CHAP. XXXIV. Of the Forests.
BEsides other Prerogatives of the Saxon Kings, they had also a Fran∣chise for wild Beasts for the Chase, which we commonly call Forest, being a precinct of ground neither parcel of the County, nor the Dio∣cess, nor of the Kingdom, but rather appendant thereunto. This sa∣voured of the old German sport, but by custom turned from sport to earnest: For although in the first times the Saxons were so few, and the Country so spacious, that they might allow the Beasts their Farm as well as themselves their own; People nevertheless so multiplied, as of neces∣sity they must intercommon either with Beasts or Fishes: the former whereof, however more cleanly, yet the latter had the surest footing, and was chosen as the least of two evils, rather than for any likelihood of good Neighbourhood. For as Nature taught Beasts to prey for them∣selves, so men to defend their own; and this bred such a fewd between Beasts and men, as that Kings doubting to lose their Game, took in with the weaker, that the world might see the happiness of England, where Beasts enjoy their liberty as well as men. But this was, as it were, by compromise; for it had been very hard to have pleased the Free men,Page 52 who had liberty of Game within their own ground by common Right,* and to preserve the Kings liberty of Forest co-incident therewith, had not the King employed on the one side the power of a Dane that looked somewhat like a Conquerour; and on the other side, that which looked as like to the bounty of a King, in allowing liberty of ownership to men in∣habiting within the bounds of the Forest, which at the first was set apart onely for the Kings pleasure: and all his wits to make a Law somewhat short of a full freedom, and yet outreaching that of Bondage, which we since have commended to posterity under the Forest-Charter. And yet for all that, it proved a hard matter for Kings to hunt by Law; and the Law it self is a Yoke somewhat too heavy for a Commonwealth to bear in old age, if self-denying Majesty shall please to take it away.
