Edward III

Edward III

Edward III took power in November 1330, and he was determined as any of his predecessors to vindicate the forest rights of his crown. However in some counties he was compelled to accept the bounds of 1300. After the declaration of the forest bounds at the Salisbury Forest Eyre of 1330, only scattered areas of demesne lands and woods remained in the forest of Wiltshire. By 1341 the forest of Dean had been diminished by a quarter, and the warden’s farm had been reduced from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and twenty pound. But many districts which had secured their freedom from the forest law during Edward II’s reign were once more made subject to it. In August 1333 the king declared that divers woods and other places in Surry had been unjustifiably disafforested under the colour of the Statute of 1327. The Justice of the forest was accordingly ordered to re-afforest them. By 1347 Edward had re-afforested the royal forest of Bere Porchester in Hampshire. Landowners were however, allowed to retain the rights of pasture and of cutting wood which they had previously enjoyed, subject to the customary payment of ‘puture’ to the foresters, and ‘saving always to the king his deer and pasture for the same’.

In 1331 John Cromwell, Justice of the Forest south of Trent, William Ayet, warden of Galtres Forest, and a number of subordinate forest officers, were convicted of trespasses of vert and venison, and were ordered by the King’s Council to be dismissed. The ponderous machinery of the Forest Eyre was once again set in motion – in 1334 Ralph de Neville heard pleas of Sherwood Forest, and eyres were also held in the Earl of Lancaster’s forests of Amounderness, Lonsdale and Pickering in Lancashire and Yorkshire. These counties had not seen a Forest Eyre for more than thirty years. At these eyres hundreds of persons were convicted of forest offences. But long intervals had elapsed since many of these offences were committed. Many offenders had died in the meantime, and the sheriff failed to produce others, so that the sessions were adjourned time and time again during the next few years. Of 223 defaulters at the Pickering Forest eyre of 1334, only nineteen finally surrendered themselves at the York county court in August 1338; the remainder, who had no lands or chattels by which they could be distrained, were outlawed. By this time the Forest Eyre had become and ineffectual engine, and was allowed to fall into a state of disuse. More effective means had to be devised to enforce the forest law to protect vert and venison, and to raise revenue. Commissions of oyer et terminer were appointed to deal with specific forest offences as they were reported to the king. The other effective procedure was the general commission of inquiry into the condition of the forests. During the last two decades of the reign the Justice of the Forest or his deputy went of circuit every year to hold such inquests. Forest wardens, verderers, regarders, foresters and sworn jurors made presentments before them of offences against vert and venison. The sessions were short, and the Justice completed his circuit of the forests in a single county in a matter of weeks. These commissions were more flexible and effective than the ponderous engine of the Forest eyre.

Edward’s forest policy met with widespread opposition from his subjects, who took advantage of his absences from England to make wholesale depredations upon the deer in his forests and parks. At times the officers of the Crown were assaulted and some were killed. In 1356 John Gayner and many others resisted arrest at Lydney, killed a number of the king’s servants and those of the warden of the forest, and chased the others ‘as far as the forest and would not surrender to the King’s peace’. Numerous petitions concerning the forest were presented at the Parliaments of this reign and the beginning of the next. Complaints were made in 1383 that persons accused of forest offences were being imprisoned without indictment in due legal form, and detained by the forest officers until they paid fines for their release. The Commons asked at various times that the perambulations should be observed, that new perambulations should be made, and that charters should be granted defining the forest limits. The king promised redress, but did not keep his promises. The ‘purlieus’ or areas put out of the forest by the perambulations, were a bone of contention. Mounted officers called ‘rangers’ were appointed to drive back into the forest deer which had strayed into the purlieus. The Commons wished the purlieus to be completely free from the forest law, so that every landowner should have the right of free chase in his own lands and woods. But the forest officers continued to attach and imprison men for forest offences within these districts, and to take money from them for their deliverance from goal. The Parliament of January 1377 asked that the common law remedies of False Imprisonment and Trespass should be granted against foresters who made attachments within the purlieus. Complaints were also made that the deer destroyed crops and pastures within the forest, and that the foresters illegally compelled the forest dwellers to attend the swanimotes. The Crown returned empty promises of redress to all these petitions