SHERWOOD FOREST. 27 



then sheriff, Robert FitzRalph. In the ' Foreste Booke 

 conteyninge the Lawes, Statutes, and Ordinances of the 

 Foreste of Sherwood in the countie of Nott/ in the pos- 

 session of Earl Manvers, is preserved a copy of a charter 

 granted by John Earl of Mortein or Mortyn (afterwards 

 King John) to Matilda de Cans and her husband, Ralph 

 FitzStephen, confirming to them and her heirs the oflSce 

 of chief foresters in the counties of Nottingham and Derby, 

 and of all the liberties and free customs which any of her 

 ancestors had ever held. She died in 1233, and was 

 buried at Brampton, near Chesterfield, where her monu- 

 mental slab is preserved. It bears her half-figure within 

 a quatrefoil, and the inscription, ' Hie jacet Matilda de 

 Gaus, orate pro anima ej' pat' nos'.' She was succeeded in 

 her ofiice of chief forester by her son .and heir, John de 

 Birkin, and he, in turn, by his son and heir, Thomas de 

 Birkin, who respectively did homage for this hereditary 

 office, and their lands, in the eighth and eleventh years of 

 King Henry III. A few years later the office devolved 

 on Robert de Everingham, in right of his wife, Isabel, 

 daughter of John de Birkin. With Everingham it re- 

 mained till the time of Edward I., when it was seized by 

 the Crown as forfeited, and since that time the guardian- 

 ship of the forest has been conferred upon various persons 

 of high stations, as a special mark of royal favour. 



" In the sixteenth year of Henry III. a survey of Sher- 

 wood Forest was made by royal commission — 



" ' by Hugh Nevil, justice of the forest, and Brian of 

 the Isle, and others, and the parts that had been brought 

 under the forest laws by previous kings, since the beginning 

 of the reign of Henry II., were disafforested, or set free 

 from those stringent enactments [of the Charta de Foresta] ; 

 and the bounds and limits of the forest, stiU preserved as 

 such, were clearly stated to be thus defined. These were 

 fixed ; ' to be firm, and stable, and abide for ever.' 

 Starting from a place called Gonyngswath, i.e., the King's 

 Ford, the line was drawn by the highway that goeth 

 towards Welhaugh unto the towne of Welhawe towards 



