe or 

 fox ; and a fine equivalent almost to ruin and the loss of entire 

 worldly possessions was inflicted for taking a hare or other inferior 

 game. 



It is impossible to read with any degree of calmness of the 

 atrocities which were perpetrated under shelter of the Forest Laws 

 during the rei,e;n of Wilham Rufus, and with the direct cognisance 

 of that brutal king. Confiscation, castration, and hanging, were 

 the familiar punishments of the time ; and such modes of punish- 

 ment, varying in decree according to the humane or tyrannical 

 disposition of succeeding princes, continued in operation during a 

 period of nearly two hundred years. 



In the reign of Henry III., and to the credit of that prince and 

 his successor, Edward I., who really inaugurated the milder policy, 

 the inhuman laws of the earlier kings were abolished ; and it was 

 ordained, " That no man from henceforth shall lose either life or 

 limb for killing; our Deer ; but if any man be taken therewith, and 

 convicted for taking of our.Venison, he shall make grievous fine, 

 if he hath anything whereof to make fine ; and if he have nothing, 

 he shall be imprisoned a year and a day, and after that, if he can 

 find sufficient sureties, he shall be delivered ; and if not, he shall 

 adjure the Realm." {c) Hard enough, in all conscience ! 



(c) Manwood, ed. 1717, p. 404. 



