1750

arboretum and fruticetum.

PART Ill.

1214, issued a mandate to his chief admiral, ordering him to arrest, seize, andmake prizes of all ships whatever found therein. In the reign of Edward I.,the first admiral was appointed ; and, about 1380, cannons were first used onboard ships. The first three-masted vessel was built by Henry VII.; andHenry VIII. not only built many fine ships, but established the royal dock-yards of Woolwich, Deptford, and Portsmouth; and made laws for the plantingand preservation of oak timber. He was also the last English monarch whoemployed foreign hired ships of war. Elizabeth and James greatly encouragedthe navy, and the planting of oak timber; and Charles I., in 1635-37, builta magnificent vessel, called the Sovereign of the Seas, an oak used in con-structing which produced four beams, each 44 ft. in length, and 4 ft. 9 in. indiameter. This ship, which was afterwards called the Royal Sovereign, wasdestroyed by fire at Chatham in 1696, after having been upwards of sixty yearsin the service. (See Sat. Mag. for 1834.)

It is difficult to assign any exact date for the period when oak planta-tions were first made for profit. According to popular tradition, WilliamRufus was the first who is recorded to have planted oak trees, when, in 1079,he formed the New Forest in Hampshire. But Gilpin appears to think thatit is much more probable that he merely thinned out chases in the woodsalready existing, than that he planted fresh trees. The district of Ytene, in-deed, appears to have been a forest in the time of the Saxons; and, from thepoorness of its soil, to have been thinly populated. Henry of Huntingdon,and the other monkish writers, who relate that William destroyed about fiftyparish churches, and as many villages, extirpating their inhabitants to makethis forest, were therefore probably guided more by their hatred to the Nor-man monarch, than by a strict adherence to truth. Henry I. enlarged the NewForest, enacting severe laws for securing the timber in that and other woods;and he appointed proper officers to enforce these laws, and to preserve theroyal forests from decay. In Henry II.’s time, England appears to have beennearly covered with wood, consisting principally of oak trees; and Fitzstephentells us that a large forest lay round London, “ in the coverts whereof, lurkedbucks and does, wild boars and bulls.” As civilisation advanced, these woodsbecame partially cleared away; and those which remained were called theRoyal Forests, and were retained for the purpose of sheltering game for thediversion of the kings. Henry II. gave a right to the Cistercian Abbey ofFlaxley, in the neighbourhood of the Forest of Dean, to erect an iron forge,together with liberty to cut two oak trees weekly, to supply it with fuel. ButFlenry III. revoked this latter grant, as being prejudicial to the forest; and awood, called the Abbot’s Wood, was gifted to the abbey in lieu of it. (SeeLauder's Gilpin, vol. ii. p. 67.) An inquisition was held, in the reign ofHenry II., respecting Sherwood Forest, by which it appears that the right ofhunting in it was then considered of great importance; and an act was passed,in the reign of Henry III. (1231), to define its boundaries. The Forest ofSalcey was also formerly one of great importance, and it is frequently men-tioned in the forest laws of different English kings. The forest of Norwood,and several others, were entirely of oak, and, of course, valuable as producingnaval timber; but the two great forests for this purpose were the New Forestand the Forest of Dean. Among all the laws that were passed at differenttimes for regulating the forests, as late as the reign of Henry VII., there ap-pears to have been none enjoining planting; the cares for the preservation ofthe forests being chiefly confined to directions as to the proper age and seasonfor felling the trees. Forests, indeed, were so abundant, even in the reign ofHenry VII., that we are told by Polydore Virgil that they covered one thirdpart of all England; and the efforts of the people must have been ratherdirected towards clearing away trees than planting them. About the time ofHenry VIII., when, as we have already seen, the use of hired foreign ships ofwar was discontinued, and several English vessels were built of large size,the first fears respecting a scarcity of oak timber appear to have been felt.Tusser, who wrote about 1562, complains that “men were more studious to