iled.

Footnote 1: Reeves's _English Law_.]

The chief officers were known as foresters, verderors, woodwards, and
agisters. Each verderor had the liberty of taking a tree out of Birkland
or Bilhagh; but this privilege seems to have been abused, since in later
years the officers were found to choose the best timber available, and
in William the Third's reign the favour was withdrawn.

Until the sixteenth century the forest seems to have been infested with
wolves: we read that one, Sir Robert Plumpton, in Henry the Sixth's
time, held land called "wolf-hunt land" at Mansfield Woodhouse, seven or
eight miles away, by service of horn-blowing to chase or frighten away
these creatures. In 1635, from a survey taken by royal command, it was
discovered that the forests contained 1367 red deer, 987 of these being
"rascalds", or ill-conditioned. A few years before, the district had
been ravaged by fire, and a contemporary writer describes the
conflagration as one such as was "never knowne in menes memory; beinge
four mille longe and a mille and a halfe over all at once". Later the
gentleman tells how "ridinge on his way through the forest homeward, he
saw a greate herde of faire red deere, and amonst them 2 extreordanory
greet stages, the which he never saw the like".

Much of the forest oak was used for the royal navy, but more was allowed
to decay. Folk of good birth but fallen fortunes frequently begged a
grant of these trees from the Crown. In 1677 Thoroton writes that so
many claims were granted that there would soon not be wood enough left
to cover the bilberries! As time went on, the cleared portions, being of
no further use for kingly sport, were sold to various noblemen. In 1683,
1270 acres were bought by the Duke of Kingston, to add to Thoresby Park;
while early in the eighteenth century 3000 acres were enclosed for the
making of Clumber Park. The last portions of the forest remaining were
the hays, or enclosures, of Birkland and Bilhagh, which were granted to
the Duke of Portland about 1827, in exchange for the perpetual advowson
of St. Mary-le-Bone. Bilhagh later became the property of the late Earl
Manvers, its price being the manors of Holbeck and Bonbusk, near
Welbeck. After the resignation of the Crown lands the waning historical
interest of Sherwood ceased. Birkland and Bilhagh are still beautiful as
in their prime, but the rest of the neighbourhood is nowadays naught but
a wonderful pleasaunce, where drows