182 WIGLEY COMMON. 
own view of his legal rights. He claimed the Common 
absolutely as his private property, and his answer, in 
effect, to those who approached him, was that they 
should mind their own business, and leave him to do as 
he liked with his own. Mz. Briscoe Eyre, therefore, was 
compelled either to assert his legal rights or to acquiesce 
in the inclosure. He commenced a suit at once on 
behalf of the tenants of Cadnam and Winsor against 
Mr. Stanley, in the usual form. 
A meeting of the tenants of Cadnam Manor was 
then held. At this meeting it was ascertained that 
it was reputed among them that their rights over 
ce 
Wigley Common had been declared by an “ old paper,” 
which was in possession of one of the tenants. No 
one knew the contents of the paper or what was its 
origin. The inquiry was pursued, and in the possession 
of one of the copyholders, John Wake, was found a 
heavy box with three locks. This box was known by 
the tenants as “the monster.” All that Wake re- 
collected of it was that his grandfather, soon after 
he was admitted as tenant of the Manor, brought it 
home and said: ‘‘See, I have brought home the 
monster !” 
On opening the box there was found an exemplifica- 
tion, under the Great Seal, of a decree by Lord Chancellor 
Hatton, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, declaring that 
the tenants of the Manor of Cadnam were entitled to 
a right of pasture over the waste lands of Wigley. 
It appeared from this decree, dated April 26th, 1591, 
that the tenants of the Manor of Cadnam and Winsor 
