ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 19 
section in which Canute is made to say, ‘I will 
that every freeman may take his own vert, or 
venison, or hunting, that he can get upon his own 
ground, or in his own fields, being out of my 
Chase; and let all men refrain from my venery 
in every place where I will have the same.’ 
So insupportable became these cruel hardships 
under the Forest Laws, that even the Norman 
barons, as well as those Englishmen who still 
retained some of their ancestral lands, became 
zealous for their relaxation and amendment. 
Whereas William I. punished offences against 
them with mutilation, instead of by the fine for- 
merly imposed, William II. increased the areas 
reserved as royal forests, and exacted the death 
penalty, sometimes even against Norman barons 
of high rank, though united to him by ties of 
blood. So oppressively were the laws adminis- 
tered and exceeded during the reign of William 
Rufus, that his detestable tyranny lived long in 
the remembrance of the people, while the circum- 
stances of his tragic death in the New Forest 
were deemed the special punishment of Heaven. 
So much so was this the case that his son and 
successor, Henry I., relaxed these Norman Forest 
