8 EPPING FOREST
who tried offenders, but if found guilty, sentence
was reserved for the highest court, or Justice scat,
held at much longer intervals, and presided over
by the Chief Justice in Eyre. In addition all
general questions of right were tried by a jury of
freeholders before the same authority, which from
time to time issued orders for the regulation of
the Forest. The following quotations of orders
from the Court Rolls as recently as the beginning
of the eighteenth century are fair illustrations of
the workings of these courts :—
The licenses to shoot small game in the Forest
usually included an authorisation "to take all
guns, dogs, and other engines and instruments,
wherever the sportsman should find them, from
all mean and disorderly persons who are not per-
mitted by law to have and use such things " (Dec.
18, 1713),
On Jan. 7, 1717, one of the under-keepers
"presents 3 brase of deer rascally found dead."
On June 17, in the same year, the court
"ordered that ye toyles brought to this court by
Samuel Heybourne be burnt or cutt in pieces
dureing the sitting thereof."
On July 25, 1719, the court ordered "that
ye Beadle of the Forest give notice to ye poor
people adjoining to ye Forest to keep their geese
near to their houses and not let them ramble upon
ye Forest otherwise shoot them."
On Nov. 22, 1733, it was ordered "that the
severall keepers of the Forest DO hinder the poor
people from gathering up the Dung and laying it
in heaps in ordr to carry it away upon their owne
lands."
On Oct. 14, 1749, it was ordered "that the
keepers do take up and impound all Asses going
upon the Forest."
On Aug. 28, 1750, it was ordered "that the
gun taken by Joseph Mason from Thos. Gill be
given to Mr. Gore a farmer at Waltham to guard
him in his journeys to and from London."
The large room in Queen Elizabeth's Lodge
was designed and used for the holding of the