106 EPPING FOREST. 
more serious kind; they could not, however, pro- 
nounce sentence; this was reserved for the highest 
Court of Justice Seat, held at somewhat long intervals, 
and generally presided over by one of the judges of the 
land, who for this purpose was called Chief Justice in 
Eyre. There were numerous minor officials, such as 
master keepers, foresters, agisters, and regarders, whose 
duty it was to preserve the game, and to prevent and 
report encroachments on the forest; woodwards, who 
were charged with looking after the timber ; and reeves, 
who marked the cattle of the Commoners. Over these 
officials was the Lord Warden, an hereditary officer, 
whose charge it was to maintain the Forest unimpaired 
for the King’s pleasure. 
No Court of Justice Seat has been held in Waltham 
Forest since 1670. The Court of Attachment survived 
to a much later period, and was occasionally held in the 
present century, but it gradually became obsolete. 
Verderers ceased to be elected, and in 1870 only a 
single Verderer survived, without power of enforcing 
any rights. 
So long as the forestal rights of the Crown were 
enforced on the lands of private owners beyond the 
actual Forest, they were the cause of grave hardships. 
In a suit against Sir Bernard Whetstone, Lord of the 
Manor of Woodford, one of the Forest Manors, on the 
part of the Attorney-General, in the year 1700, for 
making illegal fences on his own land, a grievous picture 
is drawn by the defendant, of the losses caused by the 
deer to himself and his tenants. ‘“ They were forced,” he 
