British Deer Heads. 
XI. 
INTRODUCTION. 
SINCE the days of the Conquest the red deer has been an object of the chase. 
William the Red has stirred the imagination of more than one generation of 
schoolboys because " he loved the red deer as if he had been their father ! " 
The severity of the old forest laws shows us the estimation in which these 
animals were held. In both Scotland and England the Kings, nobles and Church 
held special forest jurisdictions of the most oppressive kind. The Norman lawyers 
in England made out that all game belonged to the King, and the death of a man was 
of but little account compared with that of a deer. King John had eighteen forests, 
thirteen chases and seven hundred and eighty-one parks — quite a respectable allowance ! 
A chase, it may be added, was an open forest not subject to special forest law, a park 
was an enclosed chase on the land of the owner, and a purlieu was an addition made to 
an old forest. 
In " The Pleasant Ballad of King Henry II. and the Miller of Mansfield " we read : 
All on a long summer's day rode the king pleasantlye, 
With all his princes and nobles eche one ; 
Chasing the hart and hind, and the buck gallantye. 
The Scottish nobles in the thirteenth century used occasionally to forget themselves 
in the ardour of the chase, and " in 1285 Robert de Brus, Lord of Annandale, and John 
de Seytone, his knight, were indicted before the justices itinerant on pleas of the Forest 
of Cumberland ; the charge formulated against them being that, when hunting in Ingle- 
wood, they had taken a doe and a red deer ' priket ' in excess of their allowance." The 
Rev. H. A. Macpherson gives instances of pardons granted to the Scottish nobles by 
Edward III. in similar cases, and even in the days of Elizabeth they gave trouble. The 
Virgin Queen herself was not above taking a pot shot from a coign of vantage as the 
deer were driven past her. James I. and Prince Henry used frequently to visit Sir 
Henry Lee, K.G., the Ranger of Woodstock Park, and the quaint couplets attached to 
the heads in Lord Dillon's possession show the success with which they met. 
The condition of the deer forests in Scotland differed greatly at different times. 
First came the old forest laws, which were very stringent. At this time certain Royal 
forests existed for the sole delectation of the King and his nobles, while others consisted 
of land belonging to the great barons, who enjoyed a sole right of forestry. In course 
of time neighbouring proprietors gradually obtained charters or grants over their own 
estates. These increased," and the few remaining rights of the great barons over the 
lands of their neighbours fell into desuetude and were no longer exercised." The early 
ballads and romances of the sixteenth century, however, show that the heads of the 
great Scottish clans preserved their deer, and gave great attention to their pursuit. 
