THE FORESTS OF SOMERSETSHIRE
The county of Somerset was possessed of five considerable forests,
namely, Mendip, Selwood, North Petherton, Neroche, and Exmoor, the last
of which stretched a little distance into the county of Devon. Though
these forests lay wide apart from one another, more than fifty miles as
the crow flies separating Exmoor in the north-west of the county from
Mendip in the north-east, the whole of the Somersetshire forests were
under the general control of one chief warden or keeper. William du
Plessis was hereditary keeper or master forester of the five Somerset
forests in the middle of the thirteenth century, and Sabine Pecche, his
descendant, in 1300.
The forest pleas that were held for this county in 1257 show a remarkable
exception as to the beasts of the forest in the case of the warren of
Somerton. Within the bounds of this warren the king preserved the hare
as a beast of the forest. At that eyre Philip the Knight and Robert
Sinclair, the two verderers, presented, before William le Breton and
his fellow-justices, that, on 7th December, 1255, Richard le Rus and
his fellows, whose names were unknown, took four hares in Somerton
warren. The verderers further presented that in Christmas week, 1256, a
certain hare was found dead. An inquisition was therefore made by the
four townships of Somerton, Kingston, Pitney, and Wearne, who returned
that the hare died of murrain. There is no like record affecting the
hare in any other known forest proceedings throughout the kingdom, and
it was probably peculiar to this comparatively small warren. To compel
the four adjacent townships to hold an inquest on every hare found dead
or wounded—in accordance with the laws pertaining to beasts of the
forest—throughout the length and breadth of the vast area under forest
law in the thirteenth century would have been impossible to execute and
absurd to attempt.
[Illustration: THE HARE (TURBERVILE)]
Another interesting point about the Somerset eyre of 1257 is the
presentment of the woodwards of wood owners. It appears that at that
period the presentment of such officials before the justices was
obligatory. Thus John Syward, the woodward of the Bishop of Bath and
Wells for the wood of Cheddar, had been presented by the bishop’s
steward to William de Plessis, the hereditary keeper, but not before
the forest justice; whereupon the bishop was declared in mercy and the
wood taken into the king’s hands. Before, however, the eyre closed, the
bishop’s steward appeared, made fine for the wood, and presented Syward
to the justices, who took the necessary oaths. Thereupon the wood was
restored to the bishop. Like procedure was taken with regard to another
of the bishop’s woodwards, as well as a woodward of the abbot of St.
Augustine’s, Bristol. At the same pleas, the abbess of Shaftesbury and
two laymen duly presented their respective woodwards.
Pleas of the forest were again held for Somerset in May, 1270, when the
verderers of Somerton warren again presented, before the justices at
Ilchester, several delinquents for hare trespass.
More careful attention is given to forest history in Collinson’s _History
of Somerset_ (three vols., 1791) than in any of our other old county
histories. He cites in full from the Wells registers the perambulations
undertaken of all the forests of the county in 1289, in order to
reduce them to their ancient and lawful bounds, in pursuance of the
ratification of the forest charter granted that year. With respect to
the forest of Roche or Neroche, the commissioners reported in favour of
the disafforesting of various villages, lands, and woods, which had been
afforested by King John to the great detriment of the tenants. Almost
equally great reductions of hunting-ground, which had been illegally made
forest by Henry II., Richard I., and John in the other Somerset forests,
were at the same time condemned and declared disafforested.
The master forestership or general keepership of all the county forests
passed from the Peche family, in the reign of Edward III., to Roger
Mortimer, Earl of March, in whose descendants, earls of March, and in
their heirs the dukes of York, it continued until the time of Edward
VI., when it became united to the Crown. Collinson sets forth the period
of the respective disafforesting of North Petherton, Mendip, Neroche,
and Selwood; but space prevents us giving particular attention to any
Somersetshire forest save that of Exmoor, to which a few pages ought to
be devoted.
The printed information about Exmoor Forest is exceptionally full. In
addition to that which can be gleaned from Collinson’s county history,
and from Savage’s _History of Carhampton Hundred_ (1830), Mr. Rawle, in
his _Annals of the Ancient Royal Forest of Exmoor_ (1893), has published
most of the information that can be gained from the original forest
documents at the Public Record Office, or from MSS. at the British Museum.
