106 EFPING FOREST. 



more serious kind ; they could not, however, pro- 

 nounce sentence ; this was reserved for the highest 

 Court of Justice Seat, held at somewhat long intervals, 

 and generally presided over by one of the judges of the 

 land, who for this purpose was called Chief Justice in 

 Eyre. There were numerous minor officials, such as 

 master keepers, foresters, agisters, and regarders, whose 

 duty it was to preserve the game, and to prevent and 

 report encroachments on the forest; woodwards, who 

 were charged with looking after the timber ; and reeves, 

 who marked the cattle of the Commoners. Over these 

 officials was the Lord Warden, an hereditary officer, 

 whose charge it was to maintain the Forest unimpaired 

 for the King's pleasure. 



No Court of Justice Seat has' been held in Waltham 

 Forest since 1670. The Court of Attachment survived 

 to a much later period, and was occasionally held in the 

 present century, but it gradually became obsolete. 

 Verderers ceased to be elected, and in 1870 only a 

 single Verderer survived, without power of enforcing 

 any rights. 



So long as the forestal rights of the Crown were 

 enforced on the lands of private owners beyond the 

 actual Forest, they were the cause of grave hardships. 

 In a suit against Sir Bernard Whetstone, Lord of the 

 Manor of Woodford, one of the Forest Manors, on the 

 part of the Attorney-General, in the year 1700, for 

 making illegal fences on his own land, a grievous picture 

 is drawn by the defendant, of the losses caused by the 

 deer to himself and his tenants. " They were forced," he 



