36 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
use of the king till the fine was paid. Assart, 
from Assartir, or Essarter, ‘to grub up, make 
plain,’ was the offence of destroying any covert 
by rooting it up and making it plain ground. 
If any dweller within the forest dared to clear 
his own freehold land of trees and shrubs for 
agricultural or pastural purposes he was guilty 
of Assart of the forest, and could be fined and 
committed to prison till the fine had been paid 
to the king. Thus a Waste merely damaged the 
woods and coverts, while an ssart and a Pur- 
prestre actually destroyed portions of them, and 
they were therefore considered the more grievous 
offences. Even barons of high degree had to 
give heed to the position into which they some- 
times drifted on account of waste. In the Pipe 
Rolls whole counties were placed in default for 
forest offences. Once on the eve of a triennial 
Regard or survey of the royal forests the Earl 
of Leicester procured, by special writ of the 
king, exemption from the fines to which he 
might be found liable for Waste; and when 
his record was read in public at the court ‘all 
were amazed and astonished, saying, ‘‘ Does not 
se 
this earl weaken our liberty? 
