SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



palace ceased to be a royal residence that 

 sport in the parks was finally abandoned. 63 



Somewhat similar, though of a less eventful 

 character, is the history of another notable 

 royal hunting domain which was of much 

 greater extent than the honour of Hampton 

 Court. Enfield Chase, one of the earliest 

 references to which is in a record of 1236," 

 is stated by Camden to have been ' an exten- 

 sive tract of land formerly covered with trees ' 

 and ' famous for deer hunting,' which had 

 passed from the possession of the Mandevilles 

 to the Bohuns and then to the Duchy of 

 Lancaster. 66 



Queen Elizabeth, who for a time resided 

 at Enfield House, hunted in Enfield Chase. 

 That her subjects sometimes endeavoured to 

 follow her example without her permission is 

 shown by the conviction on 23 May 1574 

 of William Padye, ' gentleman,' of Hadley, and 

 a ' husbandman ' and a ' yeoman ' of South 

 Mimms for breaking into the Chase and killing 

 ' unam damam ' 66 ; on 27 July of the same 

 year Henry Lawrence of Hadley was found 

 guilty of a similar offence. 87 The inclosure 

 of 500 acres of the Chase in Theobalds Park 

 was made by James I. That Theobalds con- 

 tinued, however, for some years after to be 

 regarded as still part of the Chase is shown 

 by a true bill returned 4 August 1845 against 

 three yeomen of Enfield for 



entering with bows and arrows and other apparatus 

 for hunting, and without licence, the King's park 

 . . . used for the preservation of deer and 

 commonly called Theobalds Parke in Enfield 



and ' killing and taking away two stags worth 

 ^5.' 68 Fond as he was of Theobalds, 

 James I frequently hunted in Enfield Chase 

 as he is represented as doing in Sir Walter 

 Scott's Fortunes of Nigel and, as in the case 

 of Hampton Court Honour, he took care that 

 it should be abundantly stocked with deer. 69 

 In his reign we find Philip Hammond of 

 London, 'gentleman,' charged on 6 March 

 1610 with 'shootynge in a piece on His 

 Majesty's Chase,' 60 and in 1649, tne 7 ear 

 before the Parliamentary Survey, there are two 



63 Law, Hut. of Hampton Court, iii, 220, 241 ; 

 and cf. Lord Ribblesdale, The Queen's Hounds and 

 Stag-hunting Recollections, 29, 30. 



M Chart. R. 19 Edw. II, m. 16; Lysons, Environs 

 of Land. 280. 



54 Cf. W. Robinson, Hist, and Antiq. of Enfield, 

 (1823), 175-6. 



66 Midd. County Rec. i, 187. " Ibid. 1 8 8. 



M Ibid, iii, 93, 94. 



69 Robinson, Hist, of Enfield, 197 ; cf. Nichols, 

 Progresses of James I, ii, 101. 



60 Ibid, ii, 62. 



convictions, on 15 and 18 July, recorded for 

 entering the Chase and killing deer ' with 

 guns charged with gunpowder and bullets.'* 1 

 The later history of the Chase cannot be 

 narrated here, but some reference to it will be 

 found in the article on Forestry. 



In addition to the Chase in the north- 

 eastern and the honour of Hampton in the 

 south-eastern extremity of the county, Middle- 

 sex possessed an exceptional number of parks 

 inclosed tracts of land for the creation 

 of which by a subject a licence, though 

 unnecessary during the Plantagenet reigns, 

 was always required under the Tudor and 

 Stuart dynasties. The beasts ferae naturae, 

 almost exclusively deer, contained in them 

 were the private property of the owner. Some 

 reference to the more important of these parks 

 will be found elsewhere in these volumes ; 

 but it may be noted that they comprised 

 Hyde Park, though there was probably little or 

 no hunting in it after the Restoration, as we 

 find Pepys and Evelyn both alluding to the park 

 as famous for horse, and foot, and coach 

 races. 62 That deer were maintained there 

 during the seventeenth century is, however, 

 evident from a report of the Surveyor-General 

 of Woods to the Lords of the Treasury on 

 II June 1695, with respect to repairs in 

 Hyde Park costing 425 191. 2^., and 200 

 for hay for the deer and for the salaries of 

 the under-keepers, 63 and there appear to have 

 been still some remaining there in the early 

 part of the nineteenth century. 64 



It is noteworthy, having regard to the num- 

 ber and extent of the royal preserves, that the 

 cases dealing with ' breaking into and enter- 

 ing ' mentioned in the Middlesex County 

 Records, which extend from the accession of 

 Queen Elizabeth to the Restoration, are so 

 few ; and also that, with the exception of an 

 offence in 1576 at Osterley Park, the object 

 of which seems to have been firewood rather 

 than game, 66 they should all relate to royal 

 parks. During the whole of this period there 

 appear to be only two records with respect 

 to similar offences in connexion with the 

 property of private individuals. One of these 

 is in 1569, when Mathew Vincent of Icken- 

 ham, ' not having lands, tenements or rents 

 or service to value of 40*.,' is convicted of 



61 Ibid, iii, 190, 191. 



"* Memoirs and Diary of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S. 

 (ed. by Lord Braybrooke), i, 131; Evelyn's Diary 

 and Correspondence (ed. 1902), i, 345 ; Henry B. 

 Wheatley, Land. Past and Present, ii, 250. 



" Cat. of Treasury Papers, 1557-1 696, xxiii, 



447- 



64 Shirley, Deer Parks, 56. 

 *> Midd. Co. Rec. i, 198. 



257 



33 



