INTRODUCTORY. 7 



sible to cut the whole of the trunk away without affect- 

 ing the vitality of the arm. 



Many a traveller who knew not its history would pass 

 this venerable tree unnoticed, but mere relic as it is, it 

 once spread its sturdy branches over the head of royalty, 

 and it happened in this wise. 



During John's residence at Clipstone in 1212, he and 

 his barons were one day hunting in the forest, when a 

 messenger in hot haste sought the royal party, bringing 

 intelligence of the second revolt of the Welsh. The 

 king summoned his lords around him to a brief confe- 

 rence under the spreading branches of a huge oak, which 

 from that day has in consequence borne the name of the 

 "Parliament Oak." The result of this hurried council 

 was that orders were at once sent to Nottingham to 

 execute the Welsh hostages there confined in the castle. 



This remarkable tree has been computed to be from 

 a thousand to fifteen hundred years old. The following 

 were its dimensions when I last measured it, although 

 it is for age and not for size that it is noted. Circum- 

 ference on the ground, twenty-seven feet seven inches ; 

 ditto fourteen feet from the ground, thirty-two feet six 

 inches ; extent of branches from the trunk, sixty feet. 

 The internal diameter varies from three, to eight or nine 

 feet. There are some other trees whose celebrity, 

 though not historical, is still well deserved. The 

 " Greendale Oak " in Welbeck Park is one of these 

 giants, and can boast of an age little inferior to its royal 

 brother. So great was its diameter that a former Duke 

 of Portland cut a carriage way through the trunk. 

 Evelyn and Strutt both give figures of the tree, and the 

 latter says in his Sylva, "In 1724 a roadway was cut 

 through its venerable trunk higher than the entrance to 



