------ The Court of the Justice Seat holden
before the Chief Justice of the Forest ---- aptly
called Justice in eire ------ and this Court of
the Justice Seat cannot be kept oftener than
every third year.
* * * * * * *
[319] _For the antiquity of such Forests within England
as we have treated of the best and surest argument
therof is that the Forests in England (being in
number 69) except the New Forest in Hampshire
erected by William the Conqueror as a conqueror,
and Hampton Court Forest by Hy 3, by authority
of Parliament, are so ancient as no record or
history doth make any mention of any of their
Erections or beginnings._
Here then we have clear evidence that nearly seven hundred
years ago the Verderer's Court was being held at periods of
time that bore no relation to any division of the year known
to the Normans or Plantagenets, or, before them, to the Saxons,
or even, still earlier, to the Romans. We are, therefore,
driven back to the period before the Roman invasion in Britain,
and when the Forest legislation was, as Caesar found it, in
the hands of the Druids.
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