A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE 



At an inquiry held at the chamber of the Peak, in 1584, as to the driving off and 

 killing of the deer, one witness testified that the deer had been reduced in his time from 

 1 8 score to 5 score. 1 



At a great court of attachment held at Chapel en le Frith, in October 1589, twenty-one 

 transgressors were fined for lopping the trees in sums varying from id. to 6^. 2 



It was about this time that George earl of Shrewsbury (he had been taken again into 

 favour by the queen in his old age in 1587, and died in 1590) was permitted to purchase 

 part of the Longdendale district of the Peak forest, which was formally disafforested for the 

 purpose. At this date a large quaint map of the whole forest was prepared, showing great 

 parallelograms, painted vermilion where there were pasturage rights, and outline pictures of 

 the towns. This big map was at some unknown date cut up into sections ; the three 

 portions are preserved at the Public Record Office. 3 On the Ashop and Edale section of 

 the forest five contiguous great patches of vermilion are shown, and by them is written ' the 

 queenes maj farmes are divided into five vacaries.' Near Glossop, it is stated on the map that 

 the greater part of the forest there was then held by the earl of Shrewsbury. A rectangular 

 patch more to the west of Longdendale division is inscribed : ' The herbage of Chynley, 

 otherwise called Maidstonville, God. Bradshawe and other farmes.' 



Gilbert, seventh earl of Shrewsbury, was appointed chief-justice in eyre of the forests 

 north of the Trent, by James I. in 1603, an office that gave him an oversight of the game. 

 The earl, writing to his uncle, Sir John Manners, from Sheffield Lodge, on 4 July, 1609, 

 says : ' I have sent you a note to Mr. Tunstead for a stag in the Peak Forest, but I doubt if 

 there are any fat enough so early in the year.'* In June 1610, the council sent a letter to 

 the earl, as justice in eyre beyond Trent, to prohibit the inhabitants and borderers of the 

 forest of the Peak from destroying more fowl and heath poults. 5 



Among memoranda of business to be submitted to the council in June 1626 occurs a 

 petition from Francis Tunsted, who held a pension of 50 per annum as bow-bearer in the 

 High Peak and keeper of the moor game ; but the pension had not been paid for the last year, 

 and he sought the king's order for its payment and continuance. 6 



On 20 February 1639, a warrant was issued to the chancellor of the duchy to appoint 

 fit persons to treat and compound with the freeholders, tenants, and commoners of wastes, and 

 commons belonging to the hundred and forest of High Peak, for granting the king's right and 

 interest of soil.? Just a year later a further warrant was issued to the chancellor to compound 

 for disafforesting all lands of the king's within the honour and forest of the Peak. 8 



A large proportion of the duchy documents of the latter half of Charles I.'s reign are 

 missing, but from a much later document we are fortunately able to give the true account of 

 this disafforesting process for the first time, and thus to correct a variety of contradictory and 

 erroneous statements that have hitherto been put forth on the subject. 



In 1772 an inquiry was made as to the state of the king's title to timber, mines, and coal 

 within the disafforested forest of the High Peak. The outline history of the forest is correctly 

 given in the report." 



In 1635 the landowners and inhabitants within the forest petitioned the king, complaining 

 of the severity, trouble, and rigour of the forest laws, and praying that the deer (which were 

 in sufficient numbers to do considerable damage to crops in the forest and its purlieus) might be 

 destroyed, and asking to be allowed to compound by inclosing and improving the same. 

 Thereupon the king issued a commission of inquiry under the Duchy seal, and directed 

 that two juries should be impannelled, appointing a surveyor to assist them. The first jury 

 viewed the whole forest and its purlieus, and presented that the king might improve and 

 inclose one moiety in consideration of his rights, and that the other moiety should be inclosed 

 by the tenants, commoners, and freeholders. The other jury was impannelled to consider the 

 question of the towns within the purlieus, and they presented that the king in view of the 

 largeness of the commons belonging to the towns of Chelmorton, Flagg, Teddington, and 

 Pnestcliffe might reasonably have for improvement and inclosure one-third, and the remaining 



1 Duchy Surveys and Commissions, No. 1285. 2 Duchy Court Rolls, 42-455. 



8 Duchy of Lanes. Maps and Plans, Nos. 7, 37, and 44. 



* Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. Belvoir MSS. i. 417. 63. P. Dom. Jas. I. Iv. 



6 S. P. Dom. Chas. I. cccccxxiv. 46. 



7 Ibid, ccccxiii. 8 Ibid, ccccxlvi. 60. 



9 Duchy of Lane. Pleadings, v. 9. The particulars given of the time of Charles I. were taken from 

 a decree made in the Duchy Court on 17 May, 1686, but which had become almost totally illegible 

 in 1772. 



412 



