THE KOYAL FOEESTS 

 OF ENGLAND 



CHAPTER I 

 EARLY FORESTS 



FOREST," according to the last edition of the Encyclo- 

 pcedia Britannica, " is a tract of country covered with 

 trees, of one or several species, or with trees and 

 underwood." This has become the popularly accepted mean- 

 ing of the term for several generations, but it is historically 

 false ; and so far as this volume is concerned, we have to go 

 back to Manwood's definition as expressed in his Laives of 

 the Forest (1598), wherein he describes a forest as "a certen 

 territorie of wooddy grounds and fruitfull pastures, priviledged 

 for wild beasts and foules of forrest, chase, and warren, to rest 

 and abide in, in the safe protection of the king, for his princely 

 delight and pleasure." 



But even Manwood, and others who have followed him, are 

 not correct in assuming that the term originally, or of necessity, 

 implied woody grounds or natural woodland. Dr. Wedgwood 

 seems to be right in considering "forest" as a modified form 

 of the Welsh gores, gorest, waste, waste ground ; whence the 

 English word gorse, furze, the growth of waste land. Others 

 consider its derivation to be from the Latin forts, out of doors, 

 the unenclosed open land. From the fact that so many wastes 

 were covered with wood or undergrowth, it gradually came 

 about that the term "forest " was applied to a great wood. 



Perhaps the following definition is as accurate a one as can 

 B 



