HUNTING DIRECTORY. 235 



Chase of 3 Hart by Richard I. 



" The Hart 2:>ardoned. — Wednsday, her majesty rode 

 intoo the chase, to hunting again of the hart of fors. The 

 deer, after his property, for refuge took the soyl ; but so 

 master'd by hote pursuit on al parts, that he was taken 

 quick in the pool : the Avatermen held him up hard by 

 the hed, while at her highness commaundment he lost 

 his earz for a raundsum, and so had pardon for lyfe." 



In early times, when the king lost a stag, open pro- 

 clamations were made in all towns and villages, near 

 where the deer was supposed to remain, that no person 

 should kill, hunt, or chase him, that he might safely 

 retiu'n to the forest again ; and the foresters were or- 

 dered to harbour the said hart, and by degrees to bring 

 him back to the forest, and that deer was ever after 

 called, a hart royal proclaimed. Some years since an 

 old record remained in Nottingham Castle, stating, that 

 in 1194 Richard the First chased a hart from Sherwood 

 Forest to Barnsdale, in Yorkshire, and there lost him. 

 He made proclamation at Tunhill in Yorkshire, and 

 divers other places in the neighbourhood of Barnsdale, 

 that no person should chase, kill, or hunt the said deer, 

 that he might return to his lair in the forest of Sher- 

 wood. 



Wliite-hart-silter, as it is called, was a heavy fine 

 laid on some lands, near the forest of Blackmore, Dor- 

 setshire : the proprietor, T. de la Lynde, a Dorsetshire 

 baron, in the time of Henry III. having destroyed a 

 white hart, which had afforded that prince much amuse- 

 ment, (probably had been proclaimed) : an acknoM'Iedg- 

 ment of which has been paid into the exchequer so late 

 as the reign of Elizabeth. 



