Chapter VIII: Later Forest History

The later history of the forests, in the time of their decay, is briefly treated of at the close of most of the following chapters that deal with the different counties. But there are a few general and particular statements relative to the forests from the time of Henry VIII. to George III. that it is found best to cite in a separate section.

In 1538-9, an interesting return was made of all the “kinge his game,” both red and fallow, north of the Trent, arranged under counties and parks (Misc. Bks. 77). The parks of the duchy are not included.

_Nottingham._
Bestwood Park 700 fallow, 140 red.
Clypston Park 60 ” 20 ”
Grynley Park 150 ”
Sherwood Forest about 1,000 red.

_Yorkshire._
Galtres Forest 800 fallow.
Haitfeld Chase 700 red.
Gredling Park 60 fallow.
Pontefract Park 434 ”
Wakefield New Park 200 ”
Ackworth Park 21 ”
Rypax Park 45 ”
Eltoftes Park 15 ”
Wakefield Old Park 40 ”
Conisborough Park 440 ”
Raskell Park 120 ”
Bristwick Park 160 ”
Likenfeld Park 429 ”
Calton Park 30 ”
Wressel Park 50 ”
Newsome Park 72 ” 17 red.
Topcliff Great Park 435 ”
Topcliff Little Park 247 ”
Spofforth Park 175 ”
Wensdale Forest 610 ” 60 red.
Pickering Forest 140 ” 50 ”

_Durham._
Teesdale Forest 210 ” 140 ”

_Northumberland._
Alnwick Park and members 500 ”
Warkworth Park 110 ”

_Yorkshire._
Hurst Park 120 ”
Sherif Hutton 400 ”
Temple Newsom 90 ”
Phipping Park 30 ”
Total 6,352 fallow.
2,067 red.
-----
8,419
=====

The ill-judged attempt of Charles I. and his advisers to reimpose forest law is treated of under the respective forests where the boldest efforts in this direction were made. This was particularly the case in Oxfordshire, where an endeavour was made to levy most extravagant penalties. The Peak Forest is an instance of amicable arrangement between the Crown and the forests tenants; while Duffield Frith, in the same county, is a striking instance of resistance.

In 1639, Charles I. issued the following order for distribution of fat venison to the foreign ambassadors then in England:—

“Right trusty and welbeloved Cozen and Counsellor, we greet
you well. Whereas we have sent you a schedule under our signe
manuell in which were mentioned such number of deere of this
season as we are pleased to bestow upon the Ambassadors and
Agents of divers Princes residing with us, together with the
severall Parks and Walks wherein we purpose the said Deere
shall be killed, We will and comand you forthwith to cause your
severall warrants to be directed to every of the keepers of
the said Parks and Walks, Authorising them to kill and deliver
the said Deer according to our pleasure expressed in the said
Schedule. And hereof ye are not to fayle, any restraint for
killing of our Deere comandment or privy token given to the
contrary notwithstanding. And this our letter shall be your
sufficient warrant and discharge in that behalf. Given under
our signet at our Court at Oatlands the last day of July in the
Fourteenth yeare of our reigne.

“CHARLES R.”

The schedule particularises:—Three bucks for the French Ambassador, from Hyde Park, Woodford Walk, and Windsor Great Park; three for the Venetian Ambassador, from Windsor Little Park, Bushie Park, and Epping Walk; three for the States Ambassador, from Theobald Park (2) and Chingford Walk; two for the King of Spain’s Agent, from West Henalt Walk and Chappell Henalt Walk; two for the Queen of Bohemia’s Agent, from Lowton Walk and Theobald Park; two for the Queen and Crown of Sweden’s Agent, from Lowton Walk and New Lodge Walk in Essex Forest; two for the Duke of Saxony’s Agent, from Enfield Great Park and Enfield Chase; and two for the Duke of Florence’s Agent, from Walthamstow Walk and Enfield Chase.

At the same date the king ordered twenty-two bucks and one stag to be sent to the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Recorder of the City of London. The bucks were mostly from the royal parks round London, but four came from Salcey Forest and one from Grafton Park in Northamptonshire; the stag was from the Great Park at Ampthill.

The following list of Christmas venison supplied to Charles I. in London is the last trace that we can find of the purveying of venison from the forests at large for the royal household.

