Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/44

Rh has related each minute event of his reign, exposed each shortcoming, and branded each crime, say of the cruelty of the afforestation. Evidence like this, coming from such an authority, is in the highest degree important. The silence is most suggestive. It is impossible to believe, that so faithful an historian, had it been committed, should never have hinted at the devastation of so much property, and the double crime of cruelty and profanity in destroying alike the inhabitants and their churches.

But the briefest analysis of Domesday, and a comparison of its contents with those of the survey made in Edward the Confessor's reign, will more clearly show the nature and extent of the afforestation than any of the Chroniclers. From it we find that about two-thirds of the district, including some thirty manors, was entirely afforested. But it by no means carries out the account that the villages were destroyed and the inhabitants banished, or, according to others, murdered. For in some cases, as at Eling, it is noted that the houses are still standing and the inmates living in the King's Forest; and in others, as at Batramsley, Pilley, Wootton, and Oxley, express mention is made that only the woods are annexed, and that the meadows and pastures are not afforested, but remain in the hands of their former West-Saxon holders. Again, too, we find that some of the manors, as at Hordle and Bashley, though considerably lessened, kept up their value. Others, as at Efford, actually doubled their former assessments. Still more remarkable, some again, as at Brockenhurst, Sway, and Eling, though reduced in size, increased one-third and two-thirds in value. 26