SOME VERDERERS, OLD AND NEW 39 



ing retirement of Lord Basing, every disquali- 

 fication for the post he often refused and finally 

 was over-persuaded to assume. 



He was, to begin with, already an elected 

 member of the new court. He was also the 

 largest owner of rights of common in New Forest, 

 and thus deeply interested in the business side of 

 the management of Forest politics. In the case 

 of such a man as Lord Montagu this mattered 

 but little to those who knew him intimately ; 

 but to the rest of the world it only appeared 

 that all men even peers of the realm were 

 very human, and that the chance of controlling 

 favourably his own and his friends' interests on 

 the Court of Verderers would appeal to the 

 practical view of an able man of affairs. But 

 besides this Lord Montagu had been, as Lord 

 Henry Scott, M.P. for South Hants, one of 1>he 

 leading spirits in the attack on the Crown's 

 ownership of the Forest in 1875. His colleagues 

 and intimate associates were gradually obtaining 

 the control of the court they at that time strove 

 to establish, and the overpowering loyalty of 

 Lord Montagu's disposition almost forbade him 

 to take any view hostile to theirs, although he 

 had become nominally the guardian of the very 

 interests which they and indeed he himself 

 had jointly attacked for so many years. 