“Venizon brought to Whitehall against Christmas in anno 1640
for ye expence of his Majestie’s house, and issued out by my
Lords warrants out of the severall forests, chaces and parks as
followeth, viz.:

Does.
To Whittlewood Forest 12
To Cheut Forest 04
To Claringdon Parke 08
To New Forest 12
To South Beare 02
To Salcey Forest 03
To Rockingham Forest 24
To Holmeby Parke 02
To Grafton Parke 04
To Whichwood Forest 06
To Ampthill Parke 04
To Alice Holt Forest 03
To Waybridge Parke 04
To Enfield Chace 04
To Somersham Parke and Chace 04
To Windsor Great Parke 02
To Higham Ferrers Parke 02
To the Old Lodge Walk in Cranborn Chace 02
To New Lodge Walk in Windsor Forest 02
---
Totall 104 does

To Ampthill iij hindes
To Loughton Walke j hinde
To Egham Walke j hinde
--------
Totall 5 hindes”

On January 18th, 1641-2, the king issued his licence to the “Noble French Lord, the Baron of Vieville,” second son of the Marquis of Vieville, “to hunt and kill with his hounds or beagles the game of hares” within all forests, chases, parks, and warrens this side the Trent, for his recreation.

On the re-establishment of the monarchy, Charles II. took various measures, not only to preserve forest timber, but also to restock several of the royal forests with deer. He also accepted various presents of foreign deer from abroad. In 1661 £54 was paid to Harman Splipting, “Mʳ of the ship Angel Gabriell,” for freight of stags from the Duke of Oldenburgh. A further sum of £176 8_s._ 8_d._ was disbursed for a parcel of deer sent to His Majesty by the Duke of Brandenburgh. During the same year £75 was paid in keepers’ fees, at 5_s._ per head, for 300 deer presented to the king by several noblemen and others, and delivered at Windsor and Waltham forests and Enfield Chase.

In 1662, £15 was paid for “keeping German deer at Wanstead” during the winter; and £42 5_s._ 6_d._ for three new wagons for moving deer and the rent of a place in which to keep them. In the same year £18 was disbursed for twelve “brasshorns” for the king’s huntsmen.

A brief undated account of all the forests within the Duchy of Lancaster during the reign of George I. names the following:—

_Lancashire._—Quarnmore, Blasedale, and Wyersdale; “the inhabitants inclose divers partes thereof, and doe therein what seemes good to them.”

Amounderness; the like.

“The parke of Myerscough and the Keepership; lately granted to Benjamin Houghton, Esq., during pleasure; by the same grant he is steward of the forest of Quarnmore, and accountable to the king for the profits. The herbage of the park of Myerscough leased to—Tildersley, Esquire.”

_Yorkshire._—The park of Ackworth, granted with the manor to the city of London, in which there is a covenant for keeping the park stored with deer, “near the Castle of Pontefract, which hath been and was (4 Charles I.) a most princely structure,” razed to the ground in the civil wars.

The park of Pontefract, leased to Robert Monkton, Esquire, saving all great trees, etc.

The forest of Pickering Castle and manor leased for 99 years to Mr. Dallowe, but not the forest.

The forest of Knaresborough; large encroachments.

_Staffordshire._—The forest of Needwood; granted to William, Duke of Devonshire, William, Marquis of Hartington, and Henry Lord Cavendish, with the offices of Steward of the House, and Constable of the Castle of Tutbury, Lieutenant of the Forest, Master of the Game, and Bailiff of the New Liberties.

Castlehey park; granted for 99 years, in 1677, to Henry Seymor, Esquire.

The parks of Hanbury and Tutbury; granted for 99 years, in 1698, to Edward Vernon, Esq.

Hylings and Russey parks; granted for 99 years, in 1698, to Sir John Turton.

_Buckinghamshire._—Olney park and Silwood coppice; granted to James Earl of Northampton, for 99 years, in 1673.

_Hampshire._—Samborne or How park; granted in 1663 to Mrs. Mary Blagge, widow.

_Wilts._—Braydon forest; part belongs to the Exchequer and part to the Duchy.

_Middlesex._—The Chase of Enfield; granted in 1687 to Lord Lisburn for 50 years, with all the offices, from Master of the Game to Woodwards.

