434 ANNALS OF ROGER DE HOVEDEN. A.D. 1198. for it is by these and other vexations, whether justly or unjustly, that all England has been reduced to poverty from sea to sea. But before these troubles were at an end, another kind of trouble arose, to the confusion of the subjects of the realm, by means of the justices of the forests, namely, Hugh Neville, chief-justice of all the king's forests in England, whose surname was Envellu, Hugh Wac, and Ernest de Neville. For it was commanded the said justices itinerant of the forests, on the king's behalf, throughout each county through which they should proceed, to convene before them, to the pleas of the forests, the archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, and all freeholders, and the reeve of each town, and four other men, to hear the king's commands. In the first place, our lord the king gives notice, that if any shall commit an offence against him, relative to his venison, or his forests, in any way, he does not wish such to place their confidence in the fact that he has hitherto amerced them solely in their chattels, who have offended against him relative to his venison, or his forests. For if any persons henceforth shall.commit any offence against him relative thereto, and shall be convicted of the same, it is his intention that the full punishment shall be inflicted on them, as in the days of Henry, the grandfather91 of our lord the king, that is to say, they are to lose their eyes and their virility. Also, our lord the king forbids that any person shall have bows or arrows, or dogs, or harriers, in his forests, unless he has the king as his surety, or some one else to act as his surety in so doing. The king also forbids that any one shall give or sell anything to the destruction of his woods, or the waste that lies in the king's forests ; but he gives full permission for them to take anything that is necessary for them from their own woods, but without waste and this in view of his forester and verderers. He also orders all those who have woods within the boundaries of a forest of our lord the king, to place fit and proper foresters in their woods ; for which foresters those to whom such woods belong are to be sureties, or are to find fitting sureties, who may make reparation, if the foresters should offend in anything that relates to our lord the king. He also orders that his own foresters shall have supervision over the foresters of the knights and others, who have woods within the boundaries of a iorest belonging to our lord the king, in order that the woods 9 1 Properly greatgrandfather.