34 



DEER AND DEER PARKS. Ch. II. 



in Somer ' 20 ; the number appointed from every park being most accu- 

 rately stated, according to the size of each.' No doubt other great 

 families, though few could compare at that period with the splendour 

 and wealth of the Houses of Howard and Percy, had, in their several 

 degrees, parks of deer of proportionate size and number, but the larger 

 parks generally in the southern and midland counties, were old royal 

 domains, or belonging to the Crown by right of the Duchy of Lancaster, 

 and for the most part leased out to those of the nobility and gentry who 

 had interest at Court, The keepership of a royal park, with its ' herbage 

 and pannage,' the right of so many fee deer, &c., was a prize eagerly sought 

 for at a period when the younger brothers of knightly families were glad 

 to be provided for by being appointed keeper of the family park, and being 

 put in possession of the lodge attached to it. Thus the celebrated Sir 

 Thomas Smith, the unfortunate grantee of ' the Ardes ' in the county of 

 Down in Ireland, "offers in 1575 to resign his grant to the Crown, or to 

 exchange it for a manor in Essex ' with a park,' ' because it was never my 

 chance yet to have a Park, or the keeping of a Park.'^ A lesser privilege of 

 this nature, but one which was no doubt also greatly appreciated, was the 

 right to kill a buck or doe yearly in another person's park, of which the 

 grant to John Bohun, Esq., in the park of Heveningham, in Suffolk> is a 

 curious illustration : — 



' To all faithful people to whome thys present writing shall come. John 

 Hevyngham, Knyght, Dame Alice, his wife, Anthony Hevyngham, sone 

 and heire apparant to the same Sir John, sends greting in our Lord God 

 Everlastyng Kyng. Knowe ye, that I the said Sir John, in performaunce of 

 a certaine covenaunt and agreement on my parte to be pformed, specifyed, 

 and conteyned in an indenture made betwyn me on the oon parte, and oon 

 Nicholus Bohun Esquier, on the other parte, bearing date this syxte day of 

 this present mbnyth of Octobere, have given and graunted, and by theis 



• See the Northumberland Household Book, * Shirley's Territory of Farney, 4to. 184S, 



ed. 1827, p. U2. p. 52. 



