[1]Political Pieces and Songs relating to English History. Edited by Thomas Wright. Vol. ii., p. 199.

[2]It is worth noticing how, according to their natures, our English poets have dwelt upon the meaning of the woods, from Spenser, with his allegories, to the ballad-singer, who saw them only as a preserve for deer. Shakspeare touches upon them with both that joyful gladness, peculiar to him, and the deep melancholiness, which they also inspire. Shelley and Keats, though in very different ways, both revel in the woods. To Wordsworth they are “a map of the whole world.” Of course, under the names of woods, and any lessons from them, I speak only of such lowland woods as are known chiefly in England; not dense forests shutting out light and air, without flowers or song of birds, whose effect on national poetry and character is quite the reverse to that of the groves and woodlands of our own England. See what Mr. Ruskin has so well said on the subject. Modern Painters, vol. v., part vi., ch. ix., § 15, pp. 89, 90; and, also in the same volume, part vii., chap. iv., § 2, 3, pp. 137-39; and compare vol. iii., part iv., ch. xiv., § 33, pp. 217-19.

[3]In the lower part of the Forest, near the Channel, the effect is quite painful, all the trees being strained away from the sea like Tennyson’s thorn. It is the Usnea barbata which covers them, especially the oaks, with its hoary fringe, and gives such a character to the whole Forest.

[4]The reader must bear in mind that the word “forest” is here used, as it is always throughout the district, in its primitive sense of a wild, open space. And the moors and plains are still so called, though there may not be a single tree growing upon them. (See chap. iii., p. 35, foot-note.)

[5]The woods, in Domesday, are, as we shall see, generally valued by the number of swine they maintain.

[6]For a justification of this general picture, I must refer the reader to the next chapter, where references to Domesday, as to the state of the district before its afforestation by the Conqueror, and the evidence supplied by the names of places, are given. I may add, as showing the former nature of the woods, that the charcoal found in the barrows, embankments, and the Roman potteries, is made from oak and beech, but principally the latter. Since, too, the deer have been destroyed, young shoots of holly are springing up in all directions, and another generation may, perhaps, see the Forest resembling its old condition. As a proof, beside the entry in Domesday, that the Hordle Cliffs were covered with timber, the fishermen dredging for the septaria in the Channel constantly drag up large boles of oaks, locally known as “mootes.” The existence of the chestnut is shown by the large beams in some of the old Forest churches, as at Fawley; but none now exist, except a few, comparatively modern, though very fine, at Boldrewood. Further, the Forest could never, except in the winter, have been very swampy, as the gravelly formation of the greater part of the soil supplies it with a natural drainage. Still, there were swamps, and in the wet places large quantities of bog-oak have been dug up, bearing witness, as in other countries, of an epoch of oaks, which preceded the beech-woods. Gough, in his additions to Camden’s Britannia, vol. i., p. 126, describes Godshill as being in his day covered with thick oaks. When, too, Lewis wrote in 1811, old people could then recollect it so densely covered with pollard oaks and hollies that the road was easily lost. (Historical Enquiries on the New Forest, p. 79, Foot-note.) No one, I suppose, now believes that wolves were extirpated by Edgar. They and wild boars are expressly mentioned in the Laws of Canute (Manwood: a Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest, f. 3, § 27, 1615), and lingered in the north of England till Henry VIII.’s reign. (See further on the subject, The Zoology of Ancient Europe, by Alfred Newton, p. 24.) I have hesitated, however, to include the beaver, though noticed by Harrison, who wrote in 1574, as in his time frequenting the Taf, in Wales (Description of England, prefixed to Holinshed’s Chronicle, ch. iv. pp. 225, 226.) The eggs of cranes, bustards, and bitterns, were, we know, protected as late as the middle of the sixteenth century. (Statutes of the Realm, vol. iii., p. 445, 25^o Henry VIII., ch. xi., § 4; and vol. iv., p. 109, 3^o, 4^o, Ed. VI., ch. vii.) The last bustard was seen in the Forest, some twenty-five years ago, on Butt’s Plain, near Eyeworth. It is a sad pity that the enormous collection of birds’ bones, described as chiefly those of herons and bitterns, found by Brander amongst the foundations of the Priory Church at Christchurch (see Archæologia, vol. iv., pp. 117, 118), were not preserved, as they might have yielded some interesting results. We must, however, still bear in mind that there are far more points of resemblance than of difference between the Forest of to-day and that of the Conqueror’s time; especially in the long tracts of fern and heath and furze, which certainly then existed, pastured over by flocks of cattle.

