A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



forest of Brehull (Brill). The long list of forest 

 officials to whom like communications were 

 made does not include any other reference to 

 Buckinghamshire. 13 



In 1219 the crown ordered general inquisi- 

 tions to be held throughout England as to the 

 assarts or inclosures that had been made within 

 royal forests. These orders for Buckingham- 

 shire were addressed to the sheriff, verderers, and 

 foresters, who were to meet at Buckingham ; 

 the crown named four inquisitors, Simon de 

 Litlinton, Walter de la Haye, Miles Neirnut, 

 and Richard de Stokes, and with them was 

 associated Hugh de Baton as clerk. 14 



The sheriff of Buckinghamshire received the 

 royal mandate, in 1229, to issue summons for 

 a regard of the forests of the county, and to see 

 to the election of regarders in the place of those 

 who had died or were infirm, so that there 

 might be the full complement of twelve in each 

 regard. For the same year Brian de Insula was 

 appointed justice of the forest for Buckingham- 

 shire and several other shires. 16 



Another order for holding a regard was issued 

 in 1235, to prepare for the coming of the justice 

 of the forest. The foresters were to swear to 

 bring twelve knights elected in their bailiwick 

 to view every kind of trespass, as expressed in 

 the chapters of the Regard. 16 



Ranulf Brito, in 1229, obtained letters patent 

 authorizing him to hunt for life with his dogs 

 the hare and the fox, without any interference 

 whatsoever from foresters or their servants, 

 through the whole royal forest in the bailiwick 

 of Hugh de Neville, in the counties of 

 Buckingham and Northampton. 17 



William son of Walter de Bruhull was 

 pardoned by the king, in 1232, for the trespass 

 of skinning a deer that he found dead in this 

 forest ; Peter de Rivallis received orders to 

 release him from prison. 18 



In 1234 John de Neville, the bailiff of the 

 forests between the bridges of Stamford and 

 Oxford, was ordered by the king to kill, salt, 

 and make bacon of the pannage pigs of Brill 

 and other forests of Huntingdonshire and North- 

 amptonshire, and to take ward of it for the king's 

 use. 19 



Various royal gifts out of the forest of Brill 

 are entered on the Close Rolls of Henry III. 

 Thus in 1228 William de Wurdie, servant of 

 Walter de Clifford, was permitted to take forty 

 cartloads of dry brushwood out of the forest of 



11 Pat. 7 Hen. Ill, m. 6. 



14 Ibid. 3 Hen. Ill, m. 4 d. 



16 Ibid, i 3 Hen. Ill, m. 2, 9 d. As to regarders, and 

 the full and independent reports they were expected 

 to draw up every year, see Cox, Royal Forests, IO, 

 1 1 , &c. 



16 Pat. 19 Hen. Ill, m. n d. 



ir Close, 14 Hen. Ill, m. 20. 



18 Ibid. 1 8 Hen. Ill, m. 3. 



19 Ibid. 1 8 Hen. Ill, m. 4. 



Brill, for Walter's hearth. In the same year 

 King John's grant to the canons of Nutley to 

 use two carts, at pleasure, fetching fuel wood 

 from Bernwood Forest, was renewed by Henry 

 III and again confirmed in I23O. 20 The Friars 

 Minor of Oxford received a royal gift from this 

 forest, in January, 1231, of thirteen leafless 

 oaks. 21 Later in the same year Walter de 

 Clifford obtained a considerable gift of building 

 timber from the same forest. 22 



The brethren of the hospital of St. John- 

 without-Oxford obtained five oaks from Brill 

 Forest, together with another five from Shotover 

 Forest, in February, 1232, for the building of 

 their hospital, and in July of the same year ten 

 tie-beams for the hospital chapel to be taken 

 wherever they were most suitable from either 

 of these forests. 23 In 1234 the abbot of Oseney 

 was granted twenty oaks from Brill towards the 

 building of his church, and the lepers of Walling- 

 ford an oak for making shingles to roof their 

 chapel. 24 



Peter de Rivallis, as warden of the forest, was 

 ordered in 1233 to provide the honest men of 

 Oxford with 100 Brill oaks, to be taken where 

 they would be least missed, for building the 

 turrets of the walls round the city of Oxford, 

 and for making planks for the same. 25 



In the following year there is a particularly 

 interesting entry on the Close Rolls relative to 

 the timber of this forest. John de Neville 

 received the royal mandate to supply the iacrist 

 of Abingdon Abbey with four oaks for making a 

 certain cross. 86 



Royal gifts of venison were not infrequent. 

 In 1229 Hugh de Neville, forest justice, was 

 ordered to allow Drogo de Trubleville a buck 

 out of Brill Forest and like gifts to Philippa, the 

 wife of William de Symilly, Drogo's niece, and 

 to Thomas Basset.'' 7 In September of the same 

 year, the king sent Alan de Neville and Roger 

 de Stopham, with their running dogs, to hunt 

 fallow deer in Brill Forest, and instructed 

 John de la Hoes, the forester, to sanction 

 them. 28 Later in the same year Thomas Basset 

 received three does out of this forest, and Gilbert 

 Marshall four does. 29 In 1230 a royal gift was 

 made to Hugh de Plesset of two does, 30 and in 

 1231 two bucks were given to Robert de 

 Curtenay. 31 In the following year John the 

 Fool and Philip his companion, royal huntsmen, 



10 Close, 1 2 Hen. Ill, m. 6. 

 "Ibid. 15 Hen. Ill, m. 19. 

 " Ibid. 



13 Ibid. 16 Hen. Ill, mm. 14, 7. 

 "Ibid. 17 Hen. Ill, mm. 8, 7. 

 "Ibid. 17 Hen. Ill, m. 2. 

 16 Ibid. 1 8 Hen. Ill, m. 10. 

 "Ibid. 13 Hen. Ill, mm. 10, 6. 

 * Ibid. m. 4. 



Ibid. 14 Hen. Ill, pt. i, mm. 23, 22. 



29 



30 Ibid. m. 13. 



"Ibid. 15 Hen. Ill, m. 12. 



