Contents of the fikst volume

to 1684-5.
Anth. Parker, arm. 2 Gul. et Mar. 1690-1.

Tho. Coulthurst, arm. 4 Ann. 1704-5.

1 [Philip and Mary appointed Tho. Talbot mil. and Joh. Towneley, gen., or the survivor, to the office 13 Nov.

(1556), 3 and 4 A. R. Talbot having died, and Towneley having resigned, Queen Elizabeth issued new letters

patent 23 Mar. 1581 for Eic. Molyneux. Duchy of Lancaster, Book of Commissions, &c. No. 5, f. 32.]

2 During the Usurpation. After the Restoration Holden was continued as Deputy. About the same time I meet

with a Thomas Forster, esq. calling himself lord of the manor of Ightenhill, and Edmund Stephenson, gent, his

steward.

270

HISTORY OF WHALLEY.

[BOOK III. CHAP. IV.

FORESTS.

Hnb Sepe jepexen

puba fejrepn mycel

puniaS on Sam picum

pilba beop monije

In beopa balum

Deopa unjepim

Ibique crescit

Sylvarum saltus ingens,

Sinus possident

Terra quam plurimse

in vallibus profundis

Damarum turba innumera.

Vet. Poem. Sax. 1 ap Hickes Thes. vol. i. p. 193.

Before we enter upon a particular survey of the Forests of Blackburnshire and

Bowland, it may not be uninteresting to give a short abstract of the laws and customs of

our ancient forests in general.
The word Forest, in its original and most extended sense, implied a tract of land

lying out (foras], that is rejected, as of no value in the first distribution of property; but

though immense quantities of ground falling under this description undoubtedly subsisted

in England from the earliest times ; though the whole country of Deira, or Deonalono,

may be considered as one immense forest ; though from the name of those beautiful

animals with which they were filled, and the coverts with which they abounded, our Saxon

ancestors had long distinguished these retreats by the names of Bucholt and Deonpalo, 3

there is no clear evidence to prove that they were reserved for the peculiar recreation of

our monarchs, and still less that they were placed under a distinct code of laws before the

reign of Canute, who, in A.D. 1016, promulgated the Constitutiones de Foresta*

1 [De Situ Dunelmi et de sacris reliquis qui ibidem habuntur.]
3 Manwood, who wrote upon this picturesque and curious subject with no taste, and with all the pedantry of his

age, gravely proves that there were forests in Judea, from Ps. 1. 10" All the beasts of the forest are mine." When

men have long been confined to the professional use of terms, it never seems to occur to them that they have a more

popular and extended signification.

3 These are also proper names of two of our forests, one in Hampshire and Wiltshire, the other in Shropshire.

Topographers reckon 69 forests in England, but the enumeration is far from being complete.

4 Lord Coke, Inst. 4, 320, expresses a doubt with respect to the genuineness of these constitutions, because they

are nowhere referred to in the general laws of Canute, and because the 30th constitution of the former is inconsistent

with cap. 77 of the latter; as if the virtual alteration, and even repeal, of a former statute by a later, afforded a pre-

sumption against the authenticity either of the one or the other. But for what purpose should they be fabricated? I

will make the most favourable supposition for Lord Coke's hypothesis namely, that they were devised for the

purpose of confronting an early and merciful code with the sanguinary system of forest laws, which prevailed after the

Conquest. But this opinion is encumbered with insuperable difficulties; for, 1st, these constitutions, like the other

acknowledged laws of Canute, have been written in Danish : this is proved by the many Danish words, which the

translator has actually left interspersed with his own version; and which, though many of them are so corrupted as to

be unintelligible in their present form, are yet capable of a good sense by slight literal alterations.

2nd. I recollect no instances of forgeries after the Conquest, but of charters, and those by monks, and for their

own advantage: these, moreover, were in Latin; because the Normans either did not understand their Saxon evidences

or treated them with contempt.

