FORESTRY 



Mursley appurtenant to Whaddon by a similar 

 service to be performed at Winslow bridge. 70 



There seems to be evidence 71 that John Fitz 

 John and his brother and successor used their 

 privileges of chase to the utmost, to the annoy- 

 ance of their weaker neighbours. The men of 

 Mursley hundred declared in 1276 that John 

 Fitzjohn 'appropriavit sibi liberas chacias,' 

 which may suggest that he was claiming rights 

 of chase in that part of Shenley known as 

 Westbury, which in 1086 had belonged to 

 Richard Engaine. Furthermore, it was sub- 

 ject of complaint that Robert Giffard, Peter 

 the Forester, and Robert Stort, bailiffs of Lord 

 John Fitzjohn, had imprisoned William Popping 

 and Richard le Noreys, servants of Thierry le 

 Alemaund, apparently to extort money. At 

 the very end of the century .Richard Fitzjohn 

 was fighting a case in the courts arising out of 

 his seizure of the beasts of Robert FitzNeal in 

 the Abbot's Wood. 7 ' 



From that time until the fifteenth century, in 

 the absence of the swainmote rolls, we have only 

 occasional allusions to the chase of Whaddon, 

 notices of the hereditary keepers the Giffards 

 and other officers, 73 or warrants for the taking 

 of deer 74 when the chase and park of Whaddon 

 for any reason was in the king's hands. 



Richard, duke of York, to whom Whaddon 

 and its chase had come with the lands and titles 

 of the earls of Ulster, fell at Wakefield in 1460. 

 Cecily his widow survived him, and her dower in 

 Whaddon was assured by letters patent from 

 Henry VI, successively confirmed by her sons 

 Edward IV and Richard III. She died seised of 

 Whaddon in 1495, but already in the seventh 

 year of his reign Henry VII had granted the 

 reversion of the manor and chase to his queen, 

 Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV and grand- 

 daughter of the duchess dowager of York. 



As already stated, the heiress of the GifFards 

 had married a Mr. Pigott, a north countryman, 

 and brought him the hereditary keepcrship of 

 the chase, which descended to his son Thomas 

 Pigott, afterwards serjeant-at-law. Mr. Pigott 

 appears to have been keen in his maintenance of 

 the rights of his office and the claims of his 

 mistress in the chase, and met with considerable 

 opposition from a gentleman of the neighbour- 

 hood, Thomas Stafford, Esq., of Tattenhoe. It is 

 possible that during the early fifteenth century, 

 and still more during the troubled times of the 

 Wars of the Roses, the chase had not been 

 strictly guarded, its exact bounds had become 

 matter of dispute, inclosures and purprestures 



" Hand. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 336^. 



Ibid, i, 4 z6. 



71 Tear Books of 21-22 EJw. I, ut sup. 



71 Nich. Knoll, late parkerand surveyor of Whaddon 

 Chace, Chan. Inq. p.m. 6 Ric. II (103) 



" Pat. i Hen. IV, pt. 8, m. 12. Edmund, E. 

 of March, was at that time an infant. 



had been made, and in consequence Mr. Pigott 

 set himself to find a remedy. 



However this may be, in the spring 7 ' of 1494 

 there was held at Whaddon, in the churchyard, 

 a ' syttynge ' or court of the forest, 7 ' under the 

 presidency of Sir Rainold Bray, one of the 

 justices of the forest south of Trent. Not 

 only were ' the chief of the counsaile ' with 

 Sir Rainold, but the Buckinghamshire gentry 

 mustered in force, ' bjth my Lorde Grey, Sir 

 Thomas Grene and Mr. Emson and many 

 mo.' And, proceeds the local account, 'all the 

 olde men of the comon were then brought in 

 that al that day by the mynde of Mr. Stafford and 

 Mr. Pigot which stryved for the chace grownde 

 and the purlews and for ingrement to be had 

 there.' About the original chase of Whaddon 

 proper there was no dispute. When its bounds 

 had been recited, Sir Rainold Bray required of 

 the jurors 'what more chace ground there was ? 

 To whom they answered and said, Thabbotes 

 grownde is chace in a maner.' He then asked 

 them ' What maner was that ? ' They answered, 

 ' if the dutie be paid,' and this duty was 7 deer 

 a year due to the abbot of St. Albans, prt at 

 midsummer on St. Alban's Day, and part at 

 Christmas possibly a commutation of the old 

 reservation of four days' hunting a year. Its 

 bounds were then set out. 



After this Sir Rainold Bray demanded,' What 

 is there more of chace grownde ? ' and sugge*ted 

 that the Prior's Wood 7; should be included. But 

 the jurors made answer and said ' they had nothinge 

 therewith to do,' and were similarly recalcitrant 

 with regard to ' Nycols Wood ' and 'Totnolbare.' 78 

 The justice then passed on to inquire of Abbots 

 Mede and Pukpit Hill, and the reply that ' it is 

 the demaine and belonging to Little Horwood * 

 provoked the exclamation, ' Why, sires, will ye 

 say that these be not chace growndes ? ' But the 

 jury stubbornly adhered to their testimony. The 

 only 'chace growndes' they knew were those 

 which had been 'evermore usen.' Mr. Empson 

 was then asked who owned the Prior's Wood. 

 Mr. Pigott, however, answered, ' New College, 

 Oxford." But neither the master 7 * nor his attorney 



" Invention of the Cross, 9 Hen. VII. 



" For the popular account of this 'syttynge' see 

 B.M. Add. MS. 37069, fol. 134^ et seq. A late 

 and rather illegible copy of a swainmote roll for 9 

 Hen. VII, is extant, and this may be the official record 

 of the court (B.M. Add. R. 53964). It contains a 

 good deal of matter besides the recital of the bounds 

 of the chase. 



" The wood formerly belonging to the alien priory 

 of Newton Longville. 



n i.e., Tattenhoe Bare. This was the site of the 

 hog-sty' of Thomas Stafford, who apparently was 

 regarded as the champion of popular rights. 



" At a later court, about 1 500, the abbot of St. 

 Albans, New College, the prior of Snclshall, and Mr. 

 Stafford were all represented by their attorneys. D. of 

 Lane. Forest Proc. bdle. 3, No. 24. 



39 



