CHAPTER XII. 



THE FOREST OF EXMOOR UNDER THE 

 PLANTAGENETS AND TUDORS. 



May a poor huntsman with a merry heart, 

 A voice shall make the forest ring around him, 

 Get leave to live amongst ye ? True as steel, boys, 

 That knows all chases, and can watch all hours. 

 Prick ye the fearful hare thro' crossways, sheep-walks, 

 And force the crafty reynard climb the quicksets ; 

 Rouse ye the lofty stag, and with my bell horn 

 Ring him a knell, that all the woods shall mourn. 



Beaumont and Fletcher {The Beggar's Bush). 



The sale of the office of forester in fee of Exmoor, 

 and of the other forests in Somerset, in 1359, by 

 Roger de Beauchamp to Roger de Mortimer, Earl 

 of March, marks a new era in the history of Exmoor 

 — an era the early part of which is clouded in more 

 dense obscurity than that which overshadowed the 

 earlier period. We have no records of forest courts 

 to help us, and the great lords of the district, such 

 as the Luttrells, Trevelyans, Harringtons, must have 

 been too much engaged in fighting — first the French, 

 and then the causes of York and Lancaster — to 

 spare much time or thought for the hunting of the 

 red deer. The strictness of the Norman foresters 

 was undoubtedly relaxed ; and if the great nobles 