BOOK III. CHAP. IV.]

FORESTS.

271

In these constitutions, therefore, we have the first outline of that singular system

which, from the anxiety of the first Norman princes to secure to themselves the envied

pleasures of the chace, afterwards became very artificial ; which is now very picturesque

and amusing indeed to us } who view the apparatus of it at a distance ; but was oppressive

and cruel in an high degree to those who had the misfortune to live within its grasp.
By these laws, the supreme jurisdiction over the forests of England was committed to

four Thegenes (thanes or principal barons) ; an. inferior authority delegated to four Les-

thegenes (homines mediocres, or lesser barons) ; and the immediate custody of each

entrusted to two Tinemen (minuti homines) ; whose office it was to guard by nightly

watches against offences of vert and venison.
The sanctions of this code were chiefly pecuniary, saving that in two cases, first of

having offered violence to one of the four great thanes, and secondly, of having slain a

staggon, or royal beast, the free man forfeited his liberty and the slave his life.
The supreme administration of the forests, however, fell by degrees into the hands of

one chief justiciary, till, in the year 1184, Henry II. divided the forests of England into

two jurisdictions, north and south of Trent, which gave rise to the two itinera, or eyres,

still nominally subsisting. Over each of these he placed four justices ; viz. two clerks and

two knights, together with two servants of his own household, as wardens, over all the

other foresters.

Each of these itinera, however, gradually fell back under the jurisdiction of one.
But after the Conquest a much more material alteration took place in the internal
The barons, and even secular clergy, being more illiterate, were less inventive, and therefore less to be suspected

of such fabrications.

Again, during the first reigns after the Conquest, our countrymen groaned, rather than remonstrated, under the

tyranny of the Forest Laws : it is not probable, therefore, that such an instrument would be fabricated before it was

wanted, and might be pleaded with some eflect.
But in the reign of John, though the Saxon characters were generally in use, and though the dialect of the time

was a semi-Saxon, it would have been difficult to find even a monk who could have written the language of the laws of

Canute. Some of them are occasionally found in MSS. (not in charters) as low as the reign of Edward III. or perhaps

lower. The convenient and compendious character J> was, I believe, the last.

Lastly, in these laws the wolf is spoken of as actually existing ; which, though we know it was, not only in the

time of Canute, but for a considerable time after the Conquest, yet it only subsisted in remote parts of the island : and

it is almost certain that a monkish falsary of later days, better acquainted with chronicles than facts in natural history,

would have acquiesced in the common opinion of the extinction of wolves by Edgar. Once for all, as we shall have

frequent occasion to differ on the subject of legal antiquities with Lord Coke, it may be necessary to say, that though

he greatly affected this species of knowledge, he was, in fact, a poor etymologist, and a worse critic, even in his own

science. His understanding was clear and acute, rather than comprehensive; and having narrowed the attention of

his whole life to a single point, the common law, he became, of course, a consummate master of it. Among those

who rise to the highest ranks in his profession, it may be remarked that there are persons of two descriptions ; the first

consisting of men, who by the compass and universality of their talents attain to great eminence in other sciences, at

the same time that they illustrate and adorn their own : such were More, Bacon, Hyde, Hale, Murray, Blackstone. The

next is made up of those who, wanting the illumination of native genius and the polish of acquired literature, with

great knowledge and much practical usefulness in their own peculiar walk, are only to be considered as a more dignified

species of attornies and such appears to have been Lord Coke.

272 HISTORY OF WHALLEY. [Boon III. CHAP. IY.

government of the forests, by which a man, even a free man, trespassing against the

King's venison, was condemned to a punishment worse than death, namely, mutilation

and loss of eyes ; a penalty which, from the assizes of Henry I. and Richard I. appears to

have been inflicted with no sparing hand.

