148 OUR WOODLAND TREES. 
ingham, Salsey, Sherwood, Waltham—including 
Epping and Hainault,—Whittlebury, Wichwood, 
and Windsor. But the Conqueror having fixed 
his chief residence at Winchester, and having 
a great passion for the chase, determined to 
appropriate for forestal purposes the great stretch 
of country lying between his palace and the waters 
of the Solent. 
Over all the tract of country thus secured for 
the pleasures of the royal chase there was pro- 
bably no spot, as we have said, more gloomy or 
secluded than Canterton Glen, and the place may 
well have been selected for the murder of Rufus ; 
and though the belief that Tyrrel sped the fatal 
arrow, or the dark suspicion that Henry the 
brother of the King had a hand in his death, may 
not be well founded, there may have been others 
ready and willing to seize an opportunity offered 
by ambush in a lonely wood, to revenge by one 
swift act the injuries of an oppressed people. 
The wild beauty of the wood which adjoins the 
spot marked by the Rufus Stone is singularly im- 
pressive; and under the shadow of its noble 
Trees and within its solitary glades, now tenanted 
