OF PARKS AND WARRENS.
[1577, Book II., Chapter 15; 1587, Book II., Chapter 19.]
In every shire of England there are great plenty of parks, whereof some
here and there, to wit, well near to the number of two hundred, for her
daily provision of that flesh, appertain to the prince, the rest to such
of the nobility and gentlemen as have their lands and patrimonies lying in
or near unto the same. I would gladly have set down the just number of
these enclosures to be found in every county; but, sith I cannot so do, it
shall suffice to say that in Kent and Essex only are to the number of an
hundred, and twenty in the bishopric of Durham, wherein great plenty of
fallow deer is cherished and kept. As for warrens of conies, I judge them
almost innumerable, and daily like to increase, by reason that the black
skins[195] of those beasts are thought to countervail the prices of their
naked carcases, and this is the only cause why the grey are less esteemed.
Near unto London their quickest merchandise is of the young rabbits,
wherefore the older conies[196] are brought from further off, where there
is no such speedy utterance of rabbits and sucklings[197] in their season,
nor so great loss by their skins, sith they are suffered to grow up to
their full greatness with their owners. Our parks are generally enclosed
with strong pales made of oak, of which kind of wood there is great store
cherished in the woodland countries from time to time in each of them
only for the maintenance of the said defence and safe keeping of the
fallow deer from ranging about the country. Howbeit in times past divers
have been fenced in with stone walls, especially in the times of the
Romans, who first brought fallow deer into this land (as some conjecture),
albeit those enclosures were overthrown again by the Saxons and Danes, as
Cavisham, Towner, and Woodstock, beside other in the west country, and one
also at Bolton. Among other things also to be seen in that town there is
one of the fairest clocks in Europe. Where no wood is they are also
enclosed with piles of slate; and thereto it is doubted of many whether
our buck or doe are to be reckoned in wild or tame beasts or not. Pliny
deemeth them to be wild; Martial is also of the same opinion, where he
saith, "_Imbelles damæ quid nisi præda sumus?_" And so in time past the
like controversy was about bees, which the lawyers call _feras_ (_Tit de
acquirendo rerum dominio_, lib. 2 Instit.). But Pliny, attempting to
decide the quarrel, calleth them _medias inter feras et placidas aves_.
But whither am I so suddenly digressed? In returning therefore unto our
parks, I find also the circuit of these enclosures in like manner contain
oftentimes a walk of four or five miles, and sometimes more or less.
Whereby it is to be seen what store of ground is employed upon that vain
commodity, which bringeth no manner of gain or profit to the owner, sith
they commonly give away their flesh, never taking penny for the same,
except the ordinary fee, and parts of the deer given unto the keeper by a
custom, who beside three shillings four pence or five shillings in money,
hath the skin, head, umbles, chine, and shoulders: whereby he that hath
the warrant for a whole buck hath in the end little more than half, which
in my judgment is scarcely equal dealing; for venison in England is
neither bought nor sold, as in other countries, but maintained only for
the pleasure of the owner and his friends. Albeit I heard of late of one
ancient lady which maketh a great gain by selling yearly her husband's
venison[198] to the cooks (as another of no less name will not stick to
ride to the market to see her butter sold), but not performed without
infinite scoffs and mocks, even of the poorest peasants of the country,
who think them as odious matters in ladies and women of such countenance
to sell their venison and their butter as for an earl to feel his oxen,
sheep, and lambs, whether they be ready for the butcher or not, or to sell
his wool unto the clothier, or to keep a tan-house, or deal with such like
affairs as belong not to men of honour, but rather to farmers or graziers;
for which such, if there be any, may well be noted (and not unjustly) to
degenerate from true nobility, and betake themselves to husbandry.[199]
And even the same enormity took place sometimes among the Romans, and
entered as far as into the very senate, of whom some one had two or three
ships going upon the sea, pretending provision for their houses, but in
truth following the trades of merchandise, till a law was made which did
inhibit and restrain them. Livy also telleth of another law which passed
likewise against the senators by Claudius the tribune, and help only of C.
Flaminius, that no senator, or he that had been father to any senator,
should possess any ship or vessel above the capacity of three hundred
amphoras, which was supposed sufficient for the carriage and recarriage of
such necessities as should appertain unto his house, sith further trading
with merchandises and commodities doth declare but a base and covetous
mind (not altogether void of envy that any man should live but he: or
that, if any gain were to be had, he only would have it himself), which is
a wonderful dealing, and must needs prove in time the confusion of that
country wherein such enormities are exercised. Where in times past many
large and wealthy occupiers were dwelling within the compass of some one
park, and thereby great plenty of corn and cattle seen and to be had among
them, beside a more copious procreation of human issue, whereby the realm
was always better furnished with able men to serve the prince in his
affairs, now there is almost nothing kept but a sort of wild and savage
beasts, cherished for pleasure and delight; and yet some owners, still
desirous to enlarge those grounds, as either for the breed and feeding of
cattle, do not let daily to take in more, not sparing the very commons
whereupon many townships now and then do live, affirming that we have
already too great store of people in England, and that youth by marrying
too soon do nothing profit the country, but fill it full of beggars to the
hurt and utter undoing (they say) of the commonwealth.
