THE FOREST OF WINDSOR 299 



men of Surrey encouraged rather than checked outbreaks of 

 daylight poaching, hunting in companies of eighty or a hun- 

 dred ; at the latter date the exemption from forest law of the 

 whole of Surrey, save Guildford park, was definitely accepted. 



In 1640, the grand jury of the county of Berks complained 

 as to " the innumerable red deer in the forest (Windsor), which 

 if they go on so for a few years more, will neither leave food 

 nor room for any other creature in the forest." They also pro- 

 tested against the rigid enactment of the forest laws and the 

 inordinate fees exacted by some of the forest ministers. In 

 the following year a great tumult arose ; the people round the 

 New Lodge, in a riotous fashion, killed 100 fallow deer, in 

 addition to some red deer, and threatened to pull down the 

 pales of that park. The Earl of Holland was then constable of 

 park and forest, and he obtained authority for the sheriff of 

 Berks to raise the power of the county to apprehend the per- 

 sons engaged in this riot. But in 1642 the Long Parliament 

 took possession of Windsor. 



It is in Windsor Park, says Mr. Menzies, that "the oldest 

 authenticated regular plantation in England can be shown." 

 In 1625, Richard Daye wrote to Secretary Conway, mention- 

 ing a proposal that he had previously made for "sowing 

 convenient places in Windsor forest with acorns, which had 

 been favourably received by the late king," and asking that 

 the project might be laid before Charles I. To this letter he 

 attached a statement to the effect that, in 1580, by order of Lord 

 Burleigh, thirteen acres within Cranborne Walk had been 

 impaled and sown with acorns, which had by that time (after 

 forty-five years' growth) become u a wood of some thousands 

 of tall young oaks, bearing acorns, and giving shelter to 

 cattle, and likely to prove as good timber as any in the king- 

 dom." It has been assumed, on excellent grounds, that the 

 plantation here referred to is the large group of oaks at the 

 'back of the park bailiff's house in the direction of Cranborne. 



Under the Commonwealth, although Sir Bulstrode White- 

 lock, constable of the castle and keeper of the forest, was 

 himself a sportsman, the deer disappeared from the Great 

 Park, and only a few remained in the forest. Much of the 

 finest timber was felled, but chiefly for navy purposes. At the 

 Restoration, Charles II., as has been already seen, took some 



