‘Forasmuch as the King’s most Royall Maᵗⁱᵉ is much desirous to have the games of hare, partridge, phesaunt, and heron p’served in and about his honor at his palace of Westm’ for his owne disport and pastime; that is to saye, from his said palace of Westm’ to St. Gyles in the Fields, and from thence to Islington to oʳ _Lady of the Oke_, to _Highgate_, to _Hornsey Parke_, to _Hamsted Heath_, and from thence to his said palace of Westm’ to be preserved and kept for his owne disport, pleasure, and recreacion; his highness therefore straightlie chargeth and commandeth, all and singular, his subjects, of what estate, condicion, so’er they be, that they, ne any of them, doe p’sume or attempt to hunt, or hawke, or in any means to take or kill any of the said games, within the precincts aforesaid, as they tender his favour, and will estchue the ymprisonment of their bodies and _further punishment at his Ma’ts will and pleasure_. ‘Et hoc sub p’iculo incumbenti nullatenus omittat. ‘Teste mæipso apud Westm’ vij. die Julij anno tricesimo Septimo Henrici Octavi. (1546.)’ This mandate was issued just six months before the King’s death, when his physical condition must have totally incapacitated him from the sport from which he interdicted others, and this in the face of repeated charters giving the citizens of London a right of free chase in the forests of Middlesex, Hertfordshire, the Chiltern country, and Kent as far as the river Cray. This proclamation helps us in imagination to a view of the then existing condition of the north-western suburbs—fields from the back of Gray’s Inn right away to Islington, a village of ‘cakes and cream’ in the midst of meadows; the uplands of Hampstead, Highgate, and Hornsey still covered with thick woods and coverts filled with game, whilst between them and the city stretched the open country, with here a wattled hut, and there a half-timbered house; the clack of mills resonant beside the willow-shaded Fleet, which had its rise at the foot of Hampstead Hill, and went running on through Gospel Oak Fields to Kentish Town and Pancras, and thence by Holborn to its outlet in the Thames at Blackfriars, where a creek rendered it navigable to Holborn Bridge. There stood St. Pancras, or ‘Pankeridge,’ as Ben Jonson calls it, the oldest church in London with the exception of old Paul’s, ‘all alone, utterly forsaken, and weather-beaten,’ while on the breezy high ground at Hampstead a windmill or two gave animation to the scene. During the reign of Henry VIII., a predicted inundation of the city drove the inhabitants to the hills, and Hampstead Heath appeared covered with hundreds of little huts and tents in which the credulous people sheltered themselves. The prediction, of course, failed, and the prophets only escaped the indignation of their dupes on finding their fears disappointed by avowing a mistake of a hundred years in their calculations.