EPPING FOREST. 157 
London to perform this ceremony, unmindful of the 
fact that the Corporation of London had done their 
very utmost to defeat the claim of the inhabitants to 
any compensation for their rights. The Lord Mayor 
drove down in state to Loughton. The proceedings 
were there opened with a prayer by Mr. Maitland, the 
rector of the parish, and Lord of the Manor, who had 
also done his utmost to inclose the whole of the 
waste of his Manor, and to defeat the claim of the 
inhabitants of Loughton, and who had caused the 
imprisonment of Willingale and his sons for endeavour- 
ing to exercise them! There were those who were of 
opinion that a white sheet would have been the most 
appropriate garment for the rector on the occasion ! 
The local managers had at least the good taste not to 
invite any members of the Commons Society to take 
part in the proceedings in such company. It was with 
some difficulty that the Corporation of London was 
later induced to give to the widow of old Willingale the 
paltry pension of five shillingsa week. His son has kept 
up the tradition of the family, by maintaining the cause 
of the smaller occupiers of land to rights of common 
over the Forest, which the Corporation are now disposed 
to dispute and deny. 
Apart from this, all questions affecting the Forest 
have been set at rest. The Forest was thrown open to 
the public by the Queen in person, at High Beech, in 
the presence of a great assemblage of persons, on May 
6th, 1882. Restitution was thus in a sense made by 
the Sovereign, of land which in very ancient times had 