[7]Remarks on Forest Scenery, illustrated by the New Forest, vol. ii., pp. 241-46; third edition. Some mention should here be made of Gilpin, a man who, in a barren, unnatural age, partook of much of the same spirit as Cowper and Thompson, and whose work should be placed side by side with their poems. Unfortunately, much of his description is now quite useless, as the Forest has been so much altered; but the real value of the book still remains unchanged in its pure love for Nature and its simple, unaffected tone. It is well worth, however, noticing—as showing the enormous difficulty of overcoming an established error—that, notwithstanding his true appreciation of bough-forms (see vol. i., pp. 110-12, same edition), and his hatred of pollarded shapes, and all formalism (same vol., p. 4), he had not sufficient force to break through the conventional drawing of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, and his trees (see, as before, pp. 252-54) are all drawn under the impression that they are a gigantic species of cabbage. The edition, however, published in 1834, and edited by Sir T. D. Lauder, is, in this and many other respects, far better.

[8]The following measurements may have, perhaps, an interest for some readers:—Girth of the Knyghtwood oak, 17 ft. 4 in.; of the Western oak at Boldrewood, 24 ft. 9 in.; the Eastern, 16 ft.; and the Northern, in the thickest part, 20 ft. 4 in.; though, lower down, only 14 ft. 8 in.; beech at Studley, 21 ft.; beech at Holmy Ridge, 20 ft. The handsomest oak, however, in the district, stands a few yards outside the Forest boundary, close to Moyle’s Court, measuring 18 ft. 8½ in.

[9]England under the Anglo-Norman Kings. Ed. Thorpe, p. 214.

[10]The same, p. 266.

[11]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. p. 354. This, of course, must not be too literally taken. It is one of those stock phrases which so often recur in literature, and may be found, under rather different forms, applied to other princes.

[12]Voltaire was the first to throw any doubt on the generally received account (Essai sur les Mœurs et l’Esprit des Nations, tom. iii. ch. xlii. p. 169. Panthéon Littéraire. Paris, 1836). He has in England been followed by Warner (Topographical Remarks on the South-Western Parts of Hampshire, vol. i. pp. 164-197), and Lewis, in his Historical Enquiries concerning the New Forest, pp. 42-55.

[13]Concerning the King’s prerogative to make a forest wherever he pleased, and the ancient legal maxim that all beasts of the chase were exclusively his and his alone, see Manwood—A Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest, ch. ii. ff. 25-33, and ch. iii. sect. i. f. 33, 1615. We must remember, too, that, before the afforestation, William not only owned by right of conquest, as being King, the large demesne lands of the Crown in the district, and also those estates of former possessors, who had fallen at Hastings, or fled into exile, but, as we know from Domesday, kept some—as at Eling, Breamore, and Ringwood—in his own hands.

[14]Bouquet. Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la France, tom. xi., pref., No. xii. p. 14; and tom. xii., pref., No. xlix. pp. 46-48. Some account of him may be found in tom. x. p. 184, foot-note a, and in the preface of the same volume, No. xv. p. 28. See also preface to tom. viii., No. xxxi., p. 24, as also p. 254, foot-note a.

[15]De Ducibus Normannis, book vii. c. ix.; in Camden’s Anglica Scripta, p. 674.

[16]Chronicon ex Chronicis. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. ii. p. 45. Published by the English Historical Society.

[17]Historia Ecclesiastica, pars. iii. lib. x., in the Patrologiæ Cursus Completus. Ed. J. P. Migne. Tom. clxxxviii. p. 749 c. Paris, 1855.

[18]De Nugis Curialium Distinctiones Quinque, distinc. v. cap. vi. p. 222. Published by the Camden Society.

[19]De Eventibus Angliæ, lib. ii. cap. vii., in Twysden’s Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem, p. 2373. I am almost ashamed to quote Knyghton, but it is as well to give the most unfavourable account. Spotswood, in his History of the Church of Scotland (book ii. p. 30, fourth edition, 1577), repeats the same blunder as Walter Mapes and Knyghton, adding that the New Forest was at Winchester, and that Rufus destroyed thirty churches.

