Page:VCH Derbyshire 1.djvu/508

 A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE At an inquiry held at the chamber of the Peak, in 1584, as to the driving off and killing of the deer, one witness testified that the deer had been reduced in his time from 1 8 score to 5 score. 1 At a great court of attachment held at Chapel en le Frith, in October 1589, twenty-one transgressors were fined for lopping the trees in sums varying from id. to 6^. 2 It was about this time that George earl of Shrewsbury (he had been taken again into favour by the queen in his old age in 1587, and died in 1590) was permitted to purchase part of the Longdendale district of the Peak forest, which was formally disafforested for the purpose. At this date a large quaint map of the whole forest was prepared, showing great parallelograms, painted vermilion where there were pasturage rights, and outline pictures of the towns. This big map was at some unknown date cut up into sections ; the three portions are preserved at the Public Record Office. 3 On the Ashop and Edale section of the forest five contiguous great patches of vermilion are shown, and by them is written ' the queenes maj farmes are divided into five vacaries.' Near Glossop, it is stated on the map that the greater part of the forest there was then held by the earl of Shrewsbury. A rectangular patch more to the west of Longdendale division is inscribed : ' The herbage of Chynley, otherwise called Maidstonville, God. Bradshawe and other farmes.' Gilbert, seventh earl of Shrewsbury, was appointed chief-justice in eyre of the forests north of the Trent, by James I. in 1603, an office that gave him an oversight of the game. The earl, writing to his uncle, Sir John Manners, from Sheffield Lodge, on 4 July, 1609, says : ' I have sent you a note to Mr. Tunstead for a stag in the Peak Forest, but I doubt if there are any fat enough so early in the year.'* In June 1610, the council sent a letter to the earl, as justice in eyre beyond Trent, to prohibit the inhabitants and borderers of the forest of the Peak from destroying more fowl and heath poults. 5 Among memoranda of business to be submitted to the council in June 1626 occurs a petition from Francis Tunsted, who held a pension of 50 per annum as bow-bearer in the High Peak and keeper of the moor game ; but the pension had not been paid for the last year, and he sought the king's order for its payment and continuance. 6 On 20 February 1639, a warrant was issued to the chancellor of the duchy to appoint fit persons to treat and compound with the freeholders, tenants, and commoners of wastes, and commons belonging to the hundred and forest of High Peak, for granting the king's right and interest of soil.? Just a year later a further warrant was issued to the chancellor to compound for disafforesting all lands of the king's within the honour and forest of the Peak. 8 A large proportion of the duchy documents of the latter half of Charles I.'s reign are missing, but from a much later document we are fortunately able to give the true account of this disafforesting process for the first time, and thus to correct a variety of contradictory and erroneous statements that have hitherto been put forth on the subject. In 1772 an inquiry was made as to the state of the king's title to timber, mines, and coal within the disafforested forest of the High Peak. The outline history of the forest is correctly given in the report." In 1635 the landowners and inhabitants within the forest petitioned the king, complaining of the severity, trouble, and rigour of the forest laws, and praying that the deer (which were in sufficient numbers to do considerable damage to crops in the forest and its purlieus) might be destroyed, and asking to be allowed to compound by inclosing and improving the same. Thereupon the king issued a commission of inquiry under the Duchy seal, and directed that two juries should be impannelled, appointing a surveyor to assist them. The first jury viewed the whole forest and its purlieus, and presented that the king might improve and inclose one moiety in consideration of his rights, and that the other moiety should be inclosed by the tenants, commoners, and freeholders. The other jury was impannelled to consider the question 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, Teddington, and Pnestcliffe might reasonably have for improvement and inclosure one-third, and the remaining 1 Duchy Surveys and Commissions, No. 1285. 2 Duchy Court Rolls, 42-455. 8 Duchy of Lanes. Maps and Plans, Nos. 7, 37, and 44. 6 S. P. Dom. Chas. I. cccccxxiv. 46. 7 Ibid, ccccxiii. 8 Ibid, ccccxlvi. 60. 9 Duchy of Lane. Pleadings, v. 9. The particulars given of the time of Charles I. were taken from a decree made in the Duchy Court on 17 May, 1686, but which had become almost totally illegible in 1772. 412
 * Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. Belvoir MSS. i. 417. 63. P. Dom. Jas. I. Iv.