of fifty men to be chosen from the
county, the larger number should be from the Forest of Dean, and urging
expedition in sending them. The next writ, issued four years afterwards,
was sent to the Sheriff of Herefordshire, and is entitled "Concerning the
Choice of Soldiers in the Forest of Dean," and orders ninety-six men of
those parts to be provided. Two years later the Keeper of St. Briavel's
is directed to bring two hundred men to Northallerton; and again, two
years afterwards, he is to take twenty of the strongest miners in his
bailiwick to Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and a writ was addressed to all mayors,
sheriffs, bailiffs, &c., reciting the aforesaid instructions, and
commanding that assistance should be rendered them whenever it was needed
during their journey. In connexion with these incidents, it is stated by
Guthrie, the historian, that Sir Edward Manny bringing engineers out of
the Forest of Dean, and Edward III. investing the place with a prodigious
army, the Scots capitulated. They were also ordered by the same King to
join his forces at Portsmouth in 1346 and 1359.

From these facts we are justified in concluding that the population then
inhabiting the Forest were regarded as a brave and skilful race, not
merely in their own quarter of the kingdom, but also in the camp of its
Kings. They were skilful with the bow from following the chase on the
King's behalf, and were of course able sappers and miners from the nature
of their everyday occupations. Indeed, the tradition now in vogue
amongst the Foresters, is, that their ancestors were made free miners in
return for the aforesaid services; but it has been shown that the
franchises of the mine date from an earlier period. {18}

The researches of the Rev. T. D. Fosbroke, as printed in his History of
the county, supply most of the following additional particulars of this
reign. The Bishop of Llandaff, who already claimed the moiety of a
fishery at Bigswear on the Wye, to which the parish of Newland extends,
received a grant of the newly cleared Forest lands for founding a chantry
at the latter place. Tithes to the amount of ten pounds from the
iron-mines in the Forest were given to that dignitary, but the Dean of
Hereford and the Canons, with the Rectors of St. Briavel's and Lydney,
aided by their servants and others, violently carried them away, the see
of Hereford then comprising all these parts. The vineyard of Norton,
together with certain wastes, were