22 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
touched by the Common Law, were made subject 
to Forest Law, and the foresters were ordered 
not to hesitate in laying hands on them if found 
trespassing. Except for fuel no man could cut 
anything in his own woods forming part of 
a forest, and even trees for fuel had to be cut 
in view of the forester. When King John, ten 
years later, came to the throne, however, evil 
days again darkened the land and embittered the 
lives of the nobles and the people. His reckless 
procedure amounted almost to insanity. He 
afforested the whole of Essex except one ‘ Hun- 
dred,’ while all Cornwall, one of the least wooded 
counties, was also put under the Forest Laws. In- 
deed this was one, and not the least, of the acts of 
misgovernment which banded the nobles together 
for the protection of their own interests and the 
championship of the rights of the people, and 
resulted in the granting of Magna Charta in 
1215, the great charter of the rights and liberties 
of English subjects. In this, for the first time, 
the most oppressive and cruel of the Forest Laws 
were practically repealed. 
At the accession of Henry III., in 1216, forest 
legislation seems to have occupied a prominent 
