150 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



It is the difference between the former and the present 

 condition of these forest lands which chiefly concerns us 

 here, but the historical and legendary lore connected with 

 almost all of the forests of England and with these, in 

 common with others, forcibly constrains one to digression, 

 which may be tolerated and enjoyed as chase might have 

 been given to a wild boar by some passing traveller, will- 

 ing to risk the consequences, be these what they might. 

 The anonymous writer just quoted goes on to say : 

 " It may readily be supposed that, considering the extent 

 of those woods on both sides of the border, and their plen- 

 tiful supply of game, the borderers became hunters, and 

 that the two nations very often came into contact with 

 each other, tending to incessant and interminable border 

 feuds. The hunter was a warrior, and he never rode out 

 'to hunt the deer' without a sufficient escort of armed 

 men. The barons kept up a large retinue, fit on any occa- 

 sion for offence or defence. In the forests themselves 

 roved numbers of minor 'Robin Hoods/ who were the 

 terror of the district, and levied ' black -mail/ This race 

 was not extinct even so late as 1720, for black-mail was 

 actually paid in that year. This disposition to hunting 

 was often taken advantage of as an excuse for assembling 

 a body of armed men, and making a sudden incursion into 

 the neighbouring country. But their movements were 

 closely watched ; each party knew the other's tactics, and 

 the usual result was a determined fight, in which neither 

 lives nor limbs were spared on either side. The old bal- 

 lad of Chevy Chase is founded on an incident of this kind. 



" Living such a life, it may well be supposed that the 



j _ 



The peaceful mission flourished till the Danish sea-rovers came and laid it waste, 

 and save that a bell in Croyland Abbey was called Beza the name of this Abbey 

 the name was well nigh forgotten. Five centuries rolled away, and on the spot 

 arose a Benedictine Priory ; and the monks had grants of land, and tithes, and every- 

 thing in the forests except " hart and hind and boar and hawk," and liberty to take 

 "xiv. salmons." But the monks fared little better than did the nuns; and they suf- 

 fered from the ravages of Scottish marauders. In 1315, during the invasion by Robert 

 the Bruce, a party under James Douglas pillaged the priory and the manors ; and we 

 may imagine the indignities, if nothing worse, which the fathers had to undergo, from a 

 passage in Ivanhoe, when Wamba says, " Pray for them with all my heart, but in the 

 town, not in the greensward, like the Abbot of St. Bees, whom they caused to say mass 

 with an old rotten oak tree for his stall." 



