188 THE FORESTS OF ENGLAND. 



exasperated, marched a powerful army against them, and 

 encamped on the great moor, not far from Finningley, 

 where part of their fortifications may yet be seen. A 

 battle was fought very near Osterfield, probably under the 

 command of Ostorius ; and, as might be expected, the 

 poor Britons were routed with great slaughter. Those 

 who escaped fled again into the woods. The conquerors 

 followed up their victor}*-, and carried death and destruc- 

 tion into the great forest. Taking the advantage of a strong 

 westerly wind, they set fire to the pine or fir trees, of 

 which this forest principally consisted, and thus destroyed 

 the greater part of them. Their own soldiers and the 

 captive Britons cut down the remainder. It is well 

 known that the timber found there under ground lies 

 from west to east, or rather inclining a little toward the 

 south and north of these points, the very way in which 

 we are told the wind blew. 



" Several of the Roman historians inform us that when 

 Suetonius Paulinus conquered Angelsea, he ordered all 

 the woods to be cut down there, in the same manner in 

 which the Roman generals had done in England. Edward 

 I., about the year 1281, being unable to get at the 

 Welsh, because of their hiding-places of refuge in the 

 woods, ordered that the trees should all be destroyed by 

 fire and axe;* and it is probable that those found in 

 Pembrokeshire and the adjoining counties are the 

 effects of this order. Giraldus Cambrensis, who accom- 

 panied Henry II. to the first conquest of Ireland, in 1171 

 or 1172, and was secretary to King John in 1185, states 

 that the country was very woody, and that Henry ordered 

 all the woods on the low lands to be cut down to deprive 

 the thieves and rogues of their places of refuge and 

 starting holes, with which these woods swarmed." 



* Holinshed. 



