112 EPPING FOREST. 
Charles I., more with the object of raising money 
than of enjoying sport, revived the claims of the Crown 
to the widest possible boundaries of the Forest. By his 
direction, extortionate demands were made on land- 
owners to buy off the dormant rights of forest, in 
respect of all the Royal Forests, and nowhere to a 
greater extent than in Essex. In this county alone the 
King is said to have raised by such means no less a sum 
than £300,000. These claims of forestal rights were 
reckoned, with the compelling of knighthood, with 
tonnage and poundage dues, and ship money, among 
the national grievances; they were no doubt planned 
and carried out, with the help of Sir John Finch, his 
Attorney-General,* and others, in order to raise money 
for the King, without the aid of Parliament. It was 
not till 1641 that the King found it necessary to 
retrace his steps. On March 16 in that year, just four 
months after the meeting of the Long Parliament, the 
Earl of Holland signified to the House of Lords that 
the King had commanded him to let them know “ that, 
His Majesty understanding that the forest laws are 
grievous to the subjects of this Kingdom, His Majesty, 
out of his grace and goodness to his people, is willing 
to lay down all the new bounds of his Forests in 
* Lord Falkland, in opening the impeachment of Finch, said of 
him, “He gave our goods to the King, our lands to the deer, our 
liberties to the sheriffs ; so that there was no way by which we had 
not been oppressed and destroyed, if the power of this person had 
been equal to his will, or that the will of His Majesty had been equal 
to his power.” 
