36 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



particularly in the forest of Pickering, temp. Edward III. 

 Robert Hampton, rector of Middleton, presented at the eyre 

 for keeping four greyhounds and hunting hares at will, made 

 no appearance and was outlawed. Matilda de Bruys was pre- 

 sented as accustomed to hunt and catch hares ; she appeared, 

 was fined 5.?., and found sureties for good behaviour. Peter de 

 Manlay, jun., a man of considerable position, was fined .1 

 for hare hunting, and Sir Nicholas de Menill ,\ 6s. 8d. 

 Others were fined for hare hunting, or hare killing with bow 

 and arrows, from 13.?. 4^. to is. according to their position. 

 How such charges came before the eyre as contrary to the 

 forest assize, becomes clear from the nature of the charge in 

 several of the cases ; the delinquents are described as catching 

 hares in various ways " to the terror of the deer." 



The WILD CAT was usually associated with the fox and hare 

 in chartered rights for forest hunting ; we have found it thus 

 included in forest claims of Pickering, Windsor, Sussex, 

 Cheshire, and Sherwood. 



The wild cat is named by Turbervile, in 1575, as vermin which 

 used to be commonly hunted in England. At that time they 

 were not hunted designedly, but if a hound chanced to cross 

 a wild cat he would hunt it as soon as any chase ''and they 

 make a noble trye for the time that they stand up. At last, 

 when they may no more, they will take a tre, and therein seek 

 to beguile the hounds. But if the hounds hold into them, and 

 will not so give it over, then they leap from one tree to another, 

 and make great shift for their lives, with no less pastime to the 

 huntsmen." The wild cat is now extinct in England ; it is 

 supposed that the last one was shot by Lord Ravensworth in 

 1853, at Eslington, Northumberland. 



The MARTIN is mentioned in two or .three of the forest 

 hunting grants. Thus, Richard Dove, chief forester of Mara 

 and Moudrem, established, at an eyre held at Chester in 1271, 

 his claim to the hunting of foxes, hares, cats, martins, and 

 other vermin with hounds or greyhounds. 



The BADGER is also included in certain grants for forest 

 hunting. This animal is expressly named in Henry III.'s 

 grant in 1252 to Walter Baskerville in the forests of Hereford, 

 Gloucester, Oxford, and Essex; in the 1253 grant to Roger 

 Hardy, burgess of Scarborough, throughout the whole forest 



