255 



(4) Again, under each of these, let there be two of the lower class of men 

 which the English call tinemen ; (or in modern phrase, grooms) : these shall take 

 the night charge of vert and venison, and do the servile work. 



(5) If anyone of this lower class shall be a slave, so soon as he is placed in 

 our forest, let him be free, and we therefore discharge him from bondage. 



(6, 7, 8) Relate to outfit. 



(9) Relates to exemption from all summons and popular pleas (hundred 

 laghe) hundred courts, and from all summons to any other court, except that of 

 the forest. 



(10) Let the causes of the middling and lower officers, and the correction of 

 them, as well civil as criminal, be judged and decided by the provident reason 

 and wisdom of the first class ; but the enormities of the first class, if any should 

 happen, (lest any crime shonld go unpunished), we will punish ourselves in our 

 royal anger. 



(28) Let no one cut any of our wood, or underwood, without leave of the 

 chiefs of the forest ; which if anyone do, he shall be adjudged guilty of an 

 infringement of the royal chase. 



(29) But if anyone shall cut down an oak (ilicen) or any tree that furnishes 

 food for the beasts of the forest, beside infringement of the royal chase, he shall 

 pa}'' to the king twenty shillings. 



(30) I will that eveiy free man shall have venison or vert at pleasure in his 

 open grounds, (plana) on his own lands, but without chase (or the right of punish- 

 ing intruders); and let all avoid mine (venison or vert), wherever I think proper 

 to have it. 



(ol to 34) concern dogs and mad dogs. The term forest law is to be under- 

 stood as applying to large tracts of enclosed land, where deer used to be kept. 

 As the deer in those forests, and consequently the right of hunting them, were 

 deemed to belong to the Crown, the forest themselves were brought under the 

 same class of laws without reference to the deer ; and they remained in this state, 

 though the trees should fail the laws being executed by the crown with the right 

 of forest-age, and all. the privilege of royal forests." 



The laws of Canute were afterwards confirmed by divers succeeding kin->, 

 though in practice they generally appear to have been little if anything more 

 than the will of the Crown, and were so administered until the barons and 

 others encamped in hostile array on Runningmede from Monday the fifteenth to 

 Friday the nineteenth of June, 1215 ; during which time they were activdy 

 employed in rough hewing the broad basis on which the bulwarks of our liberty 

 are built, by forming the Magna Charta with King John. 



The Magna Charta of 9th Henry III., Chap. 21, was the Char/" Forestce of 



1 February 10, 1225. 



Many liberties were then granted, and customs defined, but the restriction on 

 cuttino- of wood appears to have been considerably felt. 



The 13th of Edward the III., Chap. 1 and 2, gave considerable liberty for 

 cutting and carrying wood, but it was to be done within view of the keepers of 



the forest. 



In the 17th and 25th of Henry VIII., there are several acts respecting the 

 forests, but they are principally modifications of former acts. 



Iii the 35th of this rei^n was passed an Act for the preservation of wood, but 

 principally respecting coal and billet wood. In Chap. 17, an Act for the preser- 

 vation of" timber, we find: "The king, our sovereign, perceiving and right well 

 knowino- the great decay of timber and wood universally within the realm of 

 England, and that, unless a speedy remedy in that behalf be provided, there is a 

 great and manifest likelihood of scarcity and lack, as well for building houses and 



