Forest Laws. Forest is defined by Coke to be a safe preserve for wild animals (feræ) of the chase. A forest, in the sense of the law of England, is a large tract of open ground, not necessarily covered with wood, but usually containing woodland interspersed with pasture, and forming part of the property of the monarch, and governed by a special code, called the forest law. This particular law not only had reference to matters connected with hunting and the like, but generally governed the persons living within the forest in all their relations. Though the privilege of forest belongs of right to the sovereign alone, it may be granted by him in favour of a subject, who becomes entitled to exercise the privileges of forest in the district assigned. This right was exercised by the Saxon kings, who reserved large tracts of country for hunting. William the Conqueror greatly extended the royal forests, by laying desert vast districts in Hampshire and Yorkshire; he also introduced penalties of the severest kind for offences against the game. But the laws of the forest were first reduced to a regular code by the Forest Charter of 1217. The right of the sovereign to create a forest is by the common law confined to lands of his own demesne. Henry II. had arbitrarily exercised his power by afforesting the lands of his subjects; but by this charter of Henry III. it was provided that all forests so made should be disafforested. By the same charter the penalties for destroying game were greatly modified, it being provided that no man should lose life or limb for slaying deer, but that the punishment should be restricted to fine or imprisonment for a year and a day. Chap. 11 contains the following curious privilege: 'Whatsoever archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron, coming to us at our commandment, passing by our forest, it shall be lawful for him to take and kill one or two of our deer by view of our forester if he be present; or else he shall cause one to blow an horn for him, that he seem not to steal our deer; and likewise they shall do returning from us.' Charles I.'s attempts to impose penalties and exact fines for alleged encroachments on the ancient boundaries of the forests, though the right to the lands thus taken was fortified by possession for several centuries, were among the first grievances with which the Long Parliament dealt. Since the passing of the Act for the 'certainty of forests' (16 Car. I. chap. 16), the laws of the forest have practically ceased. In Coke's time there were sixty-nine royal forests; of these the principal were the New Forest, Sherwood, Dean, Windsor, Epping, Dartmoor, Wychwood in Oxfordshire; Salcey, Whittlebury, and Rockingham in Northamptonshire; Waltham in Lincolnshire; and Richmond in Yorkshire. Some of these, however, including Whittlebury and Wychwood, have been disafforested since 1850. The royal forests of Scotland in ancient times seem to have been nearly as numerous as those of England. In Perthshire there were the forests of Athole, Glenartney, Glenfinlas, Glenalmond, Birnam, Cluny, Alyth, &c.; in Forfarshire, Platan, Montrethmont, Kilgerry; in Kincardineshire, Cowie and Durris; in Aberdencshire, the Stocket, Dyce, Kintore, Benachie, Drum, Birse, Braemar; in Banffshire, the Boyne and the
Enzie; in Elgin, Darnaway, &c. South of the Forth were those of Torwood, Cadzow, Ettrick, Selkirk, Jedburgh, Traquair, the New Forest in Dumfriesshire, &c. The forest code of Scotland (Leges Forestarum), though neither so complete nor administered with the same rigour as that of England, was still generally complained of for its severe penalties and vexatious restraints. The grant of a right of forestry conferred the same privilege as if the ground over which it extended had been originally, and had continued to be, a king's forest. See DEER-FORESTS, GAME LAWS, WOODS AND FORESTS; and for other information about forests, ARBORICULTURE, METEOROLOGY, FOSSILS; also the articles on DEAN, EPPING, SHERWOOD, NEW FOREST, &c.
Forest Courts were established for the purpose of enforcing the laws relating to the royal forests. Of these there were in England four—viz. the Court of Attachments, of Regard, of Swainmote, and of the Lord Justice in Eyre in the Forest, or Justice Seat. The last Court of Justice Seat at which business was transacted was held in the reign of Charles I. before Lord Holland; the office of itinerant forest justices was not abolished until 1817, the criminal law of the forest having been almost wholly repealed half a century before.