MALVERN CHASE. 77 



WilKam of Malmesbury. To what extent the Saxon 

 monarchs claimed this tract of country does not clearly 

 appear; bnt under William the Conqueror it was considered 

 and held to be royal property, and so continued till it was 

 granted by Edward I. to Gilbert de Clare, Earl of 

 Gloucester, commonly called the Red Knight, on his 

 marriage with Jean d' Acres, the king's daughter. Leland, 

 who wrote temp. Henry VIII. says— 'The Chase of 

 Malverne is biggar than either Wire or F^ckingham, and 

 occupieth a great part of Malverne Hills. Great Malverne 

 and Little Malverne also is set in the Chase of Malverne. 

 Malverne Chase (as I hear say) is in length in some places 

 twenty miles ; but Malverne Chase doeth not occupy all 

 Malverne Hills.' Other authors describe it as extending 

 from the river Teme in the north to Cors Forest (now 

 Corse Lawn) in the south, and from the river Severn on 

 the east to the top of Malvern Hill westward. This last 

 boundary was so indeterminate that the bishops of 

 Hereford, who possessed lands at Mathon and Colwall, and 

 who claimed the western side of the hills for their hunting- 

 ground to the summit of the ridge, had a great dispute 

 with the potent Red Earl, which it is said was only ended 

 by a trench being dug along the crest of the hill to divide 

 the possessions of the disputants. This trench still remain s 

 very clearly marked on the hills in several places, and is 

 particularly evident on the Worcestershire Beacon. 



"There is some confusion in writers on the history of 

 the Chase of Malvern as to the occasion on which this 

 trench was made, though it was clearly meant as a boun- 

 dary line. Chambers (copying, I presume, from Dr Nash) 

 states that the ditch was made to ' divide the possessions 

 of the Bishop of Hereford from the Chase, and to limit 

 the two counties.' This would obviously appear to be 

 correct ; but Dr. Thomas, whose version of the matter I 

 have given further on, says that the trench had been made 

 ' to the damage of the Church of Worcester, and hence the 

 controversy' on the subject between the Red Earl and 

 Bishop Godfrey Giffard. 



