Ch. It: SINCE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 47 



We may give one more example of James I.'s love of * woodcraft ' 

 towards the end of his reign. 



Mr. Chamberlain writes to Sir T. Carleton, April 24, 16 19: — 'The 

 King removed from Royston to Ware, being carried part of the way by the 

 Guard in a Neapolitan portative Chair, given him by Lady Hatton, and 

 the rest in a litter. He came the next day in the same way to Theobalds ; 

 weak as he was, he would have his deer mustered before him.' ' 



Charles I., the munificent patron of the fine arts, took less interest 

 than his father in the maintenance of the royal parks ; nevertheless there 

 can be no doubt but that the royal forests, chases, and parks, as well as 

 the parks belonging to the nobility and gentry generally, were well pre- 

 served and in good condition till the era of the Great Rebellion in 1641. 

 The distractions of that unhappy period resulted in the almost total 

 destruction of not only the royal preserves, but of those of all who were of 

 the loyal party ; in other words, of the parks and deer of the greater 

 number of the lords and gentlemen of England ; various papers written at 

 the Restoration, and preserved in the State Paper Office, abundantly prove 

 what has been stated above. Some extracts are here given : — 



In August 1660, Mr. John Ellis makes suit for the keeping of the 

 king's New Park near York, ' where great devastation of wood and deer has 

 lately been committed.' ^ 



In November 1660, Sir Henry Wood begs for a grant of fifty deer, to be 

 taken within a year from Heveningham Park, Suffolk, (the estate of the 

 traitor William Heveningham), to his own little park at Lowdham, which he 

 has re-inclosed, ' the pales being broken down, and the deer sold during 

 the Usurpation.'^ 



In the Royal Park of Easthamstead in Berkshire, ' the deer had been 

 universally destroyed, and it is almost impossible to procure any.'* In 

 Walthara Forest the deer and game were totally destroyed during the 



' S. P. O. Domestic. » S. P. O. Domestic. Cal. 1660, p. 400. 



2 S. P. O. Domestic, Cal. 1660, p. 243. * S. P. O. Domestic. Cal. 1661, p. 67. 



