36 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



mention is made of the privilege of hunting in Chittro, 

 Middlesex, and Surrey; but their rights were afterwards 

 compounded for by " a day's frolic at Epping." 



(l Henry III. granted a privilege, in 1226, to the citizens 

 of London to hunt once a year, at Easter, within a circuit 

 of twenty miles of their city. In the olden times, there- 

 fore, the lord mayor, aldermen, and corporation, attended 

 by a due number of their constituents, availed themselves 

 of the right of chase ' in solemn guise.' 



" By the close of the sixteenth century, however, the 

 citizens had discontinued to a great extent the pastime, 

 not for want of taste for it, says Stowe, but of leisure to 

 pursue it. Strype, nevertheless, so late as the reign of 

 George I., reckons among the modern amusements of the 

 Londoners, ' riding on horseback and hunting with my 

 lord mayors' hounds when the common hunt goes out.' 

 This common hunt of the citizens is ridiculed in an old 

 ballad called ' the London customs,' of which we have 

 selected the following stanzas : 



' Next once a year into Essex a-hunting they go, 

 To see 'em pass along, O, 'tis a most pretty show ! 

 Through Cheapside and Fenchurch Street, and so to Aldgate pump, 

 Each man's with 's spurs in 's horse's sides, and his back-sword cross 

 his rump. 



My lord he takes a staff in hand to beat the bushes o'er ; 



I must confess it was a work he ne'er had done before. 



A creature bounceth from a bush, which made them all to laugh ; 



My lord he cried, A hare ! a hare ! but it proved an Essex calf. 



And when they had done their sport, they came to London where they 



dwell, 



Their faces all so torn and scratch'd, their wives scarce knew them well ; 

 For 'twas a very great mercy so many 'scaped alive, 

 For of twenty saddles carried out, they brought again but five.' 



" Always attentive to the means of ingratiating himself 

 with the Londoners, towards the close of his reign 

 Edward IV. invited the principal citizens to hunt with 

 him in his forest of Waltham ; a feast was spread for them 

 under green bowers, and the courteous monarch refused 



