146 OUR WOODLAND TREES. 
statement that to make this ‘New Forest’ 
William the First destroyed a large number of 
villages and dispersed their inhabitants, is pro- 
bably to a certain extent an exaggeration of the 
fact, there is evidence that much hardship and 
cruelty were inflicted upon the inhabitants of 
south-west Hampshire by the determination of 
the Conqueror to make for himself a great hunt- 
ing-ground in the neighbourhood of his residence 
at Winchester. Some misunderstanding has arisen 
as to the designation of ‘New’ Forest given to 
this hunting-ground of the Norman kings, the 
word giving the impression that William of Nor- 
mandy had planted the ground, or a large portion 
of it. The probability is, on the contrary, that 
the area included in the Hampshire woodland was 
old forest, and had existed in that state, many 
years before the Conquest, and that William the 
Norman merely appropriated the area by placing 
it under the restrictions of forestal laws, extend- 
ing the forestal boundary beyond the area of 
aciual wood, over many broad acres of ground 
cleared by the Saxon husbandmen. It is known, 
indeed, that at a period preceding but by a few 
