ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 25 



trative of royal procedure in those early days, that 

 this ordinance was put forward as invalidating all 

 previous grants unless renewed on payment. 

 Then again the barons had to make a firm stand 

 against the tendency to encroachment shown by 

 the king, who had once more afforested lands that 

 had been disafforested by perambulation, and had 

 also made warrens in tracts disafforested by charter. 



The most famous and valuable charter of 

 liberty in this respect was, however, the cele- 

 brated Charta de Foresta of 1225, granted in the 

 ninth year of the reign of Henry III., when he 

 was still only eighteen years of age and under 

 regency ; and perhaps the most important portion 

 of it was contained in the opening words of the 

 tenth section, ' No man from henceforth shall lose 

 neither Life nor Member for killing our Deer.' 



From the time when William I. caused the 

 so-called laws of Canute to be forged down to 

 the Forest Charter of 1217, the kings had claimed 

 the right of forming a royal forest wherever they 

 liked. ' What I wish, I will have/ was the law 

 in practice. The king merely issued a commis- 

 sion under his great seal, setting forth that his 

 royal pleasure was to make a forest in any given 



