38 THE NEW FOREST 



cases brought before it, the practice fell into 

 desuetude, and it is now a long time since a case 

 was brought before the verderers to deal with 

 judicially, save only minor offences, under their 

 own bye -laws. 



Not long after the death of the last of the 

 old verderers, Lord Basing retired from the posi- 

 tion of Official Verderer. He made no secret at 

 all to me at least of his decision that he could 

 no longer continue to hold the position of Crown 

 representative on the Verderers' Court after they 

 had adopted a policy of attacking Crown interests 

 and undermining Crown authority on every pos- 

 sible plea. 



There was no little difficulty in filling up 

 the vacancy caused by Lord Basing's resignation, 

 which, indeed, had been long decided upon, as 

 was matter of common knowledge for about two 

 years. 



Finally, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, a dearly 

 loved relative of my own, consented to step into 

 the breach and accept the position. A more un- 

 fortunate decision was never arrived at. Lord 

 Montagu was of all the men in the world the 

 last that should have taken up this burden. A 

 man at once the most amiable and high-minded 

 of English gentlemen, he had, as many a time 

 he told me, in our conversations on the impend- 