Certes if it be not a curse of the Lord to have our country converted in
such sort, from the furniture of mankind into the walks and shrouds of
wild beasts, I know not what is any.[200] How many families also these
great and small game (for so most keepers call them) have eaten up and are
likely hereafter to devour, some men may conjecture, but many more lament,
sith there is no hope of restraint to be looked for in this behalf because
the corruption is so general. But, if a man may presently give a guess at
the universality of this evil by contemplation of the circumstance, he
shall say at the last that the twentieth part of the realm is employed
upon deer and conies already, which seemeth very much if it be duly
considered of.
King Henry the Eighth, one of the noblest princes that ever reigned in
this land, lamented oft that he was constrained to hire foreign aid, for
want of competent store of soldiers here at home, perceiving (as it is
indeed) that such supplies are oftentimes more hurtful than profitable
unto those that entertain them, as may chiefly be seen in Valens the
Emperor, our Vortiger, and no small number of others. He would oft marvel
in private talk how that, when seven or eight princes ruled here at once,
one of them could lead thirty or forty thousand men to the field against
another, or two of them 100,000 against the third, and those taken out
only of their own dominions. But as he found the want, so he saw not the
cause of this decay, which grew beside this occasion now mentioned, also
by laying house to house and land to land, whereby many men's occupyings
were converted into one, and the breed of people not a little thereby
diminished. The avarice of landlords, by increasing of rents and fines,
also did so weary the people that they were ready to rebel with him that
would arise, supposing a short end in the wars to be better than a long
and miserable life in peace.
Privileges and faculties also are another great cause of the ruin of a
commonwealth and diminution of mankind: for, whereas law and nature doth
permit all men to live in their best manner, and whatsoever trade they are
exercised in, there cometh some privilege or other in the way which
cutteth them off from this or that trade, whereby they must needs shift
soil and seek unto other countries. By these also the greatest commodities
are brought into the hands of few, who imbase, corrupt, and yet raise the
prices of things at their own pleasures. Example of this last I can give
also in books, which, after the first impression of any one book, are for
the most part very negligently handled:[201] whereas, if another might
print it so well as the first, then would men strive which of them should
do it best; and so it falleth out in all other trades. It is an easy
matter to prove that England was never less furnished with people than at
this present; for, if the old records of every manor be sought (and search
made to find what tenements are fallen either down or into the lord's
hands, or brought and united together by other men), it will soon appear
that, in some one manor, seventeen, eighteen, or twenty houses are shrunk.
I know what I say, by mine own experience. Notwithstanding that some one
cottage be here and there erected of late, which is to little purpose. Of
cities and towns either utterly decayed or more than a quarter or half
diminished, though some one be a little increased here and there, of towns
pulled down for sheep-walks,[202] and no more but the lordships now
standing in them, beside those that William Rufus pulled down in his time,
I could say somewhat; but then I should swerve yet further from my
purpose, whereunto I now return.
We had no parks left in England at the coming of the Normans, who added
this calamity also to the servitude of our nation, making men of the best
sort furthermore to become keepers of their game, whilst they lived in the
meantime upon the spoil of their revenues, and daily overthrew towns,
villages, and an infinite sort of families, for the maintenance of their
venery. Neither was any park supposed in these times to be stately enough
that contained not at the least eight or ten hidelands, that is, so many
hundred acres or families (or, as they have been always called in some
places of the realm, carrucats or cartwares), of which one was sufficient
in old time to maintain an honest yeoman.
King John, travelling on a time northwards, to wit, 1209, to war upon the
King of Scots, because he had married his daughter to the Earl of Bullen
without his consent, in his return overthrew a great number of parks and
warrens, of which some belonged to his barons, but the greatest part to
the abbots and prelates of the clergy. For hearing (as he travelled), by
complaint of the country, how these enclosures were the chief decay of
men, and of tillage in the land, he sware with an oath that he would not
suffer wild beasts to feed upon the fat of his soil, and see the people
perish for want of ability to procure and buy them food that should defend
the realm. Howbeit, this act of his was so ill taken by the religious and
their adherents, that they inverted his intent herein to another end,
affirming, and most slanderously, how he did it rather of purpose to spoil
the corn and grass of the commons and catholics that held against him of
both estates, and by so doing to impoverish and bring the north part of
the realm to destruction because they refused to go with him into
Scotland. If the said prince were alive in these days (wherein Andrew
Boord saith there are more parks in England than in all Europe, over which
he travelled in his own person), and saw how much ground they consume, I
think he would either double his oaths, or lay most of them open, that
tillage might be better looked unto. But this I hope shall not need in
time, for the owners of a great sort of them begin now to smell out that
such parcels might be employed to their more gain, and therefore some of
them do grow to be disparked.
