Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/61

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Under the Stuarts.

still learnt no lesson from the Ship-money, and would have pawned England itself, rather than yield to that obstinacy, which was but the other side of his weakness of character.

With the decline of hawking and hunting, the Forest Laws fell into decay, and the Forests themselves were less regarded, and their boundaries less strictly observed. Under the Stuarts, we find the first traces of that system, which at last resulted in the almost entire devastation of the New Forest. James I. granted no less than twenty assart lands—agri exsariti—there having been previously only three;^[1] and gave the privilege of windfalls to various persons;^[2] whilst officers actually applied to him for trees in lieu of pay for their troops:^[3] and Charles II. bestowed the young woods of Brockenhurst to the maids of honour of his court.^[4]

↑ MSS. prepared by Mr. Record-Keeper Fearnside, quoted in the Secretary's Sub-Report of the Royal New and Waltham Forest Commission, Reports from Commissioners (11), vol. xxx. p. 342.
↑ See Grant Book at the Record Office, 1613, vol. 141, p. 127—"4th October, a Grant to Richard Kilborne, alias Hunt, and Thomas Tilsby (of) the benefitt of all Morefalls within the New Forest, for the terme of one and twenty years."
↑ See "The humble petition of Captayne "Walter Neale" for "two thousand decayed trees out of the New Forest, in consideracion" of 460l., which he had advanced to his company engaged in Count Mansfeldt's expedition. Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 184, Feb., 1625, f. 62.
↑ See warrant from Charles II. to the Lord Treasurer Southampton, that "Winefred Wells may take and receive for her own use" King's Coppice at Fawley, and New Coppice and Iron's Hill Coppice at Brockenhurst. Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 96, April 1st, 1664, f. 16. Three years before this there had been a petition from a Frances Wells "to bestowe upon her and her children for twenty-one yeares the Moorefall trees in three walks in the New Forest, . . . . and seven or eight acres of ground, and ten or twelve timber trees, to build a habitation." The petition was referred to Southampton, who wrote on the margin, "I conceive this

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[1] MSS. prepared by Mr. Record-Keeper Fearnside, quoted in the Secretary's Sub-Report of the Royal New and Waltham Forest Commission, Reports from Commissioners (11), vol. xxx. p. 342.

[2] See Grant Book at the Record Office, 1613, vol. 141, p. 127—"4th October, a Grant to Richard Kilborne, alias Hunt, and Thomas Tilsby (of) the benefitt of all Morefalls within the New Forest, for the terme of one and twenty years."

[3] See "The humble petition of Captayne "Walter Neale" for "two thousand decayed trees out of the New Forest, in consideracion" of 460l., which he had advanced to his company engaged in Count Mansfeldt's expedition. Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 184, Feb., 1625, f. 62.

[p43-4] See warrant from Charles II. to the Lord Treasurer Southampton, that "Winefred Wells may take and receive for her own use" King's Coppice at Fawley, and New Coppice and Iron's Hill Coppice at Brockenhurst. Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 96, April 1st, 1664, f. 16. Three years before this there had been a petition from a Frances Wells "to bestowe upon her and her children for twenty-one yeares the Moorefall trees in three walks in the New Forest, . . . . and seven or eight acres of ground, and ten or twelve timber trees, to build a habitation." The petition was referred to Southampton, who wrote on the margin, "I conceive this

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