In the early part of the eighteenth century Waltham Chase, Hants, was made notorious by the operations of a gang of deer-stealers, who were known throughout the district by the name of “Waltham Blacks,” from their custom of blacking their faces for their nightly forays to escape identification. Like the deer stealers of Cranborne Chase, on the other side of the county, of the same period, they preferred to be known by the name of _Hunters_, and considered their actions fit to be ranked among deeds of bravery. So strange was their infatuation that, as Gilbert White tells us in his _Natural History of Selborne_, no young person was allowed to be possessed of either manhood or gallantry unless he was a “hunter.” Their recklessness caused them eventually to be joined by men drawn from the coarser criminal classes, with the result that their hunting was not infrequently accompanied by acts of wanton violence. These crimes were met in 1722 by an Act of extreme severity.

Although this lawless spirit originated and came to a head at Bishops Waltham, in Hampshire, more than one gang of reckless poachers and smugglers, with blackened faces, styled themselves “Waltham Blacks,” and traversed the country, especially the forest districts, robbing deer parks and fish ponds, and demanding money. They would brook no opposition, and shot dead a young keeper of Windsor who merely put his head out of a lodge window to remonstrate. Sir John Cope, of Bramshill, in the north of Hampshire, threatened two men whom he thought he recognised in daylight as belonging to the gang with legal proceedings, and the next night over five hundred of his young plantations were cut down. Windsor suffered severely from these marauders. In the year of the passing of the “Black Act” over forty of the gang were secured in that district. A special assize was held at Reading, when four of the worst offenders were executed and hung in chains in different parts of the forest, and the others were transported.

During the disturbed period of the Civil War, and afterwards during the Commonwealth, deer-hunting by unauthorised persons became customary on Cranborne Chase, and was subsequently indulged in by many of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood as a kind of “brave diversion.” In the earlier part of the eighteenth century, not a few persons of good breeding and birth thought it no disgrace to hunt or poach at night, to drive the deer into nets, and to enter into fierce combats with the keepers. Hutchins thus describes this “kind of knight-errantry amusement of the most substantial gentlemen of the neighbourhood”:—

“The manner of this amusement, as it was then called, was
nearly as follows: A company of hunters, from four to twenty
in number, assembled in the evening, dressed in cap, jack, and
quarterstaff, and with dogs and nets. Having set the watchword
for the night, and agreed whether to stand or run, in case they
should meet the keepers, they proceed to Cranborne Chase, set
their nets at such places where the deer are most likely to
run, then let slip their dogs, well-used to the sport, to drive
the deer into the nets, a man standing at each end to strangle
the deer as soon as entangled. Thus they passed such a portion
of the night as their success induced them, sometimes bringing
off six or eight deer, good or bad, such as fell into the net,
but generally of the latter sort, which was a matter of little
importance to those gentlemen hunters who regarded the sport,
not the venison. Frequent desperate bloody battles took place;
and instances have unfortunately happened where sometimes
keepers, at other times hunters, have been killed.”

A reproduction is given on the opposite page of an original painting, executed in 1720, of a group of these hunters with their bee-hive caps, wadded coats, quarterstaffs, and nets. The person in the centre is Mr. Henry Good, of Bower Chalk, described as a man “of rare endowments both of body and mind.” It appears as a frontispiece to that rare book Mr. Chafin’s _Anecdotes of Cranborne Chase_ (1818), where the special details of the deer-hunter’s equipment are thus described:—

“The cap was formed with wreaths of straw tightly bound
together with split bramble-stalks, the workmanship much the
same as that of the common bee-hives. The jacks were made of
the strongest canvas, well quilted with wool to guard against
the heavy blows of the quarterstaff, weapons which were much
used in those days, and the management of them requiring great
dexterity.”

Soon after the “gentlemen” who indulged in “this rude Gothic amusement” of night poaching had had their portraits taken in their protective suits, which somewhat resemble those worn by American football players, this kind of sport fell into abeyance among those of position, for the poor reason that it was patronised by the lower orders. Hutchins shrewdly remarks that when this change came, about 1730, its votaries ceased to be called deer-hunters, and were known as deer-stealers. So fierce became the affrays that the forester of the West Walk was killed in 1738, and shortly afterwards the like fate befell the forester or keeper of the Fernditch Walk.

