32 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



Staffordshire, in the sixteenth century, can be readily estab- 

 lished. James I. hunted the boar in Windsor forest in 1617. 

 Charles II. 's reign is the latest time at which this animal is 

 known to have survived in England in a really wild state. 



The WOLF. The abundance of wolves throughout England 

 in pre-Norman days is borne witness to by the Saxon name for 

 January, namely, the wolf-month. There was probably no 

 part of England where the wolves had surer or more pro- 

 longed retreats than amid the wilds of the Peak Forest and its 

 borders. The last places in this country where they tarried 

 were the Peak, the Lancashire forests of Blackburnshire and 

 Rowland, and the wolds of Yorkshire. It has been confidently 

 asserted (Elaine's Encyclopedia of Rural Sports [1858] p. 105) 

 that entries of payment for the destruction of wolves appear in 

 the account books of certain parishes of the East Riding, pre- 

 sumably of sixteenth or seventeenth century date ; but this on 

 examination proves to be an error. They were abundant in 

 Dean forest in the time of Edward I., and tenures of land 

 in the forests of Rockingham and Sherwood, on the service of 

 wolf-hunting, were renewed in the fifteenth century. The best 

 authorities (such as Harting and Lydekker) consider that 

 wolves did not die out in England until the time of Henry VII., 

 1485-1509. The last wolf was killed in Scotland in 1743. 

 Packs of Irish wolves were not exterminated until 1710, and 

 the last solitary survivor was killed in 1770. Place and field 

 names afford remarkably abundant evidence of the considerable 

 presence of wolves in North Derbyshire. Woolow (formerly 

 spelt Wolflow), Wolfhope, and Wolfscote are well-known ex- 

 amples. Wolfscote Dale, though the term is not often used, 

 is still the map-name for the upper stretch of Dovedale, and 

 Wolfscote Grange and Wolfscote Hill are close to the forest 

 border. On the opposite side of the Dove, in Staffordshire, is 

 the ridge termed Wolfedge. The village boys of Hartington 

 and Beresford Dale used to play at wolves and wolf-hunting in 

 the "forties" of last century, apparently a traditionary game, 

 as stated by the late Mr. Beresford Hope. Five cases of wolf 

 in the field-names of enclosures within the bounds of the old 

 forest have been found, whilst Wolfpit occurs as a boundary of 

 Priestcliffe Common, and Wolfstone of Chinley Common in 

 enclosure commissions, temp. Charles I. 



