204 THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



The tendency to look on the forest as a grazing 

 rather than a sporting estate seems to have been 

 growing steadily during this period. 



In a State paper, vol. 73, No. 50, dated Sep- 

 tember ist, 1570, we find William Cecil, Lord 

 Burghley, writing in his own hand to the Earl of 

 Bedford — though what he had to do with it is not 

 apparent — as follows : — 



To Y* Earl of Bedford. 



We Greet you well. Where^ our trusty and well beloved 

 servant Robert Colshill one of our Gentlemen Pensioners has our 

 present right of ye herbage of our forrest of Exemore, hath been 

 forced for maintenance of our rights, to implead certain psons 

 there in those ptes who refuse to paye such duties for y® herbage 

 of their Cattell in our sayd forrest, as in right they ought, and as 

 by our records we be informed in former tymes hath been 

 answered. 



He goes on to urge the Earl to get the matter 

 settled without litigation if possible. 



How long Mr. Colshill was in occupation we do 

 not know, but subsequently the forest rights were 

 vested in Peter Edgcombe, of Mount Edgcombe, 

 and he, in 1585, mortgaged them to Sir John 

 Poyntz, who appointed Roger Sydenham, of North 

 Quarum, as his ranger. The West Country seems 

 to have been in a very lawless condition, and Mr. 

 Roger Sydenham must have had his hands full to 

 protect the deer. The record of some proceedings 

 in the Star Chamber, in 1 592, printed by the Somerset 

 Record Society, discloses a curious state of affairs. 

 We have, of course, only one side of the story, but 



