18 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
than had yet been the case since they were 
said to have been passed in Parliament in 
A.D. 1016. He therefore, as a matter of wise 
policy, passed nothing frankly in the shape of 
a new enactment during his reign; and this 
policy was followed by his immediate successor, 
William Rufus. No new Forest Laws were 
enacted until the Charta de Foresta, granted in 
1217, and the later and more important charter 
in 1225, both of which were passed in the early 
part of the reign of Henry III. (1216-1272), 
while he was still a minor. 
Under these laws then applied, the penalty 
for killing a stag or ‘royal beast” within the 
bounds of a royal forest were almost as great 
as those exacted for destroying the life of a 
human being. It cost a freeman his freedom, 
an unfree man his liberty, and a bondman his 
life. Even to chase a stag so as to cause it 
to pant and be out of breath meant loss of 
liberty to a freeman for one year, and to an 
unfree man for two years, while a bondman 
was outlawed, and became what was then called 
‘a friendless man.’ The only sort of royal 
clemency, afterwards practically ignored, was that 
