EXTINCT FOREStS OF 'JfHE NORTHERN COUNTIES. 149 



a Kttle south from it is a small district joining on to 

 Northumberland, called the King's forest of Geltsdale. 

 All these forests are now mere desolate scenes. The trees 

 have disappeared, the game has gone, and their history is 

 in a great measure lost. In the Forest of Skiddaw rises 

 the mountain which bears that name, famous as a land- 

 mark all over the north country. In Inglewood Forest the 

 English kifigs used to find very good sport in hunting ; 

 and Nicol Forest, being close to the Cheviot Hills, was the 

 scene of many a border fight. 



" In Northumberland the border adjoining the Cheviot 

 Hills was covered with forest ; and in the centre and 

 south were Rothbury, Lowes, and Hexham Forests. Con- 

 nected with these there are few historical incidents. 

 The chief is the well-known adventure which Queen 

 Margaret of Anjou had with a robber in the forest of 

 Hexham." 



In connection with this, I may mention that near to the 

 village and College of St Bees is what was once the barony 

 and forest of Copeland, formerly tenanted by red deer, and, 

 as the old chronicler says, " as great harts and stags as in 

 any part of England. So thick was the forest, that we are 

 told that a squirrel might travel from tree to tree for six 

 miles without once touching ground." * 



* For more than twelve hundred years St. Bees has been the site of a religious house, 

 and in the records occur incidental allusions to the forest. It was first established by 

 Christian missionaries from Ireland. The old writer whom I have quoted, tells, in his 

 quaint style, "There was a pious religious Lady- Abbess, and some of her sisters with 

 her, driven in by stormy wether at Whitehaven, and [the] ship cast away i' th' harbour, 

 and so destitute ; and so she went to the lady of Egremont Castle for reliefe. That 

 lady, a godly woman, pit ted her distress, and desired her lord to give her some place tu 

 dwell in, which he did at new St. Bees, and she and her sisters sewed and spinned, and 

 wrought carpets and other works, and lived very godly lives, as gott them much love. 

 She desired Lady Egremont to desire her lord to build them a house, and they would 

 lead a religious life together, and many wolde joine with them, if they had but a house 

 and land to live upon. Wherewith the Lady Egremont was very well pleased, ane 

 spoke to her lord, he had land enough, and [should] give them some, to lye up treasure 

 in heaven. And the lord laughed at the ladye, and said he would give them as much 

 land as snow fell upon the next morning and on midsummer day. And on the morrow 

 looked out of the castle window to the sea-side, two miles from Egremont, all was white 

 with snow for three miles together. And thereupon builded this St. Bees Abbie, and 

 gin all these lands was snowen unto it, and the town and haven of Whitehaven, and 

 sometime after all the tithes thereabout, and up the mountains, and Merdale forest 

 eastward." 