Exmoor, exclusive of the part pertaining to Devonshire, was the largest
and by far the wildest of the Somersetshire forests. This great expanse
of hilly, open country, constituting for the most part a bleak table-land
of moor, surrounded by a fringe of well-wooded combes, was bounded on
the north by the Bristol Channel, extended some twelve or thirteen miles
inland, and was about twenty-five miles in length from east to west.
That Exmoor was a hunting-ground before the Conquest is made manifest by
the fact that Withypool, according to the Domesday Survey, was held by
three foresters in the days of Edward the Confessor. Whatever may have
been the area of Exmoor forest in the time of the Conqueror—Mr. Rawle
believes it to have been above 60,000 acres—it was considerably increased
by the encroachments of later Norman kings, particularly of John.
A perambulation of 1279, at the Public Record Office, gives a circuit of
about fifty miles, and included within the forest area almost the whole
of the parish of Oare, portions of Culbone, Dulverton, Exford, Porlock,
and Winsford, and the whole of Hawkridge and Withypool, together with
the modern parish of Exmoor. The perambulation stated that King John had
added to the original forest a considerable number of adjacent parishes
and manors, to an aggregate of about 20,000 additional acres, which
included East and West Luccombe, Doverhay, Stoke Pero, Woodcockleigh,
Bossington, Holnicote, Withycombe, etc. As a consequence of the 1298
perambulation for the whole county of Somerset, all the additions made by
John to the forest of Exmoor were disafforested, and the ancient bounds
as then laid down remained unaltered for several centuries.
The justices in eyre appointed to hear the Somerset forest pleas are
known to have held their courts at Ilchester, Langport, Somerton,
Taunton, and Wells. Taunton, the nearest of these court towns, was
over thirty miles distant from the nearest part of Exmoor, whilst the
other towns were all upwards of fifty—a distance that could not fail
to considerably impede the course of justice and increase its expense.
At the eyre held at Ilchester in 1257 by William le Briton and his
colleagues, twenty-six vert trespassers were presented from Exmoor; the
highest fine was 5_s._, which was inflicted on a clerk, William de Bagel;
in another case the fine was 2_s._; the remainder were mulcted in 12_d._
The few cases of venison trespass show that there were both red deer
and roebucks on Exmoor; but there is no mention of fallow deer in this
or subsequent pleas and inquisitions. At this eyre there were various
presentments for encroachments and for sowing land with wheat, rye, or
oats (not “beans,” as Mr. Rawle has it). Several offenders were also
fined half a mark for waste of wood.
At the eyre held at Ilchester in 1270, there were upwards of fifty
vert trespassers presented. In a few cases the fine was 2_s._, but in
general it was 12_d._; the justices imposed no fine in five instances
in consequence of the poverty of the offender. The venison trespassers
presented by the foresters and by Philip de Luccombe and Richard de
Bradley, the verderers, were not numerous, considering that thirteen
years had elapsed since the last eyre. Simon, the miller of Dulverton,
Ralph Bulbe, and John de Reygny caught a stag on St. George’s Day,
1259, and carried it to the house of William de Reygny. Simon made no
appearance, and a writ was addressed to the sheriff of Devon. Ralph could
not be found, and a writ of exigent was issued. John and William de
Reygny were committed to prison, but released on the payment of ten marks
and finding pledges for their future behaviour. In another case, Thomas
le Shetten and William Wyne were charged with entering the forest on
Easter Eve, 1267, with bows and arrows, with the intent of wrong-doing to
the king’s venison. They hunted a hind, and chased her into the wood of
Longcombe, without the forest bounds, and there caught her, and carried
her away to their houses at Molland. The same two men were charged with
often entering the forest with evil intent, when they were harboured in
the house of John, then chaplain of Hawkridge. The chaplain came to the
eyre and was put in prison, but the other two made no appearance, and a
writ for their arrest was directed to the sheriff of Devon. Before the
court was dissolved, John the chaplain was pardoned for the sake of the
king’s soul (_pro anima Regis_).
At an inquisition held at Langport before a deputy justice of the forest,
in 1333, in addition to two cases of venison trespass, Richard le Webbe
and two others of Moulton were convicted of burning the heath of 1,000
acres on the hills of the forest, to the damage of the king and to the
injury of his deer. At the same time, William Cobbel, rector of Oare, was
convicted of felling saplings in the wood of Oare, and carrying them off
for his own purpose.