[20]For the sake of brevity, let me add that William of Malmesbury (Gesta Regum Anglorum, vol. ii. p. 455, published by the English Historical Society, 1840), Henry of Huntingdon (Historiarum, lib. vi., in Savile’s Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, p. 371), Simon of Durham (De Gestis Regum Anglorum, in the Historiæ Anglicanæ Scriptores Decem, p. 225), copying word for word from Florence, Roger Hoveden (Annalium Pars Prior, Willielmus Junior, in the Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores, p. 468), Roger of Wendover (Flores Historiarum, vol. ii. pp. 25, 26, published by the English Historical Society), Walter Hemingburgh (De Gestis Regum Angliæ, vol. i. p. 33, published by the English Historical Society), and John Ross (Historia Regum Angliæ, pp. 112, 113. Ed. Hearne. Oxford, 1716), repeat, according to their different degrees of accuracy, the general story of the Conqueror destroying villages and exterminating the inhabitants.

[21]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, as before quoted. Nor does the writer, when another opportunity presents itself at Rufus’s death, mention the matter, but passes it over in significant silence. The same volume, p. 364.

[22]See Domesday (the photo-zincographed fac-simile of the part relating to Hampshire; published at the Ordnance Survey Office, 1861), p. xxix. b, under Bertramelei, Pistelslai, Odetune, Oxelei, &c.

[23]See in Domesday, as before, p. xxvii. b, the entry under Langelei—“Aluric Petit tenet unam virgatam in Forestâ.” See, too, p. iii. b, under Edlinges.

[24]See in Domesday, under Thuinam, Holeest, Slacham, Rinwede, p. iv. a; and Herdel, p. xxviii. b.

[25]See in Domesday, out of many instances, Esselei and Suei, p. xxix. b; Bailocheslei, p. xiv. b; Wolnetune and Bedeslei, p. xxviii. a; Hentune, p. xxviii. b; and Linhest, p. iv. a.

[26]It is possible that whilst the survey was being taken Saulf died. If this be so, we find an instance of feeling in allowing his widow to still rent the lands at Hubborn, which could little have been expected. The name seems to have been misspelt in various entries. See Domesday, p. xxix. b, under Sanhest and Melleford.

[27]Aluric is probably the physician of that name mentioned in Domesday, p. xxix. a, as holding land in the hundred of Egheiete. Not to take up further space, let me here only notice some few out of the many Old-English names of persons in Domesday holding lands in places which had been more or less afforested, such as Godric (probably Godric Malf) at Wootton, Willac in the hundred of Egheiete, Uluric at Godshill, in the actual Forest, and Wislac at Oxley. See Domesday under the words Odetune, Godes-manes-camp, and Oxelei, p. xxix. b. See, also, under Totintone, p. xxvii. a, where Agemund and Alric hold lands which the former, and the latter’s father, had held of Edward.

[28]Passing over the later and more highly-coloured accounts, we will content ourselves with Florence of Worcester, as more trustworthy, whose words are—“Antiquis enim temporibus, Edwardi scilicet Regis, et aliorum Angliæ Regum predecessorum ejus, hæc regio incolis Dei et ecclesiis nitebat uberrime.” (Thorpe’s edition, as before quoted.) Were this, even in a limited degree, true, the Forest would present the strange anomaly of possessing more churches then than it does now, with a great increase of population. The Domesday census, we may add, makes the inhabitants of that portion which is called “In Novâ Forestâ et circa eam,” a little over two hundred. See Ellis’s Introduction to Domesday, vol. ii. p. 450.

[29]In support of these statements, I may quote from the Prize Essay on the Farming of Hampshire, published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England (vol. xxii., part ii., No. 48, 1861), and which was certainly not written with any view to historical evidence, but simply from an agricultural point. At pp. 242, 243, the author says: “The outlying New Forest block consists of more recent and unprofitable deposits. This tract appears to the ordinary observer, at first sight, to be a mixed mass of clays, marls, sands, and gravels. The apparent confusion arises from the variety of the strata, from the confined space in which they are deposited, and from the manner in which, on the numerous hills and knolls, they overlie one another, or are concealed by drift gravel.” And again, at pp. 250, 251, he continues: “Of the Burley Walk, the part to the west of Burley Beacon, and round it, is nothing but sand or clay growing rushes, with here and there some ‘bed furze.’... The Upper Bagshots, about Burley Beacon, round by Rhinefield and Denney Lodges, and so on towards Fawley, are hungry sands devoid of staple:” and finally sums up by saying, “half of the 63,000 acres are not worth 1s. 6d. an acre,” p. 330.