To return, the constitution of the forests being thus fixed by Henry II. we find their

officers, under the chief justices, to have consisted of the wardens, now first introduced, of

foresters, verdurers, regarders, agisters, woodwards, sometimes called woodreeves, and

bedels, whose respective offices are ascertained with great exactness in the old writers on

this subject.
Forests were generally exempt from the operation of both civil and ecclesiastical law :

they belonged, in strictness, to no parish, hundred, county, or diocese ; and accordingly

they had pleas of their own, greater and less. The former held every third year, by the

chief justice or his deputy : the latter, that of Swainmote, which carries its inferior rank

and rustic character in the name, summoned thrice in every year. Besides these was a

court of attachment, subordinate to both the former.

The pervading principle of forest law was essentially different, either from humanity

or general policy Adeo ut (says the Black Book of the Exchequer) quod per leges

forestac factumfuerit, non justum absolute, sed justum secundum leges forestce dicitur ; and

what was worse, the rule and measure even of this factitious justice was the arbitrium

solius reffis, vel cnjuslibet familiariuin ad hoc specialiter deputati. We may therefore

cease to wonder that, under a system like this, it was equally criminal to lop an holly and

to fell an oak ; or that it was even more penal to kill a stag than to murder a man.
Forests arc either natural, such as have been above described, or factitious ; for it was

held a branch of ancient prerogative in the kings of England to afforest, under certain

forms, at pleasure, the lands of the subject, for their own sovereign amusement.
This formidable right, however, appears to have been rarely exercised. Never, per-

haps, but iu two instances, by William the Conqueror, in afforesting great part of Hamp-

shire; and by Henry VIII. in creating the forest of Hampton Court. The latter,

however, seems to have comprehended little but lands previously belonging to the Crown.

But the wide and unfeeling devastation committed by the former was followed by an awful

lesson to those who pervert the first principles of justice and mercy for their own brutal

gratification ; since, in a tract where he had made the blood of man to be lightly regarded,

in comparison with that of beasts, three of his own immediate descendants actually shed

their own blood in the pursuit of these very animals. 1
1 These enormities frequently drew heavy complaints from the historians and other writers of those times ; out of

which, for the reader's amusement, rather than to excite his compassion, I will select one from John of Salisbury in his

Polycraticon : "A novalibus, sui arcentur agricolse, dum ferse habeant vagandi libertatem: illis, ut augeantur, praedia

subtrahuntur agricolis ; cum pascua armentariis et gregariis, turn alvearia a floralibus excludunt, ipsis quoque apibus

vix naturali libertate uti permissum est." The first part of this complaint is rational, but the latter puerile and trifling.

The writer had probably never asked himself by what mode of inclosure, or by what act of prerogative, hive-bees could

be shut out from the flowers of the forest. But truth is an ingredient equally necessary in good rhetoric and in good

morals.

BOOK III. CHAP. IV.]

FORESTS.

273

But though succeeding Kings, as Henry II. Richard I. and Johu, never ventured

upon acts of similar devastation, that is, never afforested in a manner equally oppressive

with that of the Conqueror, yet, without absolutely depopulating villages, destroying

inclosures, or extending the utmost rigour of the Forest Laws beyond their former bounds,

they enlarged far and wide the limits of the forests themselves ; and this, among other

grievances, provoked the barons (who, to do justice to their humanity, were not the

principal sufferers) to extort from King John the first charter of the forests, in which the

deforestation of all those recent additions to the ancient forests was expressly stipulated ;

but, before the necessary regulation took effect, the King died, and nothing material was

done till the 9th Hen. III. when a second charter, to the same effect, having been extorted

from his necessities, orders were given that inquisitions should be held, and perambulations

made, in order to distinguish the lands afforested by the late kings from old and rightful

forests. Little, however, in the remoter parts of the kingdom especially, was done to this

effect through the remainder of that long reign. 1

But, in the beginning of the reign of Edward I. the work was seriously undertaken.

