202 THE FORESTS OP ENGLAND. 



In regard to the interest taken by the kings of Eng- 

 land in the forests as hunting-grounds reserved for their 

 use, a writer in the Journal of Forestry tells : — 



" Though extravagantly fond of the pleasures of the 

 chase, Canute confirmed to his subjects, by his general 

 code of laws, full power to hunt in their own lands, pro- 

 vided they abstained from the royal forests, in which the 

 greatest rigour still prevailed ; but after the extinction of 

 the Danish princes, and during the weak and disturbed 

 reign of the Confessor, these laws were little observed. The 

 natural consequence was that the revival of them by the 

 Normans became more severely felt. The Conqueror, it 

 is universally agreed, was most passionately fond of hunt- 

 ing; to him the tyranny of the forest laws may be justly 

 ascribed, as well as the severe subjection in which the 

 nobility, without distinction, were kept at that period. 

 William Rufus proceeded in a great degree upon his 

 father's plan, and suffered his passion for the chase to 

 oppress his subjects to such an extent that the remem- 

 brance of his tyranny was long preserved with detestation 

 and abhorence. Andrews, in his History of Great Britain, 

 relates that when ten Englishmen had been cleared by 

 the ordeal of fire from a charge of killing deer, Rufus 

 exclaimed, " Pretty justice above, indeed, to let ten such 

 scoundrels escape !" His son and successor, Henry I., found 

 it expedient on his coming to the throne to ingratiate 

 himself with his people, and with a view to this he restored 

 the law of Edward the Confessor. The usurper Stephen 

 at his accession promised much, more particularly as to 

 the redressing of the grievance of the forest laws, but his 

 performances in that respect were very limited. During 

 the reign of Henry II. a milder system appears to have 

 prevailed, which was far from being the case in that of 

 Richard I., whose attachment to the chase and to field 

 sports is well authenticated ; by him we find the rigour of 

 the forest laws again revived, and nearly to the same 

 extent as they existed in the time of his grandfather, 

 though what he did was rather a declaration of the laws 



