200 Note* on the Manor of /Melbourne. 



and with their leash hounds have without interruption from time to time used to 

 drive aud re-chace his Majesties deer. 



" Goddard the younger, under colour of going to kill conies in the said Eylden 

 grounds and with his father's privity and command did assemble to himself the 

 delendant Cox and another and in the night go towards the said grounds and in 

 their way in another man's coppice about half-a-mile from the Chace with dogs 

 kill one of the Chace deer and carried it to Goddard the elder's house where it 

 was eaten and at another time they killed another of the deer of the Chace, in the 

 said Goddard the elder's ground and carried it home to his house and he disposed 

 of part qf it and after this they had a Rascal Deer and part of it was eaten in 

 Goddard s house boiled. Goddard's wife to keep it from being discovered told 

 her servants it was mutton, and for this they were all committed to the Fleet 

 and the two Goddards fined 500£ a piece Goddard's wife 50J and Cox 300* and 

 the two Goddards and Cox to make their acknowledgment and satisfaction at the 

 Assizes and be there bound to their good behaviour." 



It should be observed that very few, if any, of these absurd Star 

 Chamber fines were ever paid. The person fined petitioned the 

 Crown, and compounded for the fine— generally at less than one 

 tenth of the amount. I once heard the late Rt. Hon. Charles 

 Williams Wynne say that his ancestor, Speaker Williams, was 

 fined £10,000, but that no part of it was ever paid. That fine was 

 not imposed by the Star Chamber, but the practice seems to have 

 been continued. 



The deer in Aldbourne Chace do not seem to have survived the 

 Civil Wars, as Aubrey, in his "Natural History of Wiltshire/' p. 

 59, speaks highly of the rabbits in Aldbourne Warren, but does not 

 mention any deer in the Chace. 



That stolen deer from Aldbourne Chace were brought to Ogbourne 

 St. George is further proved by the fact that when Mr. Carrington 

 re-opened an old well, nearly opposite his house, which had been 

 filled up more than half-a-century, three deer's horns were found at 

 the bottom— no doubt horns of stolen deer thrown in by persons 

 passing along the adjoining street. 



Mr. Church, of Hillwood, who died in 1852 at an advanced age, 

 told Mr. Carrington that he remembered the Chace before The 

 inclosure in 1804, and that it then was a wild thick jungle of 

 brambles, briars, and bushes, and that no one could then drive, 

 walk, or ride in it in any direction except along drives which were 

 cut in such directions as were needed. 



