52
THE DEER OF EPPING FOREST.
entertained here for several days by the Earl of Leicester at Wanstead
House. Indeed, in the building at Chingford known as Queen
Elizabeth's Lodge, we have a picturesque memorial of the days when
she hunted in the Essex woodlands.12
James I. hunted both red deer and fallow deer in the forests
of Epping and Hainault, and is said to have imported some fallow
deer of the dark variety, now seen in the forest, from Norway,
some of which were turned out at Epping, others in Enfield Chase.
This importation, however, was not the origin of this dark variety in
England, as has been stated by Bell, in his " British Quadrupeds,"
and other authors ; for, as I have shown elsewhere,13 Leland had
noticed these dark-coloured fallow deer in Henry VIII.'s time;
and long before that even, namely in 1465, they existed in Windsor
Park, as I discovered from a curious diary of travels of the Baron
Leo von Rozmital, brother to the Queen of Bohemia, who visited
England in that year.
The officers of the forest were, the Chief Justice in Eyre, who held
a periodical court, or justice-seat, at which offences against the forest
laws were tried and disposed of; the Steward, Ranger, Foresters, and
Keepers. There were two Chief Justices in Eyre for the Royal forests,
one acting north, the other south, of the Trent. They were always
peers, and were assisted by the common law judges at Westminster.
The De Veres, Earls of Oxford, were for many generations here-
ditary stewards of the Forest of Essex, succeeding the Clares, who
were stewards from the reign of Henry III, to that of Edward III.
The office of King's Forester was long held by the Archers of
Copped Hall. It was the duty of the Forester to preserve the
boundaries of the forest intact, and to permit no encroachments
within them. Should a neighbouring landowner desire to free his
woods from the view of the Foresters and Regarders, to cultivate a
portion of them, or to enclose a park, and kill the game on his own
manors, he had to obtain the royal permission: and an official writ
was addressed to the Forester on the subject. Such a writ, on behalf
of the Abbey of St. Edmund-at-Bury, was dispatched from Oxford
to Sir Richard de Montfitchet on the 20th July, 1216. By it he was
informed that a charter had been given to the abbot and monks
12 Queen Elizabeth, in one of her visits to the lodge bearing her name, is reported to have
granted to the poor of several adjoining parishes the privilege of lopping wood. The custom
was for the possessors of that privilege to assemble on the eleventh of November in each year,
in order to strike an axe into the boughs of the trees at the hour of midnight. This right was
also exercised upon parts of the forest which have been for many years enclosed, and extended
in full operation till the twenty-third of April in the following year.
13 "Trans. Essex Field Club," vol. I, p. 84.