1750 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM, PART III. 



1214, issued a mandate to his chief admiral, ordering him to arrest, seize, and 

 make prizes of all ships whatever found therein. In the reign of Edward I., 

 the first admiral was appointed ; and, about 1380, cannons were first used on 

 board ships. The first three-masted vessel was built by Henry VII. ; and 

 Henry VIII. not only built many fine ships, but established the royal dock- 

 yards of Woolwich, Deptford, and Portsmouth ; and made laws for the planting 

 and preservation of oak timber. He was also the last English monarch who 

 employed foreign hired ships of war. Elizabeth and James greatly encouraged 

 the navy, and the planting of oak timber; and Charles I., in 1635-37, built 

 a magnificent vessel, called the Sovereign of the Seas, an oak used in con- 

 structing which produced four beams, each 44 ft. in length, and 4 ft. 9 in. in 

 diameter. This ship, which was afterwards called the Royal Sovereign, was 

 destroyed by fire at Chatham in 1696, after having been upwards of sixty years 

 in the service. ( See Sat. Mag. for 1 834.) 



It is difficult to assign any exact date for the period when oak planta- 

 tions were first made for profit. According to popular tradition, William 

 Rufus was the first who is recorded to have planted oak trees, when, in 1079, 

 he formed the New Forest in Hampshire. But Gilpin appears to think that 

 it is much more probable that he merely thinned out chases in the woods 

 already existing, than that he planted fresh trees. The district of Ytene, in- 

 deed, appears to have been a forest in the time of the Saxons ; and, from the 

 poorness of its soil, to have been thinly populated. Henry of Huntingdon, 

 and the other monkish writers, who relate that William destroyed about fifty 

 parish churches, and as many villages, extirpating their inhabitants to make 

 this forest, were therefore probably guided more by their hatred to the Nor- 

 man monarch, than by a strict adherence to truth. Henry I. enlarged the New 

 Forest, enacting severe laws for securing the timber in that and other woods ; 

 and he appointed proper officers to enforce these laws, and to preserve the 

 royal forests from decay. In Henry II.'s time, England appears to have been 

 nearly covered with wood, consisting principally of oak trees ; and Fitzstephen 

 tells us that a large forest lay round London, " in the coverts whereof, lurked 

 bucks and does, wild boars and bulls." As civilisation advanced, these woods 

 became partially cleared away ; and those which remained were called the 

 Royal Forests, and were retained for the purpose of sheltering game for the 

 diversion of the kings. Henry II. gave a right to the Cistercian Abbey of 

 Flaxley, in the neighbourhood of the Forest of Dean, to erect an iron forge, 

 together with liberty to cut two oak trees weekly, to supply it with fuel. But 

 Henry III. revoked this latter grant, as being prejudicial to the forest ; and a 

 wood, called the Abbot's Wood, was gifted to the abbey in lieu of it. (See 

 Lander's Gilpin, vol. ii. p. 67.) An inquisition was held, in the reign of 

 Henry II., respecting Sherwood Forest, oy which it appears that the right of 

 hunting in it was then considered of great importance ; and an act was passed, 

 in the reign of Henry III. (1231), to define its boundaries. The Forest of 

 Salcey was also formerly one of great importance, and it is frequently men- 

 tioned in the forest laws of different English kings. The forest of Norwood, 

 and several others, were entirely of oak, and, of course, valuable as producing 

 naval timber ; but the two great forests for this purpose were the New Forest 

 and the Forest of Dean. Among all the laws that were passed at different 

 times for regulating the forests, as late as the reign of Henry VII., there ap- 

 pears to have been none enjoining planting ; the cares for the preservation of 

 the forests being chiefly confined to directions as to the proper age and season 

 for felling the trees. Forests, indeed, were so abundant, even in the j*eign of 

 Henry VII., that we are told by Polydore Virgil that they covered one third 

 part of all England ; and the efforts of the people must have been rather 

 directed towards clearing away trees than planting them. About the time of 

 Henry VIII., when, as we have already seen, the use of hired foreign ships of 

 war was discontinued, and several English vessels were built of large size, 

 the first fears respecting a scarcity of oak timber appear to have been felt. 

 Tusser, who wrote about 1562, complains that "men were more studious to 



