EPPING FOREST. 



whole was strictly subject to the Forest laws and 

 regulations for the time being ; and the interests 

 of the cultivator, of the commoner who turned 

 his cattle out to graze on the Forest, of the owner 

 of the soil, and of the public, were subordinate to 

 the sporting rights of the Crown. 



Previous to the time of Henry VIII. nearly the 

 whole of the ownership of the soil, subject to the 

 sporting rights of the Crown, was vested in the 

 powerful religious bodies of that day; such as the 

 Abbey of Waltham, of which some account is 

 given at page 62, which had received them as 

 grants from various monarchs, pious or rapacious, 

 in return for benefits of a spiritual or substantial 

 character ; but other rights and favours were also 

 constantly granted to ecclesiastics, among whom 

 the Abbess of Barking seems to have been espe- 

 cially favoured, as the following extract shows : 

 "We command you to allow the Abbess of 

 Barking her reasonable estovers in her wood at 

 Hainault for her firing, her cooking, and her brew- 

 ing, if she has been accustomed so to do in the time 

 of our Lord King John our father ; also to permit 

 the same abbess to have her dogs to chase hares 

 and foxes within the bailiwick if she was accus- 

 tomed to have them in the time of our aforesaid 

 father." At the time of the Reformation these 

 rights reverted, or were reannexed, by the Crown. 

 Later on they were again granted to various 

 persons for services received, with the exception of 

 those which related to the section which lay to 

 the north-east of the river Roding, called the Forest 

 of Hainault, which had belonged to the Abbey of 

 Barking, and which unfortunately, as I shall pre- 

 sently show, remained in the hands of the Crown. 



