Ch. II. SINCE THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 51 



size but in number, or at least never attained to the importance which they 

 had occupied in former ages. The royal domains, including ancient but 

 generally disused parks in various parts of England, previously wasted 

 during the evil days of the Usurpation, had been much reduced in conse- 

 quence of the prodigal grants made by Charles II., and in fact a consider- 

 able proportion had passed from the Crown before the accession of the 

 House of Hanover. At length in 1701 (i Anne, c. 7) the Civil List Act 

 was passed, by which the Crown was restrained from further grants in fee. 

 From the date of the Restoration also licenses for imparking gradually 

 became obsolete, though it is laid down in the law-books to this day that 

 none can make a chase or park without the king's license, 'for that is 

 quodam modo to appropriate those creatures which zx^fera naturce et nullius 

 in bonis, to himself, and to restrain them of their natural liberty, which he 

 cannot do without the king's license.'' Nevertheless a large proportion of 

 the parks of the present day have probably been impaled since the begin- 

 ning of the last century, and although for many years gradually decreasing, 

 occasionally new ones are enclosed and old ones restored ; some particulars 

 on this point will appear in the notes which follow on the ancient and 

 present existing parks in England. 



' Coke's Reports, ed. 1826, vol. vi. p. 164. 



