ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 19 



section in which Canute is made to say, * I will 

 that every freeman may take his own vert, or 

 venison, or hunting, that he can get upon his own 

 ground, or in his own fields, being out of my 

 Chase ; and let all men refrain from my venery 

 in every place where I will have the same.' 



So insupportable became these cruel hardships 

 under the Forest Laws, that even the Norman 

 barons, as well as those Englishmen who still 

 retained some of their ancestral lands, became 

 zealous for their relaxation and amendment. 

 Whereas William I. punished offences against 

 them with mutilation, instead of by the fine for- 

 merly imposed, William II. increased the areas 

 reserved as royal forests, and exacted the death 

 penalty, sometimes even against Norman barons 

 of high rank, though united to him by ties of 

 blood. So oppressively were the laws adminis- 

 tered and exceeded during the reign of William 

 Rufus, that his detestable tyranny lived long in 

 the remembrance of the people, while the circum- 

 stances of his tragic death in the New Forest 

 were deemed the special punishment of Heaven. 



So much so was this the case that his son and 

 successor, Henry I., relaxed these Norman Forest 