[30]In that portion under “In Novâ Forestâ et circa eam.”

[31]Warner, vol. ii. p. 33, says Hordle Church was standing when Domesday was made. This is a mistake. It was, however, built soon after, as we know from some grants of Baldwin de Redvers.

[32]Mr. Thorpe notices, in his edition of The Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 94, foot-note, its early use, in a document of Eadger’s, A.D. 964, in the sense of a town; but in the first place it certainly meant only an inclosed spot. There appears to have been at some time, in the south part of the Forest, a church near Wootton, the Odetune of Domesday, where its memory is still preserved in the name of Church Lytton given to a small plot of ground. Rose, in his notes to the Red King, p. 205, suggests that Church Moor and Church Place indicate other places of worship. Church Moor is a very unlikely situation, being a large and deep morass, and could well, from its situation, have been nothing else, and, in all probability, takes its name, in quite modern times, from some person. But Church Place at Sloden, like Church Green in Eyeworth Wood, is certainly merely the embankments near which the Romano-British population employed in the Roman potteries, once lived, and which ignorance and superstition have turned into sacred ground. The word Lytton, at Wootton, however, makes the former position certain, but by no means necessitates that the church was standing at the afforestation. Thus we know that in Leland’s time a chapel was in existence at Fritham (Itinerary, ed. Hearne, vol. vi. f. 100, p. 88), which has since his day disappeared. It would, of course, be absurd to argue that all ruins which have been, or yet may be found, were caused by the Conqueror. Further, with regard to the castles, had there been any, they would most certainly have been noticed in Domesday, and it is most unlikely, knowing how very few existed in England at the Conquest, that five or six should have been clustered together in the Forest. The fact, too, of Rose’s finding “minute fragments of brick and mortar,” lumps of chalk, and pieces of slate bored with holes, simply proves that persons have, subsequently to the Normans, found the New Forest a most ungrateful soil. I may, perhaps, add that Mr Akerman, the well-known archæologist, when, a few years since, exploring the Roman potteries in the Forest (for which see chapter xvii.), in vain tried there, or in other parts, to find any traces of old buildings. (Archæologia, vol. xxxv. p. 97.)

[33]See Dr. Guest’s Early English Settlements in South Britain; Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, Salisbury volume, p. 57.

[34]“Nova Foresta, quæ linguâ Anglorum Ytene nuncupatur,” however, says Florence of Worcester (vol. ii. pp. 44, 45, ed. Thorpe); but the Keltic origin of the word is better.

[35]Ashley is connected with Esk and Usk, and refers to water rather than wood.—errata

[36]The names of the fields in the various farms adjoining the Forest—Furzy Close, Heathy Close, Cold Croft, Starvesall, Hungry Hill, Rough Pastures, &c. &c.—are not without meaning. The common Forest proverb of “lark’s-lees,” applied to the soil, pretty clearly, too, shows its quality.

[37]Manwood defines a forest “a certaine territorie of woody grounds and fruitful pastures.” A Treatise of the Lawes of the Forest. London, 1619. Chap. i. f. 18. Wedgwood (Dictionary of English Etymology, vol. ii. p. 34) shows the true meaning of the word, by connecting it with the Welsh gores, gorest, waste, open ground, and goresta, to lie open.

[38]See Mr. Davies’s paper on the Races of Lancashire, Transactions of the Philological Society, 1855, p. 258. In Domesday, as before, under Clatinges, p. xviii. a, we find, “Silva inutilis,” that is, a wood which has no beech, oak, ash, nor holly, but only yews or thorns, equivalent to the entry, “Silva sine pasnagio,” under Anne, p. xix. a. (See, too, Ellis, Introduction to Domesday, vol. i. p. 99.) Whilst under Borgate, p. iv. b, we find, “Pastura quæ reddebat xl porcos est in forestâ Regis.”

[39]See Manwood, as before, ff. 1-5.

[40]In the Charta de Forestâ of Canute (Manwood, f. 3, sect. 27) mention is made in the forests of horses, cows, and wild goats which are all protected; and from sect. 28 it is plain that, under certain limitations, people might cut fuel. These, with other privileges, such as killing game on their own lands (see sect. xxx. f. 4)—for, by theory, all game was the King’s—were compensations given to the forester for being subject to Forest Law.

