312 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST 



the woodes of Scotland being utterlie destroyed. ...everlik Lord and Laird 

 make them to... plant at the least, ane aiker of Woode, quhair there is na 

 great Wooddes nor Forrestes ; 



and increasing, also, the penalties for disobedience, until in 



1579 



quhat-sumever person stealis, pealis, and destroyis green-wood, pullis or 



cuttis haned Broome...in case the offendours be not responsall in gudes,... 



for the first fault be put in the stokkes, prison or irones auct [eight] dayes 



on bread and water; And for the second fault, fifteene dayes.... And for the 



third fault hanging to the death. 



Yet in this sixteenth century, in spite of the decadence 

 the law records, Scotland was by no means a bare country. 

 Bishop Leslie, who wrote from first hand knowledge, refers 

 again and again to fair woodland ; 



heir agane sail ye se...a dry knowe, or a^thin forrest, thair.a thick wodd, all 

 meruellouse delectable to the eye, tnrouch the varietie baith of thair 

 situatione, and of the thing selfe that thair growis ; . . . Paslay quhilke is situat 

 amang cnowis, grene woodis, schawis 1 and forrest fair onn the River of 

 Carronn;...Vuir 2 Clydisdale or Cludisdale...as lykwyse nathir 3 Cludisdale, 

 amang fair forrests and schawis schene; with thicker woodes sum are 

 decored 4 . 



And again 



From thir cuntreyes that wyde and ample forrest, called the Tor Wod [Cale- 

 donia Silva~\, hes the beginning; quhais boundis war sa large, that frome 

 the Callendar and Caldir Wod evin to Lochquhaber war extendet. 



Leslie's testimony notwithstanding, visitors to Scotland 

 like Aeneas Sylvius and Fynes Moryson were struck by the 

 bareness of the country. In Fife, says the latter, " trees are 

 so scarce that I remember not to have seen one wood," and 

 "one of the senseless gibes of that splenetic southron," as 

 Professor Hume Brown dubbed Sir Anthony Weldon, was 

 that (in 1617) Judas could not have found a tree in Scotland 

 whereon to hang himself. 



The truth seems to lie in this, that in the populous and 

 cultivated areas to which the foreign visitors naturally paid 

 most attention, long usage had seriously reduced the wood- 

 land, but that in the ruder regions forests were still to be 

 found in plenty. Surely there is transparent ignorance of 

 the north country in Andrew Boorde's letter of 1536 to 

 Thomas Cromwell, where he says of Scotland : 



1 Thickets. 2 Over or Upper. 3 Lower. * Adorned. 



