ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 49 
during that same year, permitted ‘Every Man 
that hath any Wood within the Forest, may 
take House-boot and Hay-boot within his said 
wood, without being attached for the same by 
any Officer of the Forest, so that he do it in 
View of the Foresters.’ 
And yet a third statute of that first year of 
reign ordained that if the Chief Warden of a 
forest, the later development of the ancient 
Forester, refused to bail an offender in vert or 
venison, a writ of Chancery could be obtained 
directing this; and if the warden still declined to 
bail him, another writ could be had directing the 
sheriff to apprehend the warden himself. 
The legislation thus effected at the very com- 
mencement of Edward III.’s reign broke the back 
of the ancient forest laws. Though it did not 
paralyse their force, it was the direct cause of 
gradually weakening the hold of the crown on 
the royal forests. In the third year of his reign 
this king was also compelled to confirm Magna 
Charta and the Charta de Foresta of 1225, to 
guarantee that future perambulations should be 
as in the time of Edward I., and that a charter 
should be made and given to every shire peram- 
D 
