20 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



Laws, and disafforested certain tracts in order to 

 ingratiate himself with the people. One of his 

 acts of this sort was to confirm by charter an 

 ancient privilege of the citizens of London with 

 regard to coursing in Middlesex, Surrey, and 

 Wiltshire. Later on, however, Henry showed 

 the same tendency to severity, and the same 

 desire to keep to himself the right of hunting 

 throughout the kingdom as his father and grand- 

 father had done. He added large tracts to the 

 royal afforestations previously made by these 

 sovereigns. Accordingly, when his nephew, 

 Stephen, came to the throne he was likewise in 

 his turn full of concessions, and anxious to con- 

 ciliate the barons and the people at large. At 

 his first great Council he granted a charter pro- 

 mising disafforestation of all tracts afforested by 

 Henry, but he failed to keep this promise, and 

 even seized again the forests made by William 

 II. which Henry had given up. 



During the unsettled times of Henry and 

 Stephen many encroachments and trespasses were 

 made in the king's forests, but from the accession 

 of Henry II., the first of the Plantagenet line, the 

 Forest Laws and their administration occupied an 



