EPPING FOREST. 



icle says that " he loved the Great Game as if he 

 had been their Father." Being besides men of 

 arbitrary will, and very great political power, they 

 increased the stringency of the previously existing 

 Forest laws. They assigned as Royal Forests 

 many wooded districts in various parts of the 

 country, and enlarged the boundaries of others. 

 It must not, however, be supposed that they were 

 then for the first time turned into " waste " land. 

 According to Lord Coke the great majority of 

 them had from immemorial antiquity been forests, 

 as we understand the word, but not necessarily 

 subject to Forest laws. The Royal Forests have 

 been defined as " certain territories of woody 

 grounds and fruitful pastures, privileged for wild 

 beasts and fowls of forest chase and warren, to rest 

 and abide there in safe protection of the king for 

 his delight and pleasure." They were not enclosed, 

 but were " meered and bounded with unremove- 

 able marks, meers and boundaries," that is, natural 

 land-marks such as hills, rivers, and trees. One 

 old writer, enlarging on the use of the Forests, says 

 they " are for the profit and strength of the king- 

 dom, for the forests are the ships' nurseries of 

 timber . . . likewise of the king's ships, which 

 chase from robbing of it the wasps and hornets, I 

 mean the pirates and the greater enemies ; " but 

 he lays most stress on the fact that they are the 

 "chief object of the king's princely delight." And 

 he especially commends Waltham and Windsor 

 Forests on account of their convenience for the 

 " entertainment of foreign princes and of their 

 agents and ambassadors, because the nearness of 

 these two forests unto the city doth much add to 

 the pleasures of them." 



