VII.: Later History of Forests and Forest Laws.

The Forest Charter signally failed to secure a pure administration of the law; but two ameliorating processes were at work. The long struggle to define the boundaries ended, in the reign of Edward II., in the defeat of the King, who consented to the frontier being drawn to suit the barons. Within these restricted limits, time and the progress of civilization softened the severity of the forest code, many customs becoming obsolete. Charles I. made an ill–judged attempt to revive some of the Crown’s long–forgotten rights. Justice–seats were held by the Earl of Holland, accompanied by amercements and attempts to extend the forest bounds. The result was a drastic act of the Long Parliament, limiting them to their old extents. This statute, however, abolished neither the forests, the forest laws, nor the forest courts. After the Restoration a Justice–seat actually took place pro forma before the Earl of Oxford. Blackstone declares this to be the last ever held, although the offices of justice and warden of the forests were not abolished till 1817. The forests, much curtailed in extent, are still Crown property, now administered in the interests of the public by Commissioners of Woods and Forests. The operation of the common law is, of course, no longer excluded from their confines, the old antithesis between forest law and the law of England being a thing of the past.