A commission was issued, under the great seal, to cause all the true and ancient forests

to be mered and bounded by certain land-marks ; all newly afforested lands to be severed

from the former, and the boundaries of each to be returned into the Court of Chancery. 2

And these lands, so disforested, were called Pourallees, or Purlieus, from Fr. pourallee,

a perambulation ; yet, notwithstanding all these steps, as lands of this peculiar description

had never been completely afforested, so they were never considered by the lawyers as

entirely restored to their original rights, but as partaking of a middle nature and con-

stitution between free and forest land, and were therefore placed under certain laws and

regulations peculiar to themselves.

But this wise and excellent prince rendered a much more essential service to English

liberty by his general confirmation of the Carta de Foresta, in which all the arbitrary and

all the sanguinary parts of the old code were abolished at once ; and it was expressly

declared, "lhat no English subject shall henceforward lose life or limb for any trespass of

vert or venison ; but, if any one be convicted of killing the King's deer, he shall be sen-

tenced to pay an heavy mulct ; which, if he cannot discharge, he shall lie in prison one

year ; after which, if he be unable to find pledges, he shall abjure the realm." 3 This

surpassed even the Saxon law in clemency 4 and moderation.

Our next inquiry will be into the animals which these laws had for their object to

protect.

1 Carta de Foresta, 9 Hen. III. 1224-5. 2 Assiz. et Const. Forest. 6 Edw. I. et seq.
3 Spelman in voce Foresta.
4 Excessive severity always leads to the contrary extreme; and, accordingly, the royal forests have long been

undisturbed retreats of poachers and deer-stealers. But, while I am writing this, a bill is brought into Parliament for

the better preservation of game in the King's forests, of which the principal enactment is to jntnish persons poaching in

the forests in the same manner with those who are convicted of that offence on private grounds. So that it now requires

additional rigour to put these parts of the royal domains upon a footing which the Norman princes would have

encountered a rebellion rather than have consented that they should be reduced to.

VOL. I. 2 N

274

HISTORY OF WHALLEY.

[BOOK III. CHAP. IV.

It were a tedious and pedantic task to pursue the old foresters through all the

barbarous terms by which they distinguished beasts of venery or chace, their haunts, foot-

marks, excrements, and other particulars equally unimportant. 1

But the two following extracts, one from the Constitutions of Canute, A.D. 1016, and

the other from Dame Juliana Berners, authoress of the Book of St. Alban's, who

flourished about 1480, will shew in general what was the nature of this distinction, and

also how little agreed foresters of different periods were among themselves with respect to

the particular objects of it.
By Const. Canute 24, the staggon or stag alone is considered as the true fera forestce,

or beast of venery : he is otherwise denominated, by way of eminence, fera regalis ; and by

Const. 27, in the same collection, it is declared, " Quod sunt alise bestiae quae dum inter

septa et sepes forestse coiitinentur, emendationi subjacent, quales sunt Capreoli, Lepores,

Cuniculi : sunt et alia quamplurima animalia, quse, quanquam intra septa forestse vivunt

et curse mcdiocrium subjacent, forestoo tarnen nequaquam censeri possunt, qualia sunt,

Bubali, Vacctc, ct similia. Vulpcs et Lupi nee forests nee venationis habentur, et proinde

corum interfcctio nulli emendationi subjacct ; Aper vero, quanquam forestaa sit, nullatenus

tamen animal venationis haberi est assuetum." 2
We will now hear the Prioress of Sopewcll deliver her scientific precepts :
Mi derc sones, where ye fare be frith or by fell
Take gode hedo in hys tyme, How Tristrcm 3 woll tell :
How many maner bestes of venery there were,
Listenes now to cure dame, and ye shulleii here.
Fowr maner bestes of venery there are :
The first of hem is a hcrt, the second is an hare,
The boor is one of tho,
The wolfF, and no mo :
And where so ye comen in play or in place,