There was a serious pitched battle on Chettle Common, Cranborne Chase, on the night of December 16th, 1780, between the keepers and deer-stealers, the latter headed by a sergeant of dragoons, who were then quartered at Blandford. One of the dragoon’s hands was severed from the arm by a hanger of a keeper, whilst one of the keepers was rendered permanently lame by the blow of a swindgel. In another affray in 1791 one of the deer-stealers was killed and ten were taken prisoners, and eventually transported for life.

The only known relics of these terrible chase strifes are two of the straw caps and an example of that deadly weapon, the swindgel, secured by the keepers from the deer-stealers in 1791. They belong to Mr. Castleman, of Chettle Lodge, and were specially photographed for the _Reliquary_ (N. S. i., 241), in 1887.

The two straw caps or helmets, shown on Plate XIII., are painted dark green to hinder their being noticeable at night-fall. The lining is thickly stuffed with wool. The longer arm of the swindgel is 14 in. long, whilst the shorter arm is only 6 in., but has a circumference in the widest part of 4½ in. The total weight is 1 lb. 2 oz.; it is made of a hard, close-grained wood. The swivelled hinges are of iron, and there is a leathern handle-loop to go round the wrist.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century increased attention was given to the importance of forests as yielding timber for the maintenance of the Navy. Commissioners were appointed to inquire into the state and condition of the woods and forests belonging to the Crown. Between 1787 and 1793 they issued seventeen reports. The first two reports, as well as the fourth, the eleventh, the twelfth, the sixteenth, and the seventeenth, are of a general character. The third deals with the Forest of Dean, the fifth with the New Forest, the sixth with forests of Alice Holt and Woolmer, the seventh with Salcey, the eighth with Whittlewood, the ninth with Rockingham, the tenth with Wichwood, the thirteenth with Bere, the fourteenth with Sherwood, and the fifteenth with Waltham in Essex.

HELMETS AND SWINDGEL OF THE DEER HUNTERS OF CRANBORNE CHASE]

_A Descriptive List of the Deer Parks and Paddocks of England_, by Mr. Joseph Whitaker, was published in 1892. The number of red or fallow deer, or both, in each enclosure, with the acreage, is set forth in each case, with other particulars of the more interesting examples. They vary in size from 4,000 acres at Savernake to a single acre at Bagnall House. The beautiful park of Savernake, with the open country adjoining, presents the best picture of an old English forest. Bowood, which used to be an important part of Clarendon forest, is another good example of forest scenery. If the woods of fir and pine were removed, a great part of the New Forest offers much the same features that it did in days of old. For fine oaks the parks of Windsor, Cornbury, and Kedleston are pre-eminent, whilst Thoresby park, Notts, is not to be equalled anywhere for the variety and beauty of its timber. Spetchley park, Worcestershire, is fenced with old oak pales, fastened with oaken pegs after the original fashion. An ancient stout style of oak deer fence is also still maintained round Hardwick park, Derbyshire.

No fewer than fifty parks mentioned in Mr. Evelyn Shirley’s delightful _Account of English Deer Parks_ have ceased to contain deer since 1867, when that work was issued.

The red deer are still found in a wild state in Devon and Somerset, on Exmoor forest and its confines. The growth of popularity attached to the hunting during the last half-century has materially added to their preservation and increase. There are also a few red deer on Martendale Fell, Westmoreland.

Fallow deer still run wild in the New Forest and Epping forest, and a few stray deer are sometimes noticed in the woodlands of old Rockingham forest. It is a disputed point whether these last are a remnant of the old herds, or escapes from neighbouring parks.

The roe deer, though few in number and decreasing, may yet be found in parts of Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland; whilst in certain of the wooded combes on the Milton side of the vale of Blackmore, Dorset, they roam freely about under the protection of the landowners. They were introduced at Milton about the beginning of the nineteenth century.

In 1884, six of the Milton roe deer were caught and transported to Epping forest, in an endeavour to stock that district. A little later, Mr. E. N. Buxton obtained eight more roe deer from the same district; they have slightly increased, and are supposed now to number about twenty-five.

A few of these Milton deer have of recent years made their way into the New Forest; they were first observed there about 1870, but they do not number more than a dozen.