182 WIGLEY COMMON. 



own view of his legal rights. He claimed the Common 

 absolutely as his private property, and his answer, in 

 effect, to those who approached him, was that they 

 should mind their own business, and leave him to do as 

 he liked with his own. Mr. Briscoe Eyre, therefore, was 

 compelled either to assert his legal rights or to acquiesce 

 in the inclosure. He commenced a suit at once on 

 behalf of the tenants of Cadnam and Winsor against 

 Mr. Stanley, in the usual form. 



A meeting of the tenants of Cadnam Manor was 

 then held. At this meeting it was ascertained that 

 it was reputed among them that their rights over 

 Wigley Common had been declared by an " old paper," 

 which was in possession of one of the tenants. No 

 one knew the contents of the paper or what was its 

 origin. The inquiry was pursued, and in the possession 

 of one of the copyholders, John Wake, was found a 

 heavy box with three locks. This box was known by 

 the tenants as " the monster." All that Wake re- 

 collected of it was that his grandfather, soon after 

 he was admitted as tenant of the Manor, brought it 

 home and said : " See, I have brought home the 

 monster ! " 



On opening the box there was found an exemplifica- 

 tion, under the Great Seal, of a decree by Lord Chancellor 

 Hatton, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, declaring that 

 the tenants of the Manor of Cadnam were entitled to 

 a right of pasture over the waste lands of Wigley. 

 It appeared from this decree, dated April 26th, 1591, 

 that the tenants of the Manor of Cadnam and Winsor 



