92 



Extracts from the Records of the 



shilling. In one case the magistrates out of sessions seem to have been 

 over lenient : they neither appointed any set time during which their 

 order was to run, nor did they prescribe any punishment for the 

 breach of morality. But the court in an elaborate entry made good 

 any short coming in either respect : in the matter of weekly payment 

 they imposed the considerable allowance of twelve pence per week ; 

 in the matter of punishment they ordered for these parents and for 

 all such others a public whipping on market day. In another 

 instance the hundred which had been at the charge of maintaining 

 an infant, relieved itself by obtaining an order against a particular 

 tithing, which it was ordained " shalbe taxed and rated by the 

 yardland." 



XV.— Woods. 



Some other miscellaneous orders are worthy of notice. Among 

 these was the preservation of woods in accordance with the Act 

 of the 35th Hen. VIII., cap 17. The preamble of that Act 

 described the King as " perceiving and right well knowing the great 

 decay of timber and woods . . to be such, that unless speedy 

 remedy in that behalf be provided there is great and manifest likeli- 

 hood of scarcity and lack, as well of timber for building . . houses 

 and ships, and also for fewel and firewood." The Act ordained, 

 that in all coppices which " shall be felled at twenty-four years 

 growing or under" there should be left for every acre of wood 

 " twelve standils or starers of oak " : deficiency in oak was to be 

 made good with elm, ash, asp, or beech. Woods over which there 

 were rights of common of pasture were not to be cut till a fourth 

 part had been divided off and enclosed, then the enclosed portion 

 fell within the foregoing restrictions. If the Lord of the Manor and 

 the Commoners did not agree on this division, two justices appointed 

 at Quarter Sessions had power to act. 



Of such proceedings, the following order is an illustration. 



Epiphany, 44th Elizabeth : — 



" Yt is ordered by this Court that S r James Mervyn Knight, S r Walter Longe 

 Knight, Jasp r Moore, Henry Willughby, and John Dauntesey Eq r * or any two of 

 them shall at there speed and convenient leasure repaire to the wood ground 

 called Lighe wood w th in the p r ishe of Westbury or to some place nere thereabout 



