ASHDOWN FOREST. 165 
proceeded with. The Commoners made a joint purse to 
defend themselves against this aggression. The suit 
came on for hearing, in 1691, in the Court of the Duchy 
of Lancaster before the Chancellor and the Council, 
assisted by Sir John Holt and Sir John Turton, Judges 
of the Court of Exchequer. The Court held that it 
was fully satisfied that there was sufficient common 
left uninclosed, of which parts might be approved, still 
leaving a sufficiency for the Commoners, and they directed 
that a Commission should issue to set out for the 
Defendants sufficient common, according to their 
respective rights, and in convenient places. 
In 16938, the Commissioners made their return to 
the Duchy Court. They stated that they had agreed 
that 6,400 acres of the Forest would provide suf- 
ficient pasture and herbage for the Defendants, the 
Commoners, and others claiming common in the 
Forest, “so as they should enjoy the sole pasturage 
thereof, and the Plaintiffs, owners and proprietors of the 
soil, be excluded from all rights of pasturage either for 
sheep, horses, or cattle.” They further stated that 
they had laid out the 6,400 acres in the most con- 
venient places, contiguous and adjacent to all the several 
vills, towns, and farms, lying round the Forest, to 
which common rights attached. They had also left 
“the shares and proportions of the Crown grantees 
allotted for inclosure in several parts and parcels, and 
distinguished and divided them from the Defendants’ 
and Commoners’ parts set out for common, by metes, 
marks, and boundaries.” 
