80 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



and the '3d penny of all felons' goods and forfeitures 

 within the Chase.' Every commoner might fall ' what 

 wood pleaseth him upon attachment/ the attachment not 

 to exceed the value of the wood, and the ' forester may 

 lawfully follow the commoner with his wain unto his own 

 house and attach him there ; if he may come to put his 

 bow betwixt the foremost oxen and the gate-post of his 

 house/ The commoners and inhabitants in and about the 

 Chase were to give notice to the foresters of any deer 

 coming upon their premises, but they were on no account 

 to kill, molest, or disturb them, under penalty of answering 

 for the same at the Court of Hanley, with ' homble pie ' in 

 prospect. The commoners, however, were entitled to put 

 their pigs into the Chase in autumn to feed upon the- 

 acorns from the oaks, and if it appeared that there was 

 more mast than the commoners' hogs would consume, the 

 public crier was to announce the fact in the neighbouring 

 towns, and the surplus mast was to be sold for the benefit 

 of the lord, a portion going, of course, to the chief forester." 



What was disafforested by Edward I. appears to have 

 been only a portion of what previously or subsequently 

 constituted the Forest, and the whole was formally dis- 

 afforested by Charles I. in 1632. " All these particulars, 

 laws, usages, and customs passed away when the Chase 

 was disafforested in 1632, and there only remains what 

 was reserved by a decree of Chancery, and the order in 

 Council explaining it, made at Whitehall, 5th September 

 1632, by which, after confirming the grant by the king of 

 the third part of the Chase to Sir Nicholas Vermuyden, it 

 is declared that the other two parts shall be left open and 

 free for the freeholders and tenants and commoners to 

 take their common of pasture and common of estovers 

 therein ; with the restriction that no enclosures shall be 

 made, or woods or trees felled within the two-third parts 

 subject to right of common. 



" These reserved rights still remain where not altered 

 by modern enclosure acts, and the rights of the commoners 

 still appertain to all the waste within the extensive parish 