Now shal I tell you which ben bestes of chace,

On of tho a buk, another a doo,

The fox and the marteryn, and the wilde roo,

And ye shal, my dere sones, other bestes all,

Where so ye hem finde, rascal hem call,

In frith or in fell,
Or in forest y you tell.
"Without attempting to reconcile differences in opinion, or rather in language, which a
1 The curious reader, however, is referred, for all these particulars, to Mamvood, Forest Laws, c. 4.
2 In this constitution I discover the passage alluded to by the solicitor-general St. John, in his inhuman speech a

the trial of the Earl of Strafford. " We give law," said that unfeeling accuser, " to hares and deer, because they are

beasts of chace; but we give no law to wolves and foxes, because they are beasts of prey, but knock them on the head

wherever we find them." Clarendon, Hist. Eeb. fol. ed. vol. i. p. 183.

1 " Sir Tristram, an ancient forester, in his worthy Treatise of Hunting." Manwood.

BOOK III. CHAP. IV.]

FORESTS.

275

revolution of five centuries had produced, we will now leave the King and the lady to

adjust these points between themselves.

For, indeed, which were beasts of venery and which of chase is to us a matter of small

importance ; but, as some of these animals in the royal forests have long been extinct,

while others, perhaps less likely to sustain themselves against the strength and cunning

of man, are yet remaining ; as a new and beautiful species appears to have been introduced

at an uncertain period ; and as it is always a pleasing exercise of the understanding to

investigate the causes which produce important changes in animated nature, we will now

attempt to assign a few probable reasons for these circumstances.
First, then, in the earlier periods of society, 1 the bulky and timid quadrupeds which

minister to the sustenance of man, if not taken under his protection, are the first which

fall under his ravages.
To this class belonged a gigantic species of deer, 2 which became extinct in England too

early to be noticed even in the laws of Canute : to this also belongs the stag, together with

the bubalus, or wild bull, of which the last continues in some ancient parks, while the

former, though more numerous, is yet rapidly decreasing. These were the first and

easiest prey of savages, because their haunts were easily discovered, their swiftness was

greater than their sagacity, their strength easy to be subdued by perseverance, and their

powers of resistance almost nothing.
In the same class must be ranked a smaller tribe ; the Capreoli, Lcpores, Cuniculi, of

Canute's Constitutions, of the two former of which it may reasonably be asked why, with

much greater swiftness though less sagacity, the first is within little more than two

centuries become extinct in England, while the second everywhere abounds.

Both, we see, were alike placed under that partial protection of man which was intro-

1 No fact contributes more, in my mind, to verify the Mosaic history, than the account given in Gen. iv. '2, by

which the sheep appears to have been placed under the protection of man from the beginning. Nothing but inspiration,

or, what is the same thing, specific instructions from the Almighty, could have directed the attention of a creature so

helpless and ignorant as man then was to another creature so totally devoid of strength, swiftness, and sagacity, before

the latter had perished from the earth. Beasts of prey were guided by a swifter impulse, and would have discovered its

relish long before he had learned its uses. Our old unthinking historians tell us, that Henry I. stocked his park of

Woodstock with panthers, ounces, leopards, &c. never considering what was to become of its gentler inhabitants.

But immediately after the Creation, or rather the Fall, the world itself, though upon a larger scale, must have been

nearly in the same state. I suppose, therefore, that in some instances like the present specific instructions were given

to man ; and in others, a particular Providence watched, for a season^ over the feebler animals.
1 This animal, of whose existence in England there is no evidence but that of its gigantic horns, of which

several pairs have been found in Lancashire (Leigh, p. 184, &c. &c.), is mentioned by Giraldus Cambrensis, as remaining

in Ireland in his time. He describes it as of the shape of a stag, and the bulk of an ox. I have not the work of

Giraldus at present to refer to; but am certain of the fact, as he reports it; and his account is confirmed by the great

number of horns and skeletons belonging to that animal which are found in Ireland. Leigh called the horns which he