112 EPPING FOREST. 



Charles I., more with the object of raising money 

 than of enjoying sport, revived the claims of the Crown 

 to the widest possible boundaries of the Forest. By his 

 direction, extortionate demands were made on land- 

 owners to buy off the dormant rights of forest, in 

 respect of all the Royal Forests, and nowhere to a 

 greater extent than in Essex. In this county alone the 

 King is said to have raised by such means no less a sum 

 than 300,000. These claims of forestal rights were 

 reckoned, with the compelling of knighthood, with 

 tonnage and poundage dues, and ship money, among 

 the national grievances ; they were no doubt planned 

 and carried out, with the help of Sir John Finch, his 

 Attorney-General,* and others, in order to raise money 

 for the King, without the aid of Parliament. It was 

 not till 1641 that the King found it necessary to 

 retrace his steps. On March 16 in that year, just four 

 months after the meeting of the Long Parliament, the 

 Earl of Holland signified to the House of Lords that 

 the King had commanded him to let them know " that, 

 His Majesty understanding that the forest laws are 

 grievous to the subjects of this Kingdom, His Majesty, 

 out of his grace and goodness to his people, is willing 

 to lay down all the new bounds of his Forests in 



* Lord Falkland, in opening the impeachment of Finch, said of 

 him, "He gave our goods to the King, our lands to the deer, our 

 liberties to the sheriffs ; so that there was no way by which we had 

 not been oppressed and destroyed, if the power of this person had 

 been equal to his will, or that the will of His Majesty had been equal 

 to his power." 



