ROYAL CHASE OF SHIRLOT. 39 



dogs, early matins, and tlie huntsman's bugle 

 horn harmoniously blending in the neighbourhood of 

 the forest. Hugh Montgomery in his day gave 

 to the abbey a tithe of the venison which he took in 

 its woods, and in 1190 we find the Prior of Wen- 

 lock giving twenty merks to the king that he may 

 " have the Wood of Shirlott to himself, exempt from 

 view of foresters, and taken out of the Regard/' As 

 we have already shown, the priors had a park at 

 Madeley, they had one at Oxenbold, and they also 

 had privileges over woods adjoining the forest of the 

 Clees, where the Cliffords exercised rights ordinarily 

 belonging to royal proprietors, and where their 

 foresters carried things with such a high hand, and 

 so frequently got into trouble with those of the 

 priors, that the latter were glad to accept an arrange- 

 ment, come to after much litigation in 1232, by 

 which they were to have a tenth beast only of those 

 taken in their own woods at Stoke and Ditton, and 

 of those started in their demesne boscs, and taken 

 elsewhere. These boscs appear to have been wood- 

 land patches connecting the long line of forest 

 stretching along the flanks of the Clee Hills with 

 that on the high ground of Shirlot and, as in the 

 case of others even much further removed, their 