[41]See chapter ix. p. 97, footnote.

[42]See Domesday, as before, p. xxix. b., under Einforde.

[43]See chapters viii. p. 87, and x. p. 114.

[44]The following translation is made from the original in the Record Office. Southt Plitai Foreste, A^o viii.^o E. I.^mi “The metes and boundaries of the New Forest from the first time it was afforested. First, from Hudeburwe to Folkewell; thence to the Redechowe; thence to the Bredewelle; thence to Brodenok; thence to the Chertihowe; thence to the Brygge; thence to Burnford; thence to Kademannesforde; thence to Selney Water; thence to Orebrugge; thence to the Wade as the water runs; thence to the Eldeburwe; thence to Meche; thence to Redebrugge as the bank of the Terste runs; thence to Kalkesore as the sea runs; thence to the Hurste, along the sea-shore; thence to Christ Church Bridge as the sea flows; thence as the Avene extends, as far as the bridge of Forthingebrugge; thence as the Avene flows to Moletone; thence as the Avene flows to Northchardeford and Sechemle; and so in length by a ditch, which stretches to Herdeberwe.” It is this old natural boundary which, as stated in the preface, we have adopted for the limits of the book. A copy of the original may be found in the Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xliv., appendix, p. 574, 1789.

[45]This may also be found, with the perambulation made in the twenty-second year of Charles II., in the Journal of the House of Commons, vol. xliv., appendix, pp. 574, 575, 1789. It is also given in Lewis’s Historical Enquiries upon the New Forest, appendix ii. pp. 174-177.

[46]This is not the place to say more on this most important chapter of English history. See, however, on the subject, The Great Charter: and the Charter of the Forest, by Blackstone, Introduction, pp. lx.-lxxii. 1759. For the oppressions which still existed under the shelter of the Forest Laws, see the preamble to the “Ordinatio Foreste,” 34th Edward I. Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. p. 147.

[47]“Quid et quantum temporibus cujuslibet regis nullo modo eis constare potest.” The conclusion of the perambulation. Some little difficulty attends these perambulations. From Domesday, it is certain that the Conqueror afforested land on the west of the Avon at Holdenhurst, Breamore, and Harbridge. And amongst the MSS of Lincoln’s Inn Library we find a copy of a charter of William of Scotland, dated, curiously enough, “Hindhop Burnemuth, in meâ Novâ Forestâ, 10 Kal. Junii, 1171.” (See Hunter’s “Three Catalogues,” &c., p. 278, No. 78, 1838.) It would seem, from what Edward’s commissioners say, that these afforestations, which had taken place since Henry II’s time, were all made inside the actual boundaries of the Forest. It has been generally supposed that the perambulation in the eighth year of Edward I. was the first ever made of an English forest. This is not the case, for in the Record Office, in the Plita Foreste de Cōm. Southt LIII^tio R. H. III., No. III., may be found the perambulation of a forest in the north of Hampshire.

[48]For a good account of all details connected with the history of the New Forest, see the Sub-Report by the Secretary of the Royal New and Waltham Forest Commission, Reports from Commissioners (11), vol. xxx. pp. 267-309, 1850, and also the Fifth Report of the Land Revenue Commissioners in 1789, published July 24th of that year, to be found also in the Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xliv. pp. 552-571.

[49]See “The humble petition of Richard Spencer, Esq., Sir Gervas Clifton, Knight and Baronet, and others, to enter upon the New Forest and Sherwood Forest,” &c. &c. Record Office. Domestic Series, Charles II., No. 8. f. 26, July 21st, 1660.

[50]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.

[51]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.”

[52]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.

[53]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 an unfit way to gratify this petitioner, for under pretence of such Moorefall trees much waste is often committed.” Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 34, April 2nd, 1661, f. 14. Hence the reason of Charles’s warrant in the case of Winefred Wells, as he knew that the Lord Treasurer was so strongly opposed to any such grants.

[54]See the report of Peter Pett, one of the King’s master shipwrights, “Touching the fforests of Shottover and Stowood.” Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 216, f. 56. i. May 10th, 1632. The New Forest, however, seems from this report to have been much better in this respect.

