During the reign of Charles I. many unhappy efforts were made to raise funds for the Crown by re-establishing the almost extinct forest courts. This was chiefly the work of Noy, the King’s Attorney-General, styled by Carlyle “that invincible heap of learned rubbish.” The revival of these courts, with all their costly and obsolete formalities, accompanied by the imposition of absurdly heavy fines, created bitter resentment wherever it was carried out, as in Surrey, Berkshire, and Oxfordshire, and was, beyond doubt, one of the causes that led to the Commonwealth trouble. In other parts of England where there were royal forests, after the reimposition of forest law had been so strenuously resisted, another line of action was adopted. Attempts were made, occasionally with success, to secure money for the Crown by the enclosure of forests, the Crown claiming a half, or thereabouts, of the land, and selling them as soon as a title was gained. This action led to continuous disturbance in Duffield, in the south of Derbyshire, where the resistance made to enclosure by the commoners and tenants was eventually successful. [Illustration: No. 8.] In the Peak, however, the destruction done to the crops by the small remnant of the once vast herds of red deer was so persistent that the commoners and others were only too ready to assent to any just scheme of disafforesting. In 1635, various of the landowners and commoners of the Peak petitioned the King, complaining of the severity, trouble, and rigour of the forest laws, and praying that the deer, which were still in sufficient numbers to do no small damage to the crops within the forest and its purlieus, might be destroyed, and asking to be allowed to compound by enclosing and improving the same. Thereupon a commission of enquiry was issued, and two juries were empanelled, with surveyors to assist them. The first jury viewed the whole forest and its purlieus, and presented that the King might improve and enclose one moiety in consideration of his rights, and that the other moiety should be enclosed by the tenants, commoners and freeholders. The second jury was empanelled to specially consider the case of the towns within the purlieus, and they presented that the King, in view of the largeness of the commons belonging to the towns of Chelmorton, Flagg, Taddington, and Priestcliffe, might reasonably have for improvement and enclosure one-third, and the remaining two-thirds for the commoners and freeholders. A like division was to be adopted in several parts within the forest. After some delay the commons were measured, and surveys made of the different townships, dividing the land into three sorts—best, middle, and worst, and the King’s share in each was staked, and maps showing the results were drafted. The surveys were not completed until 1640, and when all the preliminaries had been adjusted, the King caused all the deer to be destroyed or removed, and