96
THE OAK TREE IN ESSEX.
him the last green sprig off the end of the branches, and when the drawing was
made for the vignette in the August following there was not a leaf on it."
Some years before the fall of the tree Mr. Forsyth's composition
was applied to its decayed branches to preserve them from further
injury, and a board was fixed to one of its limbs bearing the
following inscription :
" All good foresters are requested not to hurt this old tree, a plaster having
been lately applied to its wounds."
In the year 1805 the trunk of the Fairlop Oak took fire in con-
sequence of the carelessness of a party of cricketers who had spent
the day in the vicinity and had left a fire burning too near it. The
fire was discovered the same evening, and although a number of
persons did their utmost to extinguish the flames, it continued burn-
ing till the morning. This untoward accident so weakened it that,
as Professor Burnet informs us, "the high winds of February, 1820,
stretched this forest patriarch to the ground after having endured the
storms of perhaps a thousand winters."
It is stated in Loudon's "Arboretum" that the Fairlop Oak, at
3 feet from the ground measured 36 feet, near the ground 48 feet.
The boughs were 10 to 12 feet in girth and covered 300 feet in
circuit. The pulpit and reading-desk in the new church of St.
Pancras were constructed out of its remains. A picture of this tree
is given from the plate in the "European Magazine" (1802), kindly
lent for reproduction by Mr. Walter Crouch, and copy of another
early engraving appeared at page 169, vol. v., of The Essex
Naturalist.
King's Oak, High Beach.—There was formerly an oak tree of
some historical interest at High Beach, Epping Forest. It is stated
that King Henry VIII. sat under this tree waiting to hear the cannon
fired which announced the death of Anne Boleyne. The tradition
is thus related by Tytler in his "Life of King Henry VIII."
(1837), who appears to have drawn the story from Nott's "Life
of Surrey" :
" That Henry waited with unfeeling impatience for the death of Anne is
certain ; and a tradition is yet preserved in Epping Forest, which strikingly
illustrates this fact. On the morning of the day which was to be her last (May
19th, 1536) he went to hunt in that district ; and as he breakfasted, surrounded by
his train and his hounds, under a spreading oak which is still shown, he listened
from time to time with a look of intense anxiety. At length the sound of a
distant gun boomed through the wood. It was a preconcerted signal, and marked