20 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
Laws, and disafforested certain tracts in order to 
ingratiate himself with the people. One of his 
acts of this sort was to confirm by charter an 
ancient privilege of the citizens of London with 
regard to coursing in Middlesex, Surrey, and 
Wiltshire. Later on, however, Henry showed 
the same tendency to severity, and the same 
desire to keep to himself the right of hunting 
throughout the kingdom as his father and grand- 
father had done. He added large tracts to the 
royal afforestations previously made by these 
sovereigns. Accordingly, when his nephew, 
Stephen, came to the throne he was likewise in 
his turn full of concessions, and anxious to con- 
ciliate the barons and the people at large. At 
his first great Council he granted a charter pro- 
mising disafforestation of all tracts afforested by 
Henry, but he failed to keep this promise, and 
even seized again the forests made by William 
II. which Henry had given up. 
During the unsettled times of Henry and 
Stephen many encroachments and trespasses were 
made in the king’s forests, but from the accession 
of Henry II., the first of the Plantagenet line, the 
Forest Laws and their administration occupied an 
