Fear in the Forest

by Bernard Knight

  ‘I therefore attach them in the sum of five marks each to appear before the next County Court to answer for their failure.’

  He was not sure whether he had the power to do this, especially as the sheriff, who ran the County Court, would do all he could to frustrate him. Theoretically, if they failed four times to answer a summons to the County Court, they could be declared outlaw, but with de Revelle’s present attitude, this seemed impossible. The coroner could attach them to appear before the King’s Justices at the next General Eyre, but as the last one had been held in Exeter only recently, it was unlikely to return for several years. The Commissioners of Gaol Delivery were due in a few months to try those languishing in prison awaiting trial, but he was not sure whether non-appearance at an inquest was enough to imprison the foresters, unless he brought in a verdict of murder against them. And even if he did, who was going to arrest them? Given the strange situation in the forest, the usual officers of law enforcement, such as the manor bailiffs and the Hundred sergeants, would be likely to be either unwilling or incapable of arresting officials who seemed to have the backing of the sheriff, the new verderer and even a gang of outlaws.

  Still, John was damned if he was going to let them get away with either murder or flouting the King’s coroner, so he rounded off the short inquest with his directions to the circle of jurors.

  ‘My inquest is to determine who, where, when and by what means this body came to his death. His identity is well known to you all and his Englishry confirmed. You have seen the wound, a cowardly shot in the back, so the means of death is clear and the day it was inflicted, namely yesterday, equally certain. The foresters William Lupus and Michael Crespin were known to have passed through here then. The arrow is of a type used by them and the deceased was admittedly a well-known poacher.’

  He paused to glare around the assembly from beneath his beetling black brows.

  ‘Take all together and it is obvious that we needed to hear from these forest officers. But they have not deigned to attend and have ill used your reeve, who was sent to summon them. In their absence, I cannot hear any explanation from them and the evidence is so scanty that no verdict can be reached today. I therefore must adjourn this inquest to another time determined by circumstances.’

  He nodded dismissal at the throng and then walked across to offer his awkward, but none the less sincere, sympathy to the widow. The parish priest was now at her side and John turned to him.

  ‘I trust there are some means of giving support to this unfortunate woman, Father,’ he growled. ‘She seems to have had little before and now has less.’

  Father Amicus nodded. ‘We will do our best, Crowner. Her husband was a villein of our manor-lord. I am sure he will feel some responsibility for her sustenance. Maybe he can employ her in the kitchen at the manor house.’

  This reminded de Wolfe of Henry le Denneis’ absence.

  ‘I presume your lord knew of this matter? Was he told?’

  The bailiff nodded. ‘I went to give him a full report this morning. He was unable to attend the inquest as he had a flux of the bowels.’

  That sounded too convenient to be true, thought the coroner. He guessed that the lord of Manaton was afraid of offending either the forest regime or the King’s coroner and had decided to keep clear of them both. As the handcart was pushed into the churchyard opposite for a night in front of the altar before burial, John had a final word with the bailiff.

  ‘I need to confront these two foresters as soon as I can. Are they still likely to be found in Lustleigh?’

  ‘I doubt it, Crowner. Robert Barat says they were merely eating and drinking there, so God knows where they are by now. But I know where they must be tomorrow, for there’s a Woodmote to be held, and they must appear before the verderer to present their cases.’

  This was another name for the lower court of the forest, officially called the Attachment Court, held every forty days, which gave it yet another title.

  ‘And where will that be held?’ demanded de Wolfe.

  ‘In this bailiwick, always in Moretonhampstead, in the market hall. You’ll undoubtedly find Lupus and Crespin there.’

  John looked at Gwyn and Thomas de Peyne, who had just gathered up his parchments and writing materials and stuffed them into his sagging shoulder pouch. ‘Right, you two, we’re having another night away from home. It’s not worth riding back to Exeter and returning in the morning, so we’ll take ourselves to Moreton and find a bellyful of food and a penny bed.’