Next of all, we have the frank chase, which taketh something both of park
and forest, and is given either by the king's grant or prescription.
Certes it differeth not much from a park; nay, it is in manner the
selfsame thing that a park is, saving that a park is environed with pale,
wall, or such like, the chase always open and nothing at all enclosed, as
we see in Enfield and Malvern chases. And, as it is the cause of the
seizure of the franchise of a park not to keep the same enclosed, so it is
the like in a chase if at any time it be imparked. It is trespass, and
against the law also, for any man to have or make a chase, park, or free
warren, without good warranty of the king by his charter or perfect title
of prescription; for it is not lawful for any subject either to carnilate,
that is, build stone houses, embattle, have the querk of the sea, or keep
the assize of bread, ale, or wine, or set up furels, tumbrel, thew, or
pillory, or enclose any ground to the aforesaid purposes within his own
soil, without his warrant and grant. The beasts of the chase were commonly
the buck, the roe, the fox, and the martern. But those of venery in old
time were the hart, the hare, the boar, and the wolf; but as this held not
in the time of Canutus, so instead of the wolf the bear has now crept in,
which is a beast commonly hunted in the east countries, and fed upon as
excellent venison, although with us I know not any that feed thereon or
care for it at all. Certes it should seem that forests and frank chases
have always been had, and religiously preserved in this island, for the
solace of the prince and the recreation of his nobility: howbeit I read
not that ever they were enclosed more than at this present, or otherwise
fenced than by usual notes of limitation, whereby their bounds were
remembered from time to time for the better preservation of such venery
and vert of all sorts as were nourished in the same. Neither are any of
the ancient laws prescribed for their maintenance before the days of
Canutus now to be had, sith time hath so dealt with them that they are
perished and lost. Canutus therefore, seeing the daily spoil that was
made almost in all places of his game, did at the last make sundry
sanctions and decrees, whereby from thenceforth the red and fallow deer
were better looked to throughout his whole dominions. We have in these
days divers forests in England and Wales, of which some belong to the
king, and some to his subjects, as Waltham Forest, Windsor, Pickering,
Fecknam, Delamore, Gillingham, Kingswood, Wencedale, Clun, Rath, Bredon,
Weir, Charlie, Leicester, Lee, Rockingham, Selwood, New Forest, Wichwood,
Hatfield, Savernake, Westbury, Blacamore Peak, Dean, Penrise, and many
others now clean out of my remembrance; and which, although they are far
greater in circuit than many parks and warrens, yet are they in this our
time less devourers of the people than these latter, sith, beside, much
tillage and many towns are found in each of them, whereas in parks and
warrens we have nothing else than either the keeper's and warrener's
lodge, or, at least, the manor place of the chief lord and owner of the
soil. I find also, by good record, that all Essex hath in time past wholly
been forest ground, except one cantred or hundred; but how long it is
since it lost the said denomination, in good sooth I do not read. This
nevertheless remaineth yet in memory, that the town of Walden in Essex,
standing in the limits of the aforesaid county, doth take her name
thereof. For in the Keltic tongue, wherewith the Saxon or Scythian speech
doth not a little participate, huge woods and forests were called _walds_,
and likewise their Druids were named _walie_ or _waldie_, because they
frequented the woods, and there made sacrifice among the oaks and
thickets. So that, if my conjecture in this behalf be anything at all, the
aforesaid town taketh denomination of _Wald_ and _end_, as if I should
say, "The end of the woody soil;" for, being once out of that parish, the
champaign is at hand. Or it may be that it is so called of _Wald_ and
_dene_: for I have read it written in old evidences Waldæne, with a
diphthong. And to say truth, _dene_ is the old Saxon word for a vale or
low bottom, as _dune_ or _don_ is for a hill or hilly soil. Certes, if it
be so, then Walden taketh her name of the woody vale, in which it sometime
stood. But the first derivation liketh me better; and the highest part of
the town is called also Chipping-Walden, of the Saxon word _Zipping_,
which signifies "Leaning or hanging," and may very well be applied
thereunto, sith the whole town hangeth as it were upon the sides of two
hills, whereof the lesser runneth quite through the midst of the same. I
might here, for further confirmation of these things, bring in mention of
the Wald of Kent; but this may suffice for the use of the word _wald_,
which now differeth much from _wold_. For as that signifieth a woody soil,
so this betokeneth a soil without wood, or plain champaign country,
without any store of trees, as may be seen in Cotswold, Porkwold, etc.
Beside this I could say more of our forests, and the aforesaid enclosures
also, and therein to prove by the book of forest law that the whole county
of Lancaster hath likewise been forest heretofore. Also how William the
Bastard made a law that whosoever did take any wild beast within the
forest should lose an ear (as Henry the First did punish them either by
life or limb, which ordinance was confirmed by Henry the Second and his
peers at Woodstock, whereupon great trouble rose under King John and Henry
the Third, as appeareth by the chronicles); but it shall suffice to have
said so much as is set down already.[203]