146 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



gating. The exigencies of space prohibit more than very brief 

 references to them in these pages. 



Cannock Chase, notwithstanding its name, was an exten- 

 sive royal forest. It seems to have taken its title from the Bishop 

 of Lichfield's Chase, fifteen miles in circuit, which was within 

 the forest limits, and proved a constant source of grievance to 

 the king's foresters. General Wrottesley has printed the pleas 

 of the forest of Cannock for 1262, 1271, and 1286, in Vol. V. 

 of Historical Collections for a History of Staffordshire (1884) ; 

 they abound in interest as to the venison and vert present- 

 ments, and the assarts and wastes of woods that came before 

 the justices at these eyres. A venison offender in 1271 was 

 pardoned, for the soul of the king, because he was poor 

 and a minstrel, and two others were respited and forgiven 

 non-attendance because they were in the Holy Land. One 

 Thomas de Bromley, a very frequent malefactor of venison, 

 and often indicted for trespasses in the king's forests in 

 Staffordshire and Salop, was caught with bow and arrows 

 in the bailiwick of Teddesley, on Tuesday after the Feast 

 of St. Gregory, 1267, by Walter de Elmedon, forester-of-fee 

 of that bailiwick, and Roger de Pecham, riding forester for 

 the whole forest. The foresters challenged him, whereupon 

 Thomas climbed up an oak tree and shot arrows at them, until 

 they took him by force and delivered him to the warden of the 

 castle of Bridgnorth. There were many presentments at this 

 eyre for the killing of roe deer. 



Hugh de Evesham, a former riding forester, with other ex- 

 foresters, were presented for stopping all carts passing through 

 their bailiwicks with salt and other merchandise on the high 

 roads, taking 4^. at least in the name of cheminage, and for 

 other carts, I.F., and in some cases 2s. And this was done 

 when the carts were not laden with timber or brushwood or 

 anything from the forest, and when the carters were committing 

 no forest trespass. 



In 1276 when the king's huntsmen were hunting in Cannock 

 Chase, they put up a hart with their dogs and followed it to 

 Brewood Park. There John de la Wytemore came up with 

 bow and arrow and shot at it ; the hart fled out of the forest to the 

 fishpond of the nuns of Brewood. John followed it and dragged 

 it out dead from the pond. Then John Gyffard, of Chyllynton, 