  Moretonhampstead, known locally as Moorton, was a large village part-way between Ashburton and Chagford, two of the stannary towns of Devon where crude tin was assayed. Moorton, though there was much tin-streaming near by to the west, was primarily an agricultural centre and boasted a covered marketplace at its central crossroads.

  Though only an open structure of wooden posts supporting a steep thatched roof, it was a prestigious symbol to the inhabitants and brought in many traders, itinerant chapmen and their customers to spend their pennies in the alehouses, tannery and forges. Tuesday was their big market day, when in addition to the crowded stalls and floor displays in the market hall there were sheep, pigs and cattle for sale and barter in two open spaces a few yards up the road.

  However, even on other days the market was still in use, with regular booths for butchers and pastry-cooks. Country men and women sat on the earthen floor, offering a chicken, a duck or a kid – or vegetables from their tofts. But every forty days the traders knew that there was no space for them in the market hall, as the woodmote required it for its proceedings. This was where all offences against the forest law were first prosecuted, though only transgressions against the ‘vert’, the greenery of the forest, could be judged, and then only if the worth of the offence did not exceed four pence. All other matters, especially those against the ‘venison’, the beasts of the forest, could only be recorded and sent on for trial to the Forest Eyre, the great Assize of the Forest that met no more often than every three years. Those unfortunate enough to be imprisoned to await trial, rather than be bailed by attachments, often died in the squalid gaols, like the miscreants imprisoned in the city.

  An hour after the early dawn, the coroner’s trio rolled off their straw pallets in the loft of one of the three inns. They had eaten well enough the previous evening and John and Gwyn had drunk and yarned in the taproom until late, while Thomas had wandered to the church to pray, meditate and indulge in his favourite pastime of misleading the parish priest into believing that he was still in Holy Orders. By dusk, they had rolled themselves in their cloaks in lieu of blankets and slept soundly, in spite of the ever-present fleas – though both John and his clerk had a few minutes unease over Nesta, before slumber overcame them.

  That morning in the inn they ate bread and cheese and drank sour cider, a pale shadow of the food on offer at The Bush. Gwyn felt obliged to supplement this meagre breakfast with a mutton pie from a stall, as, although the market was closed, the wooden houses on the corners of the crossroads opposite had shops at ground level, their goods displayed on the lowered shutters. Booths, stalls and pedlars’ trays offered plenty of sustenance, so even on a Woodmote day no one with a few coins need go hungry.

  The three sat on a big log placed outside the alehouse as a seat and watched the participants gather for the court. A chair, a trestle table and a few stools had been set up inside one end of the market hall, the only gesture to formality. Gradually, people began filling the space, mostly men, but some with a woman clinging to their arm, wondering what further burdens would be added to their lot before the end of the day.

  Soon a large cart trundled down towards the crossroads, drawn by a pair of ponderous oxen, and Gwyn pointed at it with the remnants of his pie. A mangy, emaciated bitch had slunk up to him and, being an inveterate dog-lover, he was sharing the last crusts with her.

  ‘Here come some of the worst customers,’ he observed.

  About half a score tattered and dirty men were crowded into
the cart, and when they were prodded out by the ruffianly driver and his mate, John saw that they were roped together by their manacled wrists. They were led into the market and made to sit in a row across the floor.

  ‘I heard the foresters have got a gaol over at North Bovey – they say it’s as bad as the tinners’ prison at Lydford.’ As Gwyn had been incarcerated in Lydford not long before, he said this with some feeling.

  A group of riders now appeared in the distance, and John soon recognised the foresters and their pages, as well as the new verderer.

  A couple of clerks jogged behind on their ponies, and the whole entourage dismounted alongside the market. The two pages led the horses off to graze in a field up the road, while the others went into the hall.

  ‘Are we going to beard them in their den straight away, Crowner?’ growled Gwyn, already spoiling for a fight.

  ‘Leave it a while. Let’s see what they do in this damned court.’

