FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



It also provided for the enclosure and fencing for four years of cop- 

 pices worked with a rotation of fourteen years or under, under a fine of 

 3 s. 4</. per rood for every month during the four years ' that the same 

 coppice or underwoods shall happen to lie or be unclosed, not fenced, 

 saved, or preserved.' And similarly, coppices worked with a rotation 

 of between fourteen and twenty-four years were to be enclosed and 

 fenced for six years, upon like penalty. When woods or coppices 

 having standards of over twenty-four years in age were felled or thinned 

 ('weeding'), then 'for every acre so felled, twelve trees of oak of the 

 same such great trees ' (or, failing these, of elm, ash, asp or beech) 

 were to be left standing for the next twenty years, and the falls were 

 to be enclosed and fenced for seven years, under penalty of 6s. Sd. 

 per tree felled in excess of this statutory injunction and of 3^. ^d. per 

 rood per mensem for non-inclosure. No coppice woods of two acres 

 or above in extent should be converted after Michaelmas 1544 into pas- 

 ture or tillage, if distant two furlongs from the house of the owner or 

 tenant thereof, under penalty of 40^. per acre thus transformed. 



The Act was intended to prevent further wastage of woods, which 

 had been going on at a rapid rate, and to check reckless sales of timber : 

 but provision was made for meeting all bond fide domestic and agricultural 

 requirements, namely : 



(vi.) Provided always, that it shall be lawful to every owner or owners of any of 

 the said coppice woods, under-woods, standils or storers, great woods and trees afore 

 rehearsed, to fell, cut down and take any of the same for building, repairing, enclosing 

 and maintaining of houses, orchards and gardens, and every of them, and for paling, 

 railing or enclosing of parks, forests, chases or other grounds, and for making and 

 repairing of waterworks, dampness, bridges, floodgates, making, repairing or amending 

 of ships and all other vessels, and for all such things concerning their own uses or 

 affairs, in such like manner and form as he or they should or might lawfully have done 

 before the making of this Act ; anything in this present Act before mentioned to the 

 contrary thereof notwithstanding. 



It further provided, among other things, for fellings and enclosures 

 in woods where commoners had rights of pasture, and ordered that swine 

 ' being of the age of ten weeks or above,' taken to the woods for pannage 

 should be ' sufficiently ringed or pegged,' under a fine of fourpence for 

 each swine. It may be noted that whereas the Act of 1482 was purely 

 permissive and applied only to the royal forests and chases, and their 

 purlieus, this Statute of Woods of 1543 was entirely prohibitive and 

 compulsory, and applied to all woods throughout England. 



The manner in which the woods were ordered to be worked shortly 

 before the passing of this statute is clearly outlined in an Exchequer 

 record dated November 28, 1542 (33 Henry VIII.), in which Wm. 

 Paulet, Lord St. John, the Surveyor-General of all the Crown Woods, gives 

 instructions 'to Robert Dome, Deputy Surveyor of the King's Woods 

 in the County of Southampton,' to the following effect, that ' These 

 shall be on behalf of our said Sovereign Lord to authorize you and your 

 sufficient deputies by these presents not only to Survey the King's said 

 woods both great and small with their values and ages in every Lordship 



445 



