ANIMALS OF THE 



means of subsistence from the lands they had con- 

 quered, their chiefs and leaders began to appro- 

 priate the right of hunting, and, instead of a na- 

 tural right, to make it a royal one. When the 

 Saxon kings, therefore, had established them- 

 selves in a heptarchy, the chases were reserved 

 by each sovereign for his own particular amuse- 

 ment. Hunting and war, in those uncivilized 

 ages, were the only employments of the great. 

 Their active but uncultivated minds were sus- 

 ceptible of no pleasures but those of a violent 

 kind, such as gave exercise to their bodies, and 

 prevented the uneasiness of thinking. But as the 

 Saxon kings only appropriated those lands to the 

 business of the chase which were unoccupied be- 

 fore, so no individuals received any injury. But 

 it was otherwise when the Norman kings were 

 settled upon the throne. The passion for hunt- 

 ing was then carried to an excess, and every civil 

 right was involved in general ruin. This ardour 

 for hunting was stronger than the consideration 

 of religion, even in a superstitious age. The vil- 

 lage communities, nay, even the most sacred edi- 

 fices, were thrown down, and all turned into one 

 vast waste, to make room for animals, the objects 

 of a lawless tyrant's pleasure. Sanguinary laws 

 were enacted to preserve the game ; and, in the 

 reigns of William Rufus and Henry the First, it 

 was less criminal to destroy one of the human 

 species than a beast of chase. Thus it continued 

 while the Norman line filled the throne ; but 

 when the Saxon line was restored, under Henry 

 the Second, the rigour of the forest laws was soft- 



