FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



woods to be raised that the number of the trees sold may be trebled by 

 that planting, and whether the aldermores (i.e. little bogs), lops of 

 thorns, and such like underwoods will be sufficient for continuing the 

 enclosure.' 



Under Charles I. certain abuses of the forest laws were again 

 revived. He alienated large portions of the Crown forest lands by 

 grant and sale, while he endeavoured to claim and to possess himself 

 of tracts previously leased by Elizabeth and James I. Straining the 

 laws he made the chief justice in eyre hold a justice seat annually in 

 place of only once in three years, and juries were suborned to find by 

 inquisition the king's title to such lands. Charles' action in endeavour- 

 ing to extend the boundaries of the royal forests and the territories 

 to which the forest laws applied, was curbed by An Act for the Certainty 

 of Forests, and of the Meets, Meers, Limits, and Bounds of the Forests (anno 

 1 6, cap. xvi. 1640 A.D.), better known as the 'Act for the Limitation of 

 Forests.' This determined the limits and boundaries of the royal forests, 

 once and for ever, as being what they had been in the twentieth year of 

 the reign of James I. ' any Perambulation or Perambulations, Presentments, 

 Extents, Surveys, "Judgments, Records, Decrees, or other Matter or Thing 'what- 

 soever to the contrary notwithstanding' for the no longer loyal Commons 

 'in this present Parliament assembled' were tired of the grinding oppres- 

 sion and vexatious tyranny of the forest laws and were resolved to end the 

 nuisance. Where no justice seat, swainmote, court of attachment, etc., 

 had been held within sixty years, such place was not to be accounted 

 forest ; commissions were to be issued for ascertaining the boundaries of 

 all forests, as in 1622, and lands thus disafforested were to be excluded 

 from the forests subject to forest laws ; and the tenants, owners, etc., of 

 such excluded lands were to enjoy their ancient rights of ' Common and 

 other Profits and Easements within the Forest? This gave the death-blow 

 to the previous tyranny of the forest laws, and it very speedily led to the 

 virtual abolition of the forest courts. Indirectly it also gave fresh impetus 

 to the transformation of woodland tracts into arable and pasture lands, 

 while wholesale clearance and sale of timber turned many wooded parts 

 of England into stretches of barren moor and heathy waste. With the 

 greatest of the naval dockyards situated in Hants, this county must prob- 

 ably have felt in a very considerable degree these indirect effects of the 

 Act of Limitations. 



The only Act of Charles II., except that already mentioned (p. 427), 

 applying generally to woodlands throughout England was An Act for 

 the Punishment of unlawful cutting and stealing, or spoiling of Wood and 

 "Underwood, and Destroyers of young Timber-trees (15, cap. ii. 1663), ampli- 

 fying and extending Elizabeth's Act of 1601 to misdemeanants, procurers, 

 and receivers, and ordaining punishment of suitable damages to the 

 owner and a fine up to IO.T., or in default thereof a whipping and up to 

 a month's detention in the house of correction, for the first conviction, 

 one month's hard labour in the house of correction for a second offence, 



and on a third conviction they ' shall be taken, adjudged and deemed as 



429 



