54 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



towns and villages, with no fewer than thirty-six parish 

 churches. The towns, villages, and ancestrial halls were 

 all demolished, and the people driven away : 



1 The fields are ravish'd from the industrious swains, 

 From men their cities, and from gods their fanes ; 

 The levell'd towns with weeds lie covered o'er ; 

 The hollow winds through naked temples roar ; 

 Hound broken columns clasping ivy twined ; 

 O'er heaps of ruins stalk'd the stately hind ; 

 The fox obscene to gaping tombs retires, 

 And savage howlings fill the sacred quires.' * 



" No compensation was made. According to Domesday- 

 book, 108 places, manors, villages, or hamlets, suffered in 

 a greater or less degree. The traditional names of places 

 still used by the foresters such as ' Church Place, ' Church 

 Moor/ ' Thomson's Castle ' seem to mark the now solitary 

 spots as the sites of ancient buildings where the English 

 people worshipped their God, and dwelt in peace, ere they 

 were ruthlessly swept away by the Norman. The late Mr 

 W. S. Rose, who had long held the office of bow-bearer 

 for the New Forest, was of opinion that the termination 

 of ham and ton, yet annexed to some woodlands, might be 

 taken as evidence of the former existence of hamlets and 

 towns in the forest. 



"The historians who lived about the period are not 

 sparing in their denunciation of the arbitary conduct of 

 William and the cruel nature of his forest laws. 



" Henry of Huntingdon says of William, ' If any one 

 killed a stag or a wild boar, his eyes were put out, and no 

 one presumed to complain. But beasts of chase he cherished 

 as if they were his children (an expression used by other 

 chroniclers) ; so that to form the hunting-ground of the 

 New Forest, he caused churches and villages to be de- 

 stroyed, and driving out the people, made it a habitation 

 for deer/ And Hollinshed says, in his quaint old way, 

 'The people sore bewailed their distres, and greatlie 



* Pope's Windsor Forest, 