Various other inquisitions as to the state of Exmoor, held before forest
justices or their deputies at Somerton, Taunton, and Wells during the
latter part of the reign of Edward III., are set forth in detail by Mr.
Rawle.
Mr. Rawle has, however, overlooked several entries on the Patent and
Close Rolls pertaining to Exmoor, several of which have been already
cited in earlier chapters.
In 1324, John Everard, the escheator of the four western counties, was
ordered to deliver to Eleanor, widow of Ralph de Gorges, and mother of
Ralph his heir, aged 15, two parts of a third of the manor of Brampton,
co. Devon, as the king learnt by inquisition that Ralph held at his death
a third of that manor of the king in chief, by service of finding the
king an arrow when the king came or sent to Exmoor to take venison there,
the arrow to be delivered to the king’s huntsman.
In November, 1377, Richard II. granted Baldwin Badyngton, king’s esquire,
and Matilda his wife, to enclose at pleasure, notwithstanding the assize
of the forest, all their demesne lands in Somerset within the metes of
the forests of Exmoor and Petherton, which had been wasted and destroyed
year by year by the deer, so as to prevent the deer from entering, and
thus to hold these premises for their lives.
Peter de Courtenay obtained in 1382, during the minority of the heir, the
custody of the forest of Exmoor, which was in the king’s hands since the
death of Edmund, Earl of March.
Edward IV., in 1462, granted for life to William Bourgchier, of
Fitzwaren, knight, the master forestership of Exmoor, receiving the
usual fees in the same manner as Thomas Courtenay, late Earl of Devon.
Six years later the king granted the same office for life to Humphrey
Stafford, knight, on the death of William Bourgchier. In 1470, John
Dynham obtained from the Crown the grant for life of the custody of the
king’s forests of Exmoor and Neroche, with the herbage and pannage and
the courts of swainmote, rendering yearly to the king forty marks.
Henry VII., when he came to the throne in 1485, seems to have put the
control of the venison of Exmoor into the hands of his chamberlain, Lord
Daubeny.
On the marriage of Henry VIII. with Catherine of Aragon, Exmoor was
settled on the queen as part of her jointure. In 1520 Sir Thomas Boleyn
covenanted with the Earl of Devonshire to give up certain forests,
offices, etc., which he held of Queen Catherine at a yearly rent of
£46 13_s._ 4_d._, saving and reserving 100 deer to remain in the forest
of Exmoor. The forest was afterwards held by Henry’s third wife, Jane
Seymour.
In 1598 Hugh Pollard was ranger of the forest, and kept a pack of hounds
at Simonsbath. James I. granted Exmoor forest to his queen, Anne of
Denmark. Charles I., on coming to the throne, granted a lease for 22½
years to the Earl of Pembroke of “the Forest and Chace of Exmore in the
counties of Devon and Somerset, and of the manor of Exmore for fourteen
years ... with a further clause of liberty to him to build a lodge in the
forest at his chardges, and to enclose and lay one hundred acres of land
thereunto.”
In 1630 the king was petitioned to disafforest Exmoor in favour of an
influential applicant. The petition was granted, but further action
was not taken. In the royal library at Windsor is a warrant, dated 5th
August, 1637, under the sign manual of Charles I., directing the ranger
of Exmoor to deliver to Mr. Wyndham “one fatt stagg”; a facsimile of this
document forms the frontispiece to Mr. Rawle’s volume.
Within a few months of his accession, Charles II. granted a lease of
Exmoor for 39 years to James Butler, Marquis of Ormonde.
In 1784 a lease of the forest and chase of Exmoor, with the courts and
royalties, was granted to Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, Bart. This was the last
lease granted by the Crown.
In 1815 an Act of Parliament was passed for the disafforesting and
enclosing of Exmoor. The extent of the forest was then found to be only
18,810 acres, which were thus allotted: A little more than one-half to
the king; one-eighth to Sir T. D. Acland in lieu of the tithes of the
whole forest, which he held; and the remainder to “owners of certain
estates, to which free suits were attached, and to several other persons
in respect of old enclosed tenements lying in various parishes bordering
on the forest.” The king’s portion was at once offered for sale, and his
10,000 acres were purchased by Mr. John Knight for £50,000.
Thus ended the royal rights over the ancient forest of Exmoor, which had
their origin in days prior to the Norman Conquest.