ETPING FOREST. 157 



London to perform this ceremony, unmindful of the 

 fact that the Corporation of London had done their 

 very utmost to defeat the claim of the inhabitants to 

 any compensation for their rights. The Lord Mayor 

 drove down in state to Loughton. The proceedings 

 were there opened with a prayer by Mr. Maitland, the 

 rector of the parish, and Lord of the Manor, who had 

 also done his utmost to inclose the whole of the 

 waste of his Manor, and to defeat the claim of the 

 inhabitants of Loughton, and who had caused the 

 imprisonment of Willingale and his sons for endeavour- 

 ing to exercise them ! There were those who were of 

 opinion that a white sheet would have been the most 

 appropriate garment for the rector on the occasion ! 

 The local managers had at least the good taste not to 

 invite any members of the Commons Society to take 

 part in the proceedings in such company. It was with 

 some difficulty that the Corporation of London was 

 later induced to give to the widow of old Willingale the 

 paltry pension of five shillings a week. His son has kept 

 up the tradition of the family, by maintaining the cause 

 of the smaller occupiers of land to rights of common 

 over the Forest, which the Corporation are now disposed 

 to dispute and deny. 



Apart from this, all questions affecting the Forest 

 have been set at rest. The Forest was thrown open to 

 the public by the Queen in person, at High Beech, in 

 the presence of a great assemblage of persons, on May 

 Gth, 1882. Restitution was thus in a sense made by 

 the Sovereign, of land which in very ancient times had 



