134 EPPING FOREST. 



he bad once settled with the principal landowners 

 having rights of common therein, it would be difficult, 

 if not impossible, for any smaller Commoner to challenge 

 him in the Law Courts, and to incur the enormous costs 

 of a suit. The prize within the grasp of the Lords of 

 Manors was most valuable. The Forest land when in- 

 closed would be worth in many parts from 1,000 and 

 upwards per acre. They reckoned upon gradually 

 buying up the rights of the important Commoners, 

 either in money or by allotments of the Forest, and 

 then approving under the Statute of Merton, and on 

 frightening the smaller Commoners, by arbitrary in- 

 closure, against contesting their rights. For this pur- 

 pose, then, it was all important for them to show that 

 the Commoners of a particular Manor were confined to 

 it alone, and had no rights over the whole of the Forest, 

 or over the wastes of other Manors. 



The researches of Mr. Hunter into the ancient records 

 led to the discovery that this view of the Forest was 

 unsound, that instead of being a congeries of separate 

 Manors, the Forest was one great waste, over which the 

 Commoners of every one of the nineteen Manors had the 

 right of turning out their cattle, without the obligation 

 of confining them to their particular districts. The 

 importance of this discovery could not be over-rated. 

 It at once became clear that the arrangements, made for 

 inclosure by the several Lords of Manors with their 

 respective Commoners, were wholly invalid, and without 

 effect upon the rights not only of the other Commoners of 

 their own Manors, but of all the numerous Commoners in 



