162 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND , 



in the earl's train during these three forest affrays hardly any 

 bore Derbyshire names, but came from the counties of War- 

 wick, Leicestershire, Lancashire, York, Cambridge, etc. It has 

 been strangely enough remarked by the only writer who has 

 hitherto cited these presentments (Mr. Yeatman) that "these 

 tremendous charges," made long after the earl was dead, "are 

 utterly incomprehensible," adding that it seems impossible to 

 suppose that the earl had not full licence from the Crown to 

 indulge in hunting in the royal forest ! But this writer had 

 clearly forgotten the date of these forest invasions of the young 

 and impetuous Earl Ferrers. It was in 1264, in the very thick 

 of the baronial civil war under Simon de Montfort, of whose 

 cause Robert Ferrers was a hot partisan. On I2th May was 

 fought the battle of Lewes, when the king's forces under 

 Prince Edward (Edward I.) were defeated by those of the 

 barons. For two or three years from that date, as an old 

 chronicler has it, "there was grievous perturbation in the 

 centre of the realm," in which Derbyshire pre-eminently 

 shared. There can be no doubt whatever that the three incur- 

 sions made into the Peak Forest in July, August, and Septem- 

 ber, following the battle of Lewes, were undertaken by Robert 

 Ferrers and his allies (issuing forth from his great manor- 

 house of Hartington) much more to show contempt for the 

 king's forest and preserves and to get booty than for any pur- 

 poses of sport. These presentments, if they did nothing else, 

 were a strong protest against the lawlessness of such action. 

 In April of this year Henry III. had come into Derbyshire 

 and lodged for a time at the castle of the Peak after the sub- 

 jection of Nottingham, and it was from here that he proceeded 

 into Kent and Sussex. 



The king's sojourn here before the battle of Lewes is ex- 

 pressly named in another presentment against Thomas de 

 Furnival, the great Lord of Sheffield. Thomas, who was that 

 year bailiff of the Peak, entertained the king at the castle and 

 tarried there until Whitsuntide. On this occasion, after the 

 king had left, the bailiff entered the forest and killed twelve 

 beasts. On various subsequent occasions, both in the reign 

 of Henry III. and Edward I., venison was killed in this forest 

 and taken to Thomas de Furnival's castle at Sheffield. Thomas 

 appeared before the justices, and was convicted and im- 



