174 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



at the same place on 2nd May, 1567, twenty-one persons were 

 fined for similar offences. 



The disputes as to the respective rights of deer and sheep 

 became more intensified during the reign of Elizabeth. In 1561 

 Stephen Bagott, of Hilton, Staffordshire, gentleman, occupier 

 of the "Champyon of the Quenes majesties forest of the Peake," 

 by lease under Edward Lord Hastings, of Loughborough, the 

 queen's farmer, complained to the chancellor (Sir Ambrose 

 Cave) that George Blackwell, Thomas Bagshawe, and other 

 servants of George Earl of Shrewsbury (Justice in Eyre of 

 the Forest and High Steward of the Honor of Tutbury), 

 claimed, as foresters, to have rights of herbage, pasture, 

 turbary, and feeding for deer over the Champyon, which was 

 a part of the forest, "a verie barren country of wood or tyn- 

 sell," 1 contrary to all ancient usage. Blackwell and the other 

 foresters, with their servants to the number of nineteen persons, 

 were definitely charged with having on Monday in Easter week, 

 4 and 5 Philip and Mary, violently and by force of arms taken 

 400 wethers and 400 ewes, some with lambs, feeding on the 

 Champyon, and impounded them within the castle of the Peak, 

 and kept them there till the following Friday without either 

 meat or water, by reason of which impounding divers of the 

 wethers, ewes, and lambs died, causing damage to Bagott of 

 20 or more. 



A further petition of the same Stephen Bagott complained 

 that, in spite of the orders of the court, Robert Eyre and 

 other foresters continued to molest the horses, mares, colts, 

 and sheep feeding on the Champyon and to impound them in 

 Peak Castle, especially last Easter, with the result of the loss 

 of 500 sheep, in addition to the payment of heavy impounding 

 fees. 



The defendants filed a reply to the effect that they were the 

 servants of the Earl of Shrewsbury, Justice in Eyre and 

 High Steward of the Honor of Tutbury, of which the cham- 

 pagne of Peak Forest was a parcel ; that this champagne was 

 ' 'the principall parte of the seid forest wherein the Quenes 

 majesties deer hath their onlye feedinge and sustenaunce " ; 

 that the earl, riding through the forest on the last 4th 

 of March, perceived a great number of sheep depastur- 



1 Tynsell, or tinsel, was small dry wood, such as was collected for heating" ovens. 