  There were many people milling about the crossroads now, some of them traders, pedlars and beggars taking advantage of the influx of people for the Woodmote. Some were pushing into the market itself, either to be involved in the proceedings or merely to be entertained, so in spite of their size, de Wolfe and Gwyn were able to lean half concealed behind one of the stout pillars at the back of the hall. The much smaller Thomas slipped unobtrusively into the throng.

  The verderer had taken the only chair and the clerks were squatting on the stools, their writing materials on the trestle. People were jostling about the rest of the floor behind the prisoners until William Lupus banged on the table with the hilt of his dagger and yelled for order.

  John watched with interest as the proceedings got under way. The two foresters and their so-called pages strutted about with arrogant efficiency, hauling the offenders up before the new verderer with deliberate brutality, as they called their names and recited their offences. The prisoners from the cart were dealt with first, the long rope being untied from their wrists so that, still manacled, they could be dragged and kicked to stand before the judgement table.

  Most of these were the more serious offenders against the venison, to be remanded to the distant Forest Eyre. The majority of their sins seemed quite minor to de Wolfe, mainly poaching of coneys, squirrels and various birds. One had shot a fox that had harried his chickens and another was alleged to have killed a boar, though the body of the beast was never found and the man hotly denied the charge. Only one fellow was charged with hunting down a roe deer, as the skin and bones were found buried behind his cottage. All he had to look forward to was either mutilation, castration, blinding or hanging, so the more sensitive Thomas covertly crossed himself and prayed that he would perish in jail.

  Two men were accused of failing to ‘law’ their dogs, which meant cutting off three claws from each forepaw to prevent them running after game. The only way to avoid this was to pay a heavy exemption fee, called ‘hound-geld’.

  ‘Bloody barbarians, all of them,’ snarled the dog-loving Gwyn under his breath, as Michael Crespin, a thickset middle-aged man with cropped blond hair and watery blue eyes, intoned the requirements for this mutilation, even down to the size of the block of wood, the two-inch chisel and the mallet. One of the accused pleaded that his dog was small enough to be exempt from lawing, and an argument developed between the foresters, the verderer and the man as to the criteria for exemption.

  ‘If a hound can crawl through a stirrup, it need not be lawed!’ claimed the man, indignant at being locked in a filthy gaol for three weeks on such an accusation.

  Crespin gave the man a gratuitous blow on the shoulder. ‘You’re a liar, man. That bitch could not be passed through the five and three-quarter inches of a Malvern chase strap, which is the legal measure.’

  ‘Did you actually try the dog against that measure?’ asked Philip de Strete.

  ‘I had no need, sir. I could tell from experience that it would not pass.’

  Gwyn again rumbled his resentment as this distortion of justice, but de Wolfe laid a restraining hand on his arm. The accused man was trying another stratagem.

  ‘If you will not believe that, then let me pay the hound-geld now. That dog is too small to hunt anything bigger than a rat, but I am willing to pay, rather than perish in that foul prison!’

  The mention of money sent the foresters to the table to murmur with the verderer and, after some nodding of heads, de Strete scowled at the prisoner and gave him an option. ‘Five marks hound-geld or take your chance at the Eyre.’

  The man winced and looked desperately into the crowd, where his wife, brothers and father were listening anxiously. After some worried consultation, they nodded and, without further ado, Crespin pushed the man towards the driver of the ox-cart, for him to release the irons on his wrists. Five marks was a fortune to a peasant, who would have to borrow hundreds of pennies from his relatives and probably go hungry for many months to come.

  The coroner and his officer waited while the rest of the venison cases were dealt with by the arrogant forest officers, who took every chance to commute crimes for cash. One man was accused of ‘stable-stand’, being seen on a horse carrying a bow. Another was committed for a ‘bloody-hand’ offence, being found with bloodstaining on his breeches, though he loudly proclaimed that he had merely been killing one of his own geese, but had no witness to prove it. A similar situation involved a free man who was accused of both ‘back-bear’ and ‘dog-draw’, being seen carrying the carcass of a fox while walking in the forest with his dog. He insisted that he had found the fox dead with injuries inflicted from a wolf’s fangs and that, as his dog was properly lawed, it was quite legal. No notice was taken of his protestations, but he was allowed to be mainprised, a form of bail, on the payment of two pledges from his family, each of four marks.

