OF THE FOREST LAWS. 



After whose death, William Rufus, his son, in like manner 

 continued the same laws during his life. 



And after his death, king Henry the first, his brother, suc- 

 ceeding him to the crown, by his charter, confirmed all the laws 

 of the forest made by St. Edward the Confessor, as appears by 

 the book kept in the Exchequer, called Liber Rubrus, cap. 1. 

 Legum Suarum : which laws of the forest so continued during 

 all the life time of the said Henry the first. 



After whose decease, king Stephen, by his charter confirmed 

 all the said laws, privileges, and customs granted by St. Edward 

 the Confessor, and Henry the first, and continued the same 

 during his life. 



After whose death, king Henry the second succeeding him, 

 did, by his general charter, confirm the aforesaid laws of the 

 forest in many particulars, but not without great alterations and 

 additions. For he doth, in and by his said charter, recite and 

 declare the nature of the laws of the forest, and in what sense 

 they were taken and used, or how interpreted or construed in 

 times past, and wherein they do differ from the common law of 

 the kingdom ; and that the kings of England, before that time, 

 and he himself, even then, might make a forest in any place of 

 the realm, where they or he pleased, as well in the lands and 

 inheritances of any of their or his subjects, as in their or his own 

 demeasn lands. Which unlimited and unaccountable power, 

 claimed by the kings of England in those times, by colour of the 

 forest laws, over the birth-rights and inheritances of their sub- 

 jects, was a mighty and insupportable grievance to those whose 

 lands were so afforested ; their pastures and the profits of the 

 lands being then devoured by the king's wild beasts of his forests, 

 without any recompense for the same. 



The punishments for offences against the forest laws were 

 often exceeding great for a small offence, and the forfeiture ac- 

 cording to the king's pleasure, not regarding the quantity of the 

 trespass, nor according to the course of the common law. 



