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THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
best qualified, by their presumed intimate acquaintance with
the facts, to be regarded as authorities on the subject, cannot
altogether be trusted in the absence of confirmatory documentary
evidence.
Let us take some examples :—
Mr. G. Shaw Lefevre (afterwards Lord Eversley), in a letter
which appeared in The Times of November 17th, 1874, wrote :—
" An old labouring man named Willingale, who for many
years of his life had exercised this right [i.e. of lopping], and partly
earned his livelihood by cutting wood in the winter months.
was determined not to submit. He persisted in the annual
lopping and invited his sons and neighbours to do the same.
For this act turn of his sons and a nephew were summoned before
the magistrates, and although they protested their right, which should
have arrested the jurisdiction of the Bench, they were sent to prison
for seven days, with hard labour.3 It subsequently turned out
that one at least of the committing magistrates had received a
large share of the Forest. The old man thereupon represented
his case in quarters where he was likely to be assisted. He was
advised to commence proceedings in Chancery against the
Lord of the Manor, to restrain him from cutting down the trees
or enclosing the Forest.
" A fight between a labouring man on behalf of his right to
lop trees and the Lord of the Manor, who had 1,000 acres of land
at stake, was not a very equal one. Assistance, however,
dribbled in sufficient to keep the suit alive. Every attempt
was made to destroy the old man's case. His character was
maligned ; with the greatest difficulty a lodging was found in
the parish where he could maintain a locus standi sufficient for
his suit. At times attempts were made to buy him off. I had
frequent opportunities of seeing this old man, and always found
him confident in the justice of his case, and as determined to
stand by it as any village Hampden could be. In due course
his case came on for hearing before the Master of the Rolls on a
preliminary point, the defendants having demurred to it on the
ground that by the English law the inhabitants of a parish, not
being incorporated, were too vague a body to enjoy such a right
as that claimed. Lord Romilly, after two days' argument,
decided the point in favour of Willingale, saying that this right
3 The italics are mine.—P.T.