MALVERN CHASti. 81 



of Great Malvern, So that in the sale or grant of any 

 waste land for public or private purposes, the commoners 

 may demand compensation ; and in a recent railway case 

 when the Hereford railway was made they obtained it, the 

 money valuation of their abstracted rights being now 

 deposited at exchequer interest in the Worcester Old 

 Bank. 



"The deer of the Chase were probably all destroyed at 

 its disafforestation, for nothing further is anywhere men- 

 tioned about them, and none appear to have been pre- 

 served in the paddocks of country gentlemen. If any 

 stray ones remained, doubtless in the lawless time of ' the 

 great rebellion ' they were finished up without remorse. 

 Neither, as far as I know, has any account been left, in 

 story or ballad, of the exploits of the foresters, verderers, 

 and free suitors, in their forays and huntings after the 

 deer, or the record left of any ' Merrie men ' who might 

 have furtively sought after a fat buck ; or any caitiff 

 piowler who by (t the verdict of twelve men " found his 

 head placed under the Forester's axe, ' in the said chase ' 

 at Sweet Oaks, 'where they always sat in judgment on 

 such persons.' 



" The homage-tenants and commoners living on the 

 borders of the Chase were not privileged to take or kill 

 any of the deer there abiding, even if they trespassed upon 

 homesteads ; but then they had the run of the open parts 

 of the Chase for their live stock in the summer season, 

 and other rights of 'estover,' loppings of wood, &c. I 

 should hardly dare assert that a joint of venison did not 

 occasionally get into some of the homage-tenants' houses, 

 for deer stealing, as Shakespeare's history shows, was 

 then considered rather a jolly, if illicit, pastime ; and the 

 bow did not give such an alarm in its discharge as the 

 gun. There were serious riots by the country people 

 (countenanced too by several landed proprietors) when the 

 Chase was first disafforested and partially enclosed, and 

 this seems to imply a disorderly population resident there- 

 about, not particularly moral in their habits, and who 



G 



