142 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



which might be copiced in divers parts thereof for increase of wood 

 and timber, lately sore decayed and spoyled." 



After giving the bounds and acreage of the four wards 

 then extant, and naming the former fifth ward of Uttoxeter, 

 the survey enumerates the ten parks within the forest, but 

 Rowley Park had been granted by Henry VIII. to Justice 

 Fitzherbert and his heirs. 



The size of the nine parks of Castle, Castlehay, Rolleston, 

 Stokeley, Hanbury, Barton, Shireholt, Highlands, and Agards- 

 ley, with the number of deer and condition of timber in each, 

 are also duly set forth. 



Elizabethan records of Needwood woodmotes are numerous. 

 A woodmote was held at Birkley on iyth August, 1581, before 

 George, Earl of Shrewsbury, high steward of the whole honor 

 of Tutbury, in person. The jury were William Rolleston, 

 Esquire ; Humphrey Minors, William Agard, and Arthur 

 Whittington, gentlemen, and eleven yeomen. The con- 

 victions for various forms of vert offences were unusually 

 numerous at this court, as well as a few cases of pasturing 

 sheep and cart-horses in the forest. The penalties exacted 

 amounted to 9 i$s. 4^. 



The next woodmote was held at Tutbury on i6th July, 

 1582, when the fines reached the exceptionally high total of 

 22 is. $d. Two or three persons were fined on this occasion 

 for not taking their pigs out of the forest wards during 'Me 

 fence monethe." 



At the pannage court held at Newborough in November of 

 this year, the fees for the pigs amounted to 48.?. \\d. 



There are several rolls extant of woodmote courts of the 

 reigns of James I. and Charles I., but they contain nothing of 

 particular moment. 



In 1654 ^e forest of Needwood was offered for sale "for the 

 satisfaction of the soldiery." The knights, gentlemen, and 

 other inhabitants of twenty-one of the adjoining villages 

 and townships thereupon petitioned Oliver Cromwell, point- 

 ing out the injustice of enclosing the forest area then reduced 

 to 5,600 acres, and only worth about $s. an acre whereby the 

 old charter rights of many would be lost, and a great number 

 of ancient cottagers deprived of the relief afforded by the 



