50 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 



bulated. Extortion and oppression by Foresters 

 again becoming rife, a further statute was issued 

 in 1352, ordaining that 'No Forester nor keeper 

 of Forest or Chase, nor none other Minister, shall 

 make or gather Sustenance, nor no other Gather- 

 ing of Victuals, nor other thing, by Colour of 

 his Office, against any Man's Will, within their 

 Bailiwick nor without, but that which is due of 

 ancient Right/ 



Further concessions were demanded from 

 Richard II., but the next legislation only took 

 place during the last year of the reign of Edward 

 IV. (1483), authorising the cutting and sale of 

 woods, and their enclosure for a term of seven 

 years, 'with sufficient Hedges able to keep out 

 all manner of Beasts and other Cattle out of the 

 same Ground for the Preservation of their young 

 Spring.' In this statute, for the first time in the 

 history of England, it is recognised that a subject 

 may own a forest. 1 Hitherto a forest had been 

 a royal monopoly ; and perhaps the insertion of 



1 The statute begins thus : 'If any of the King's subjects, 

 having Woods of his own, growing on his own Ground, within 

 any Forest, Chase or Purlieu of the same within this realm of 

 England, shall cut, or cause to be cut, the same Wood or part 

 thereof, by Licence of the King or his Heirs, in his Forests, 