[55]See “Necessarie Remembrances concerning the preservation of timber, &c.” Record Office. Domestic Series. Charles I., No. 229, f. 114. Without date, but some time in 1632.

[56]9th and 10th of William III., chap. xxxvi, 1693. An abstract of the Act may be found in the Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xliv., appendix, pp. 576-578.

[57]To show how for years the Forest was neglected and robbed, we find, from a survey made in James I.’s reign, 1608, that there were no less than 123,927 growing trees fit for felling, and decaying trees which would yield 118,000 loads of timber; whilst in Queen Anne’s reign, in 1707, only 12,476 are reported as serviceable. See Fifth Report of the Land Revenue Commissioners, Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xliv. p. 563. The waste in James I.’s and Charles I.’s time must have been enormous, for from the “Necessarie Remembrances” before quoted we find that there were not in 1632 much above 2,000 serviceable trees in the whole Forest.

[58]See, as before, Fifth Report of the Land Revenue Commissioners, pp. 561, 562, and especially the evidence of the under-steward, Appendix, 583. As far back as February 20th, 1619, we find that James I. gave the Earl of Southampton 1,200l. a year as compensation for the damage which the enormous quantity of deer in the Forest caused to his land. Letter from Gerrard to Carleton, Feb. 20, 1618/1619, Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 105, f. 120. Gilpin (vol. ii. pp. 32, 33, third edition) states that in his day two keepers alone robbed the Forest to the value of 50,000l.

[59]Journals of the House of Commons, vol. xlvii. pp. 611-792; vol. lv. pp. 600-784.

[60]See the evidence in the Parliamentary Papers, 1849, Nos. 513, 538. Of the Forest Rights and Privileges, the secretary to the New Forest Commission writes: “The present state of the New Forest in this respect is little less than absolute anarchy.” (Reports of Commissioners (11), vol. xxx. p. 357, 1850.) It should be distinctly understood, as was shown in the last chapter, that these Rights had their origin as a compensation to those whose lands had been afforested by the King, and who were, in consequence, subject to the Forest Laws, and the injury done by the deer. Now that the injury is no longer sustained, and the exercise of the Prerogative has ceased, so ought also the privileges. The Crown, however, has not pressed this, and the Rights are thus still enjoyed. A Register of Decisions on Claims to Forest Rights, with each person’s name, and the amount of his privileges, was published in 1858.

[61]The present statistics of the Forest are—Freehold estates, being private property, within the Forest boundaries, 27,140 acres; copyhold, belonging to her Majesty’s manor of Lyndhurst, 125; leasehold, under the Crown, 600; enclosures belonging to the lodges, 500; freeholds of the Crown, planted, 1,000; woods and wastes of the Forest, 63,000: total, 92,365 acres. The value of timber supplied to the navy during the last ten years has been, on the average, nearly 7,000l. a year. The receipts for the year ending 31st of March, 1860, derived from the sale of timber, bark, fagots, marl, and gravel, and rent of farms and cottages, &c., were 23,125l. 6s. 6d.; whilst the expenses for labour, trees, carriage of timber, and salaries, were 12,913l. 1s. 7d.; thus showing a considerable profit. (From the Thirty-eighth Report of the Commissioners of her Majesty’s Woods and Forests.) The management of the Forest is now in the hands of a deputy-surveyor, three assistants, and eight keepers; whilst four verderers try all cases of stealing timber, turf, and furze.

[62]See further, on the condition of the Forest population, chapters xv. and xvi. When stripping bark and felling timber in the spring, the men can earn considerably more than at other times. The average wages are two shillings a day for ordinary labourers, but all work, which can be, is done by the piece.

[63]In the Rolls of Parliament, vol. i. p. 125, A.D. 1293, 21st Edward I., is an account of a vessel, the All Saints, “de Hethe juxta Novam Forestam,” which, laden with wine from Rochelle, was wrecked and plundered on the Cornish coast.

