6&a ME FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



tion; and occurring without name of writer prefixed or 

 appended they may possess no authority ; but I find it 

 interesting to learn how such facts were looked at by men 

 of antiquarian taste three hundred years ago. 



In the Collection of Curious Discourses is another paper 

 on the New Forest by Mr Richard Brought on, whose identity 

 it is difficult to determine. By Mr Hearne, the author of 

 the collection, he was understood to be a distinguished 

 ecclesiastical historian, described on his gravestone in the 

 church of Great Stukely, in Huntingdonshire, as antiquari- 

 orum sui saeculi exquisiiissimus, and known amongst archse- 

 loogical students of ecclesiastical history as the author of 

 the Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain from the Nativity 

 of our Saviour unto the Conversion of the Saxons, printed at 

 Douay in 1633, folio ; and of the Monasticon Britannicum, 

 printed at London in 1650, 8vo ; and of some other tracts. 

 But by Mr Tate, who was for many years secretary of the 

 society, it is stated that the Richard Broughton who was 

 a member of the society was not that writer, who was 

 a clergyman, but was a student of the Inner Temple, 

 London, and was a Justice of North Wales in the time of 

 James I. 



The following is a transcript of the paper referred to : 

 " The great charter of forests granted by King Henry 

 III. unto the commonality, maketh mention of forests 

 to be made in England by King John, Richard I., 

 and Henry II.; and giveth authority to view the same, 

 and to disafforest so much as was made by them 

 forest, and was not their own demesne ; but long before 

 this time was the New Forest, made by William the 

 Conqueror, as appeareth by these words, which are in an 

 old English chronicle that I have : William Rous, that 

 was William Bastard's son, who made the New Forest, 

 and cast down and destroyed 26 towns and 80 houses of 

 religion, all for to make his forest longer and broader, 

 became wondrous glad and proud of his wood and of his 

 forest, and of the wild beasts that were therein ; but so it 



