228 
CHAPTER XIII. 
Tue New Forest anp tue Forest or Dray. 
THE NEW FOREST. 
Tue origin of Royal Forests in England (with two 
exceptions) is lost in antiquity. They certainly existed 
before the Norman Conquest, a.p. 1066. Whether they 
were created or reserved as such by the early Saxon 
kings, or even at some more distant time, we know not. 
The only two of whose origin we know anything are 
the New Forest, created by William the Conqueror, 
and that of Hampton Court, due to Henry VIII. 
There are said at one time, in England alone, to 
have been sixty-eight Forests in the possession of 
the Crown, and thirteen Chases, or Forests in private 
hands. All the sixty-eight Forests have long ago 
been disafforested, in the sense that the Sovereign 
has no longer the privilege of maintaining deer and 
other game in them for sport, protected by special laws 
and tribunals. A few only exist in the popular sense 
of the term, that the land is still uncultivated and 
covered wholly or partially by woods—such as the New 
Forest, the Forest of Dean, Epping Forest, Windsor 
Forest, Wolmer Forest, the Forest of Bere and Dart- 
moor. Some of these, such as Windsor Forest and 
Wolmer Forest, have been converted into the exclusive 
property of the Crown, free from any common rights. 