[64]A little beyond Hythe is a good example of Mr. Kemble’s test (see the Saxons in England, vol. i., Appendix A, p. 481) for recognizing the Ancient Mark. To the north lies Eling, the Mark of the Ealingas, and in regular succession from it come the various hursts, holts, and dens, now to be seen in Ashurst, Buckholt, and Dibden. The last village has a very picturesque church, its roof completely thatched with ivy, disfigured, however, by a wretched spire. In Domesday it possessed a saltern and a fishery, and a wood with pannage for six hogs (sylva de 6 porcis). Two hydes were taken into the Forest. Eling, at the same time, maintained two mills, which paid twenty-five shillings, a fishery and a saltern, both free from tax. The manor was bound, in the time of Edward the Confessor, to find half-a-day’s entertainment (firma) for the King. For a curious extract from its parish register, see chapter xix. Staneswood (Staneude), which is more southward, also, according to Domesday, possessed a mill which paid five shillings, and two fisheries worth fifty pence. Farther north lies Redbridge, the Rodbrige of Domesday, which also maintained two mills, rented, however, at fifty shillings. This was the Hreutford and Vadum Arundinis of Bede, where lived Cynibert the Abbot, who, failing in his attempt to save the two sons of Arvald from Ceadwalla, delayed their death till he had converted them to Christianity. (Bede, Hist. Eccl., tom. i., lib. iv., cap. xvi., p. 284, published by the English Historical Society.) All these places, with the exception of Redbridge, were more or less afforested. The district, however, seems to have been by far the most flourishing of any adjoining the New Forest, owing, no doubt, to the immigration which the various creeks invited, and the remains of salterns still show its former prosperity. Next to it came the Valley of the Avon, its mills often rented, in Domesday, by a payment of the eels caught in the river.

[65]Colonel Hammond, Governor of the Isle of Wight, in a letter to the Committee of Derby House, dated from Carisbrook Castle, June 25th, 1648, speaks of “Caushot Castle as a place of great strength.” (Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. ii., book ix., p. 383.) In the reign of Elizabeth there were stationed here a captain, with a fee of one shilling a day; a subaltern with eightpence; four soldiers and eight gunners with sixpence each; and a porter with eightpence. (Peck’s Desiderata Curiosa, vol. i., book ii., p. 66.) And in 1567, we find the queen ordering “the mountyng of ordinance,” probably to pay attention to Philip, who was expected to pass through “the narrowe seas.” Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 43, Aug. 27, 1567, f. 52.

[66]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. p. 24. Florence. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. pp. 3, 4.

[67]Compare his edition of The Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 13, with note 1 at p. 4, vol. i., of Florence.

[68]Early English Settlements in Great Britain—The Proceedings of the Archæological Institute, the Salisbury volume, pp. 56-60. It is, of course, not without much consideration that I presume to differ from Dr. Guest; but surely the passages quoted from Bede refer to nearly 200 years after the arrival of Cerdic and his nephews, Stuf and Wihtgar, when their descendants would have been sure to have crossed over, finding the east side far richer than the cold, barren district where the New Forest afterwards stood.

[69]The Early and Middle Ages of England, p. 56, foot-note. I may, perhaps, add, that Camden also placed it at Yarmouth; Carte, at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire; and Milner, at Hengistbury Head. Gibson, with some others, in his edition of The Chronicle (under nominum locorum explicatio, pp. 19, 20), alone seems to have fixed on this spot. Lappenburg, however, says that the site is no longer known. England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings. Ed. Thorpe, p. 107.

[70]In a letter of Southampton’s to Cromwell, 17th September, 1539 (State Papers, vol. i. p. 617), it is called Calsherdes; whilst in another letter of his, also to Cromwell (Ellis’s Letters, second series; vol. ii. p. 87), he writes Calshorispoynte. Leland, in his Itinerary (Ed. Hearne, second edition, vol. iii., p. 94, f. 78), speaks of both “Cauldshore” and “Caldshore Castelle;” and again (p. 93, f. 77), calls it Cawshot, as it is also spelt in Baptista Boazio’s Map of the Isle of Wight, 1591; whilst in the State papers of Elizabeth we find Calshord. (Record Office. Domestic Series, No. 43, f. 52. Aug. 27th, 1567.) I give these examples to show the number of variations through which the name has passed. No form is too grotesque for a corruption to assume. How names become corrupted, let me give an instance in the word Hagthorneslad (from the Old-English “hagaþorn;” a hawthorn), as it is written in the perambulation of the Forest in the twenty-ninth year of Edward I., which in Charles II.’s time is spelt Haythorneslade, thus losing its whole significance, although to this day the word “hag” is used in the Forest for a “haw,” or “berry.”

[71]The simple termination “ore”—“ora,” and not “oar,” as spelt in the Ordnance Map, may be found within a stone’s-throw of Calshot, in Ore Creek.