Chapter II: Preface

County historians have, as a rule, with but rare exceptions, either entirely ignored the story of the royal forests within their confines, or have treated the subject after the most meagre fashion. Nevertheless, there is abundant and most interesting material for their history at the Public Record Office in a mass of documents which are but very rarely consulted. Occasionally, too, much can be gleaned from manuscripts at the British Museum, Cambridge University Library, Guildhall, or Lincoln’s Inn, and in a few cases from rolls or books of forest proceedings in private hands.

If references had been given to every document cited, almost every page would have bristled with footnotes, involving a considerable curtailment of the rest of the letterpress. Not a single statement, however, is made—where no author is cited—save on the authority of original and contemporary records.

It may be helpful to some to state the chief classes of documents whence forest lore is to be obtained in the vast national depository in Chancery Lane.

(1) Placitæ Foresta, or Forest Proceedings, Chancery—John to Charles I.—consisting of presentments, claims, perambulations, etc., before the Justices in Eyre of the Forests. They are contained in 156 bundles, and an inventory of their contents will be found in the Dep.-Master of Rolls Reports, v., App. ii., 46-56.

(2) Swainmote Court Rolls of Windsor, 2 Edw. VI. to 14 Charles I. Inventory in Report, v., App. ii., 57-9.

(3) Forest Proceedings, Exchequer, Treasury of Receipt, Henry III. to Charles II. To these documents there are three volumes of MS. Calendars.

(4) Miscellaneous Books of Exchequer, Treasury of Receipt, vol. 75, Edw. I.; assarts and wastes in diverse forests, vol. 76; pleas and presentments of Sherwood, Hen. III. to Edw. III.; vol. 77, game in all forests north of the Trent, 30 Hen. VIII.

(5) A Book of Orders concerning Royal Forests, 1637-1648. State Papers, Domestic, Charles I., vol. 384.

(6) Records of Duchy of Lancaster. A great variety of forest presentments, attachments, perambulations, pleas, etc., Hen. III. to James I., pertain to Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, etc. A printed list of all the Duchy Records was issued in 1901; those relating to forests are on pp. 39-47. Among the maps and plans (pp. 76-80) are many relating to the Forest of the High Peak.

(7) Lists of Minister Accounts, with thorough indexes, were issued in 1899; much royal forest information occurs in many of these accounts.

(8) Occasionally Court Rolls of Manors, etc., yield information; these also have printed lists and indexes, issued in 1896.

(9) Both Close and Patent Rolls for the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries abound in royal forest incidents; they have been well calendered (printed) for the greater part of this period.

As to these records, I have a large number of references and brief extracts—far more than are used in the following pages—for the different counties, and I would gladly on application save trouble, if I could, to any genuine worker as to a particular forest or forests.

With regard to printed books that bear on the subject, references to the more important will be found in each of the chapters; but there are three of such real value on this little studied subject that they demand special mention.

In 1887, Mr. W. R. Fisher published a 4to volume on _The Forest of Essex: its History, Laws, Administration, and Ancient Customs, and the Wild Deer which lived in it_. The book owed its origin to the spirited action of the Corporation of the City of London, in rescuing much of the illegally enclosed land of Epping Forest; it is based throughout on documentary evidence, and illustrates, in many ways, forest law and procedure in other counties besides Essex.

The documents relative to the Yorkshire _Forest of Pickering_ are exceptionally voluminous and interesting. They sufficed to fill four volumes of the new series of the North Riding Record Society, and were put forth by Mr. R. B. Turton between 1894-7. I had obtained transcripts of many of these documents in 1890, and made considerable extracts from others in 1902-3 before I was acquainted with these books. They are not well arranged, but both transcripts and introductions are of the greatest value to the forest student, particularly of the fourteenth century.

In 1901 the Selden Society issued Mr. G. J. Turner’s _Select Pleas of the Forest_, the one masterly work on English forest law and procedure, more especially of the thirteenth century. To this admirable volume these pages are much indebted, and from it not infrequent quotations have by leave been taken. I desire also here to gratefully acknowledge the help I have received from Mr. Turner, outside his published work, and particularly for his reading the proof of the earlier chapters, though it is not to be understood that he is responsible for any statements. It is much to be hoped that Mr. Turner will ere long produce another book on the later Forest Pleas in the time of their decadence.

Passing long periods of my earlier life within the bounds of two old royal forests, Exmoor, Somerset, and Duffield Frith, Derbyshire, and living subsequently close to the confines of the Staffordshire forests of Kinver, Cannock, and Needwood, the subject treated of in these pages has always had for me a particular fascination. Accidentally meeting in early life with a copy of that very rare little work, Dryden’s edition of _L’Art de Venerie_ (1843), by William Twici, huntsman to Edward II., which is described in chapter vi., made me desire to know more about the subject. Thirty years later I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of that rare old antiquary and sportsman, the late Sir Henry Dryden, Bart. Various discussions and correspondence on England’s forest law and early hunting led to his desiring me to bring out a new and extended edition of his valuable little treatise. The project got deferred, but this book, in which his drawings of hunting costumes and hounds are reproduced, to some extent fulfils his wishes.

No one is better aware of the deficiencies of these pages than the writer. It would have been easy enough to have found original material sufficient to fill a volume of this size for almost each of the forests named therein; in some cases, such as the Peak Forest, Rockingham, and more especially Sherwood, it seemed almost sinful to be content with such brief summaries of a few of the more important facts. Nevertheless, it seemed best on the whole to condense the entire matter within the limits (kindly made more elastic in this case) assigned to the series of “Antiquary’s Books.” In doing this, certain sections that had been prepared on such subjects as the Clergy and Forest Pleas, Historic Trees, Place and Personal Names in Forest Districts, and a Glossary of Terms had to be abandoned. In the heartless work of cutting down, by more than one half, the material prepared for the press, as well as in other ways, I had the timely assistance of my son, Mr. Cuthbert Machell Cox.

It might be well for the reader interested in any particular forest or shire to recollect that illustrations of any special topic treated of in the opening chapters are not, as a rule, repeated subsequently; reference to the index will often supplement information given under the chapter on a definite shire. It is hoped, too, that the index will serve as a glossary, as each forest term used is explained once or oftener in the text.

The absence of any reference to the counties of Bedford, Cambridge, Cornwall, Hertford, Lincoln, Middlesex, Monmouth, Norfolk, and Suffolk, arises from the fact that there is practically no information with regard to any royal forests within their confines.

If these pages arouse greater interest in the much neglected story of England’s royal forests, it will be an abundant reward for no small amount of time and trouble expended on record searching and on general reading in the pursuit of a subject that was at one time so widely developed, and had so great an influence on our social and economic life.

J. CHARLES COX

ST. ALBANS, SYDENHAM
_July, 1905_

THE ROYAL FORESTS OF ENGLAND