FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



centuries the statements of the monkish historians seem to have been 

 accepted without question until Richard Warner and Gough (vide Mr. 

 Round's article in vol. i. p. 41 1), both in 1789, made out a good case for 

 discrediting them to a great extent as but highly coloured versions of 

 what actually did take place. The indictment cannot be better given 

 here than in Warner's own words l : 



FORESTA. A forest in general : but it more particularly means, here, the New 

 Forest, a tract of land which the Conqueror had afforested, a few years before the 

 time of the survey. William of Malmesbury, H. Huntingdon, Walter Mapes, and 

 some other prejudiced monkish writers, have vilified the Norman for this measure, 

 which they reprobate as an act of merciless injustice. But a perusal of that part of 

 our extract which relates to the forest, will convince us they cannot altogether have 

 adhered to truth in their account of this transaction. We shall there find that the 

 lands comprised in this tract appear, from their low valuation in the time of the Con- 

 fessor, to have always been unproductive in comparison with other parts of the 

 kingdom ; and that notwithstanding this pretended devastation they sunk (in many 

 instances) but little in their value after their afforestment. So that the fact seems to 

 have been, William, finding this tract in a barren state, and yielding but little profit, 

 and beingly strongly attached to the pleasures of the chase, converted it into a royal 

 forest, without being guilty of those violences to the inhabitants, which the above- 

 mentioned writers complain of. 



From the above, Warner seems to have been too much of an apolo- 

 gist for the Conqueror. William wished the royal hunting-grounds 

 enlarged and more strictly dealt with : sic vo/o, sic jubeo : and it was done. 

 The individual feelings of the landowners and the villeins concerned 

 were probably rather ruthlessly dealt with, and the fraud practised re- 

 garding the forgery of the supposititious Charta Canuti shows that there 

 was not likely to be any sticking at trifles. But things almost as nasty as 

 the monks said about William have been said of the great afforestations 

 or ' reserved forests ' made within the last quarter of a century by the 

 Government of India for the benefit of the people, of agriculture, and of 

 the State. 



The manner in which the afforestation of the New Forest was 

 carried out may perhaps be very fairly shown by the following entries 

 relative to part of the terra regis or 'king's lands' in the hundreds of Ring- 

 wood and Boldre, the former of which seems to have comprised some of 

 the largest of then still wooded tracts, judging from the assessment of one 

 holding alone as containing ' si/va de 189 porcis, de fasnagio,' 



pauperiem redigant ; semper enim Normannorum domini cum hostes contriverint, et crudelius 

 agere nequeant, suos hostiliter conterunt. 



Besides thus reproducing Henry of Huntingdon's version of the afforestation, John of Brompton 

 again refers to the matter in thus describing the death of William Rufus in 1 100 (op.cit. column 996): 



Cumque rex WilRelmut patrio more ad natale apud Gloverniam, ad pascha apud Wyntoniam, 

 ad pentecostem apud Londonlam curiam suam gloriose tenuisset, ad novam regiam forestam 

 Anglice YCHENK dictam, quam pater suus WtUielmta bastardus hominibus fugatis, desertis villis, 

 et subreptis ecclesias per xxx. et eo amplius miliaria in saltus, et lustra ferarum redigerat, iiij. 

 nonas Augusti feria quinta venatum ivit, ubi quidam miles Franeui Walterus cognomine Tyrell 

 sagittam cervo incaute dirigens, regem casu, infortuito non voluntarie ad mortem percussit. 



1 See R. Warner's Hampshire extracted from Domesday Book (1789), Glossary, p. 4, article 'Foresta.' 



419 



