196 THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND 



question was raised whether such leases were not equivalent 

 to disafforesting. 



In Michaelmas term, 1559, Thomas Wynston, Esquire, of 

 Windley Hill claiming the two parks of Shottle and Postern, 

 within Duffield Frith, by a forty years' lease from Philip and 

 Mary, at a rental of 86, and, for a further sum of 43 12^., 

 full licence to take and use the deer within the two parks at 

 his will and pleasure complained that Sir John Byron, 

 Francis Curson, Esquire, Edmund Tetlowe, and Richard 

 Kaye last May entered the parks, killed many of the deer, 

 carried away 1,000 loads of underwood, and continued to occupy 

 and hold the parks, and thus hindered the complainant in paying 

 his rent to the duchy. 



There is no extant reply to this complaint, but in the follow- 

 ing year the question was again raised on another charge. 



In 1560 Thomas Wynston, of Windley Hill, complained 

 to the chancellor (Sir Ambrose Cave) that he held a lease 

 on yearly payment of 86 from Philip and Mary of Shottle 

 park, within Duffield Frith, which was a paled enclosure 

 beyond man's memory, and within which there was "free 

 warren of dere and other game of venerie," but that John 

 Wigley, yeoman of Wirksworth, on 3rd January, " entered 

 into the said parke and there hunted without lycence and 

 kylled there certin dere as well as of season as note of season, 

 and the same trespas hath combyned by the space of sundrie 

 dayes and after to the utter destruction of the dere and game 

 to the disinheritance of the Quene . . . and to the damages 

 of the said Informer one hundred poundes." To this bill 

 John Wigley made answer that the letters patent of Philip 

 and Mary granting the deer of Shottle park to the com- 

 plainant had caused the enclosure to be disparked, and that 

 the defendant " claiminge to come by the said parke havinge 

 a brace of greyhounds with hym, the same greyhoundes dyd 

 verie soddenly breake from hym, and havinge a deere in the 

 winde came at the said deer and kylled it " ; that he never 

 hunted there again, and that, knowing that the complainant 

 was killing off the deer and disposing of them, was not aware 

 that he had committed any offence against the laws of the 

 realm. 



In the following year the Crown confirmed to Thomas 