  As soon as these cases were finished, the Woodmote moved on to the larger number of offences against the vert. These were dealt with rapidly, and again it seemed to John that financial extortion was the main object. In many cases, guilt was declared with almost no evidence and with no chance for the accused to utter a word in his defence. The choice was usually offered of paying a fine or being committed to the Forest Eyre, even when the value of the transgression was patently over the threshold of four pence. When someone declined to pay the amercement, he was bound over with a much greater attachment fee, to ensure his appearance at the distant court, so in either event he was financially crippled either personally or after having to borrow from his family.

  Though the system was no different in principle to that of the other courts, it was being applied with a ruthless and avaricious disregard for natural justice. Philip de Strete seemed only to be a figurehead in the proceedings, and appeared to accede to all the murmured advice from the two foresters.

  ‘This is a damned disgrace!’ rumbled Gwyn. ‘I wonder how faithfully those clerks are allowed to record all these payments. I’ll wager the biggest portion goes into the officers’ purses every forty days.’

  They waited a while longer, listening to a series of cases concerning the illegal cutting of branches of more than an inch thick, of the offence of ‘purpestre’, which was the building of a hut on the owner’s land without a fee; causing ‘waste’ by cutting down bushes; and illegal ‘assart’, the removal of stumps and roots to enlarge cultivated ground. A few were fined for wrongful ‘agistment’ – letting their livestock feed in the forest either without sufficient fee or during the current ‘fence month’, fifteen days either side of the feast of St John the Baptist, when the hinds were calving. John was interested to hear all these archaic regulations, some going back to the Saxon kings. He knew of some of them and decided not to mention to Gwyn that it was Edward the Confessor who had brought in the mutilation of forest dogs – not by lawing the claws, but by ‘hombling and hoxing’, cutting the sinews of the back legs so that they could hardly walk, let alone run.

  As the cases were completed and the remaining prisoners were herded back to their cart and t
he rest of the crowd began to thin out, de Wolfe decided it was time for him to have words with the foresters.

  With Gwyn close behind, he pushed himself from his pillar and thrust his way through the spectators to reach the front of the court.

  Philip de Strete gaped up at them in surprise, then rose in reluctant greeting to a more senior law officer. The two foresters and their thuggish pages made no effort to be civil, but stood to one side, scowling at the coroner and his massive henchman.

  ‘What brings you here today, Sir John?’ asked the new verderer, anxiously. The sheriff’s description to him of the coroner’s personality suggested that his presence would not bring him joy.

  ‘I have some serious questions for these officers of yours, de Strete. And I think this is one case that has not been brought to your attention during today’s proceedings.’

  Lupus and Crespin glowered at the coroner, well aware of what he meant.

  ‘Murder was done in the forest two days ago. Has your court no interest at all in recording that?’ he boomed. ‘Do you all still deny that such a major breach of the King’s peace does not come under the common law? And if you do, why have you not dealt with it yourself, as by default it must lie within someone’s jurisdiction?’

  It was a neat trap, and the inexperienced, rather stupid verderer could only gape ineffectually at the coroner. ‘What murder is this?’ he managed to croak, after a moment.

  ‘Edward of Manaton – shot in the back with an arrow. An arrow that strongly resembles those used by your foresters – the same foresters who were seen passing through Manaton at about the time of the murder.’

  De Strete jerked his head around to stare at his men. ‘Why wasn’t I told of this?’

  William Lupus ignored him and spoke directly to de Wolfe.

  ‘It was no murder, Crowner,’ he said contemptuously. ‘It was a justifiable killing under forest law.’ His skull-like face was impassive as he tried to stare down the coroner.