374 LEAFIELD CH. XV the latter were not all perfect, and as they now exist they are due to restoration. This restoration took place about forty years ago at the expense of the Earl of Egmont, a collateral descendant of the Lovels. Owing to the sinking of one end of the tomb the figure had been broken across, and the whole monument was sent up to London, its defects repaired and the shields re-tricked-not without leaving some ground for subsequent criticism. Another interesting monument is the brass in the north transept to John Vampage, attorney in the King's cases; in 1466 John Carpenter, Bishop of Worcester, appears as one of the executors of his will, and he seems to have died at Minster when taking over the Lovel estates as King's Commissioner during the minority of Francis Lovel. Our route now takes us northward to Wychwood, and in three miles we reach Leafield, a modern parish, formed out of Shipton when the forest was enclosed. The village lies high just outside the southern limits of the forest, and the spire of the modern church is a conspicuous landmark for many miles round; but there is not much to detain us except an ancient cross on the green "restored by the inhabitants as a memorial of their deliverance from the scourge of small pox" in 1873. We therefore turn to the left soon after passing the church, and follow the road right through the centre of the ancient forest. But this deserves another chapter. CHAPTER XVI TIME was when Wychwood Forest was a favourite resort of "Oxford riders blythe." It was not near enough for an ordinary afternoon's exercise, and not too far for a long day's excursion in summer term. On a saint's day when there were no lectures-such was the pleasant privilege of those times-a party would hire horses at Symonds's, in Holywell, where it will be remembered that Mr. Charles Larkyns was accustomed to stable his hack, and sally forth either by way of Bablock Hythe or Swinford Bridge for Witney, and thence through Leafield to Wychwood. After exploring the recesses of the forest, with eye and ear alert for all the woodland sights and sounds, they would ride back to dine at Witney off eels fresh from the Windrush, with piles of strawberries and a bottle of passable port (for whiskies and sodas as yet were not) for dessert. Then, when the sun had dropped behind Wytham woods, and the voice of Tom came booming across Botley meadows, they would ride slowly home. But those days are gone. The Scholar-Gipsy, if he still haunts the warm green-muffled Cumner hills, will look in vain for them now. Oxford had not then, as a sportsman of the old school racily puts it, become a "Dame school." Be it also said that Wychwood had not then shrunk to its present circumscribed proportions. The change began as long ago as 1853 in that year it changed its legal status of forest for that of ordinary land, and ten years later the enclosures 376 WYCHWOOD CHAP. began. The old assarts, or clearances, had been few and strictly limited: : now hundreds of trees were felled, and hundreds of acres of heath and copse were grubbed up and brought under the plough. Perhaps the best way to get a general idea of the extent to which modern clearances have reached is to compare the old Ordnance Survey with the new. In the older map it will be seen that the forest extends in an unbroken line from Capp's Lodge, a mile north-east of Swinbrook, to Charlbury: in the later one, the edge of the woodland is not reached till you have passed Leafield. Under the old system Wychwood was a royal forest, and was managed by a ranger, who resided at the Ranger's Lodge, which we pass on the left shortly before we reach the Burford and Charlbury road. When Arthur Young made his tour through Oxfordshire early in the last century, he found "the vicinity filled with poachers, deer-stealers, thieves, and pilferers of every kind"; these offenders, he declares, were a terror to the whole country-side, and he strongly advocated enclosure and cultivation. He was further influenced by the consideration of the amount of wheat the forest land might be made to yield: the "general benefit" of rendering "a large tract of good land productive to the public" far outweighed, he thought, any advantages to be derived from "the mere pleasure of wandering." Well, those were the days of the French War, and the nation was almost wholly dependent upon home-grown supplies, so that Arthur Young's point of view can easily be understood. But in the twentieth century, when the greater part of our wheat comes from over the sea, the destruction of Wychwood can be regarded only as a national loss. Tracts of open unspoiled forest have now become so rare in England that, as in the case of Epping Forest, our instincts are to preserve rather than destroy. Nor have the results from the economic point of view by any means answered Arthur Young's expectations, and it is generally admitted that the land would be now far more remunerative if it had been left undisturbed in its original state. XVI WHITSUNDAY HUNTING 377 It has been mentioned in a previous chapter that in early times Wychwood and Woodstock forests were practically one, and that an unbroken stretch of woodland extended from the Cotswold to the Glyme. Subsidiary to the manor-house of Woodstock the King had a hunting lodge at Langley, a mile or so to the west of Leafield. Hither, when the deer of Woodstock and Ditchley had been granted a well-deserved holiday, the Court were wont to remove to rouse the game on the western extremity of their preserves. A portion of this lodge still remains at the back of a very modern looking farm-house, and there are the initials "H" and "E" for Henry VII. and his Queen, Elizabeth of York, cut large upon the stone. But the rule that the deer were royal game, and might be hunted only by kings and queens, or their deputies, admitted of one exception. Once a year, on Whitsunday, there was an open day, and the inhabitants of all the neighbouring towns and villages flocked in crowds to the forest to exercise their ancient privilege of hunting. No doubt the royal keepers were on the alert to see that the privilege was not abused, and that rules of venery were observed; but we can easily imagine that differences of opinion between the gentlemen in Lincoln green and the sturdy "blanketers" from Witney, or burly saddlers from Burford, were not unknown. At any rate, an outbreak of the plague in 1593 gave the Crown an excuse for stopping the annual carnival in that year, under the plea that the assemblage of large crowds would only tend to spread the infection. What compensation the other towns received I have not discovered, but a letter from the Privy Council to the people of Burford still exists, promising that "order shalbe given to the keepers of the said forest to deliver unto you two buckes to be spent amongest you at your own disposicõns; besydes this your forbearinge for this tyme shall not be any prejudice to your said ancyent custome hereafter." Prejudice or no prejudice, however, the annual hunting was dropped, and another custom took its place. Every Whitsunday the townsfolk elected a boy |