ASHBOWN FOREST. 165 



proceeded with. The Commoners made a joint purse to 

 defend themselves against this aggression. The suit 

 came on for hearing, in 1691, in the Court of the Duchy 

 of Lancaster before the Chancellor and the Council, 

 assisted by Sir John Holt and Sir John Turton, Judges 

 of the Court of Exchequer. The Court held that it 

 was fully satisfied that there was sufficient common 

 left uninclosed, of which parts might be approved, still 

 leaving a sufficiency for the Commoners, and they directed 

 that a Commission should issue to set out for the 

 Defendants sufficient common, according to their 

 respective rights, and in convenient places. 



In 1693, the Commissioners made their return to 

 the Duchy Court. They stated that they had agreed 

 that 6,400 acres of the Forest would provide suf- 

 ficient pasture and herbage for the Defendants, the 

 Commoners, and others claiming common in the 

 Forest, "so as they should enjoy the sole pasturage 

 thereof, and the Plaintiffs, owners and proprietors of the 

 soil, be excluded from all rights of pasturage either for 

 sheep, horses, or cattle." The}' further stated that 

 they had laid out the 6,400 acres in the most con- 

 venient places, contiguous and adjacent to all the several 

 vills, towns, and farms, lying round the Forest, to 

 which common rights attached. They had also left 

 "the shares and proportions of the Crown grantees 

 allotted for inclosure in several parts and parcels, and 

 distinguished and divided them from the Defendants' 

 and Commoners' parts set out for common, by metes, 

 marks, and boundaries." 



