ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 23 
place in the attention of the landed proprietors. 
The old ruse of William the Conqueror in forging 
the laws of Canute was apparently again tried in 
the so-called laws of Edward the Confessor, pur- 
porting to protect public as well as royal rights. 
The first genuine Forest Charter, however, is that 
issued in the boy king’s name by the Regent, the 
Earl of Pembroke, in November 1217. Under 
this, as under the later charter of 1225, all 
lands afforested by Richard I. or Henry I. 
were declared to be disafforested, except the 
desmesne woods of the Crown; while the affores- 
tations made by Henry II. were to be annulled 
where they could be shown to be to the damage 
of the owners of the woods. Provisions were also 
made that no person’s life or limb should in 
future be forfeited for taking of the king’s deer, 
but that a fine should merely be exacted, failing 
payment of which the offender should be impri- 
soned for a year and a day. Then he was to find 
sureties for future good behaviour, and in default 
of this he was to be banished from England. 
Any spiritual or lay lord was, when passing 
through a forest, free to take two beasts in view 
of the forester, or should sound a horn, if no 
