After the expulsion of the Danes, and during the short restoration of the Saxon monarchy, the sports of the field still maintained their ground. Edward the Confessor, whose disposition seems rather to have been suited to the cloister than to the throne, would join in no other secular amusements; but he took the greatest delight, says William of Malmsbury, "to follow a pack of swift hounds in pursuit of game, and to cheer them with his voice."[127] He was equally pleased with hawking, and every day, after divine service, he spent his time in one or other of these favourite pastimes.[128] Harold, who succeeded him, was so fond of his hawk and his hounds, that he rarely travelled without them. He is so represented upon the famous tapestry of Bayeux, with his hounds by his side and a hawk upon his hand, when brought before William duke of Normandy.[129] Travelling thus accompanied, was not a singular trait in the character of a nobleman at this period. [Illustration: 1. SWINE HUNTING--IX. CENTURY.] The above engraving represents a Saxon chieftain, attended by his huntsman and a couple of hounds, pursuing the wild swine in a forest, taken from a manuscriptal painting of the ninth century in the Cotton Library.[130] [Illustration: 2. SPEARING A BOAR--XIV. CENTURY.] The above is a representation of the manner of attacking the wild boar, from a manuscript written about the commencement of the fourteenth century, in the possession of Francis Douce, Esq. [Illustration: 3. THE UNEARTHING OF A FOX.] The preceding engraving is from a manuscript in the Royal Library,[131] written about the same time as the latter. VI.--HUNTING AMONG THE NORMANS OPPRESSIVELY EXERCISED. During the tyrannical government of William the Norman, and his two sons who succeeded him, the restrictions concerning the killing of game were by no means meliorated. The privileges of hunting in the royal forests were confined to the king and his favourites; and, to render these receptacles for the beasts of the chase more capacious, or to make new ones, whole villages were depopulated, and places of divine worship overthrown; not the least regard being paid to the miseries of the suffering inhabitants, or the cause of religion. These despotic proceedings were not confined to royalty, as may be proved from good authority. I need not mention the New Forest, in Hampshire, made by the elder William, or the park at Woodstock in Oxfordshire, seven miles in circumference, and walled round with stone by Henry his son.[132] This park, Stowe tells us, was the first made in England. The royal example was first followed by Henry earl of Warwick, who made a park at Wedgenoke, near Warwick, to preserve his deer and other animals for hunting; after this the practice of park-making became general among persons of opulence.