Our Saxon ancestors no doubt brought with them from the great forests of Germany not only their institutions but the love of sport of their forefathers, pure and simple. With them the forests appear to have been open to the people; and, although the Danes imposed restrictions, King Canute, by his general code of laws, confirmed to his subjects full right to hunt on their own lands, providing they abstained from the forests, the pleasures of which he appears to have had no inclination generally to share with his subjects. He established in each county four chief foresters, who were gentlemen or thanes, and these had under them four yeomen, who had care of the vert and venison; whilst under these again were two officers of still lower rank, who had charge of the vert and venison in the night, and who did the more servile work. King William curtailed many of the old forest privileges, and limited the sports of the people by prohibiting the boar and the hare, which Canute had allowed to be taken; and so jealous was he of the privileges of the chase that he is said to have ordained the loss of the eyes as the penalty for killing a stag. His Norman predilections were such that an old Shropshire historian, Ordericus Vitalis (born at Atcham), who was at one time chaplain to the Conqueror, charges him with depopulating whole parishes that he might satisfy his ardour for hunting. Prince Rufus, who inherited a love of the chase from his father, is made by a modern author to reply to a warning given him by saying:— “I love the chase, ’tis mimic war, And the hollow bay of hound; The heart of the poorest Norman Beats quicker at the sound.” King John stretched the stringent forest laws of the period to the utmost, till the love of liberty and of sport together, still latent among the people, compelled him to submit to an express declaration of their respective rights. By this declaration all lands afforested by Henry I. or by Richard were to be disafforested, excepting demesne woods of the crown; and a fine or imprisonment for a year and a day, in case of default, was to be substituted for loss of life and members. To prevent disputes with regard to the king’s forests, it was also agreed that their limits should be defined by perambulations; but as a check upon the boldness of offenders in forests and chaces, and warrens, and upon the disposition of juries to find against those who were appointed to keep such places, it was deemed necessary on the other hand to give protection to the keepers. Large sums were lavished by kings and nobles on the kennels and appliances necessary for their diversions. Nor were these costly establishments confined to the laity. Bishops, abbots, and high dignitaries of the Church, could match their hounds and hawks against those of the nobles, and they equally prided themselves upon their skill in woodcraft.