if the King gives authority by express words, for the administration of justice there, and for his justices to come there; and if such grantee might have commission, in such case, to use and have officers of a forest, then it should continue a forest in the hands of a subject. Cro. Ja. 155. 11. Part of the land and wood comprised in a 4 Inst. 297. forest, may belong to private persons: but they can only occupy and enjoy the same in such manner as is consistent with the rights of the proprietor of the franchise of forest, and the preservation of the game. 2 Comm.417. 12. A chace is a franchise or liberty of keeping A Chace. certain kinds of wild animals within a particular and known district; with an exclusive right of hunting them therein. It is in most respects similar to a forest; the only difference between them being, that a chace has no laws peculiar to it; so that all offences in chaces are punishable by the common law, and not by the forest laws. 13. Beasts of chace are buck, doe, fox, martin, and roe, in which the owner of the chace has a property. 14. Where a chace belongs to a subject, it must have been originally created by a royal grant from the Crown, giving to the grantee the franchise of chace over a certain tract of ground, or by a grant of a royal forest to a subject, but without any words 4 Inst. 314. enabling him to hold courts; in which case the forest became a chace. 15. From a variety of causes, unknown to modern times, chaces extended over the lands of other persons. And in 5 Ja. I., it was resolved, that persons. Case of having freehold lands within a royal chace might cut 12 Rep. 22. their timber and wood growing there, without the 4 Inst. 298. Forests, view or licence of any: but if they cut so much that there was not sufficient for covert, to maintain the game of the King, they should be punished. So if a common person had a chace in another's soil, the owner of the soil could not destroy all the wood; but must leave sufficient covert and browse wood, as had been accustomed. 16. Lord Coke says, no King of England could have made a chace for himself in any of the grounds of his subjects. And that when King Henry VIII. determined to make a chace about his palace at Hampton Court, he was obliged to obtain the previous consent of the freeholders and customary tenants, over whose lands the chace was to extend. 17. The erection of this chace was confirmed by an act of parliament, which recites the indenture made between the King and the freeholders and customary tenants of the neighbouring townships, in which it was stipulated that they should have liberty to cut their woods within the chace, without the King's licence; and to fence against the deer, while their corn was growing but that after the corn was carried, the officers of the chace should be allowed to make deer lepes, and brekes in the fences, that the deer might enter the ground, where the corn had been sown, for their feeding, while the land remained unsown; and that in other respects the proprietors should obey the laws of the chace. And for recompence, it was agreed that a third of the rent of the freeholds, and a moiety of the fine of every copyholder, should be deducted. 18. A park is an inclosed chace, extending only over a person's own grounds, privileged for beasts of venery, and beasts of forest and chace, by the King's grant or by prescription: and it appears from the Fol.Ed.1810. ordinatio de libertatibus perquirendis, that those who Stat.atLarge, would purchase a new park should have writs of inquiry out of Chancery, and there make fine for the park having. 19. To a park three things are necessary: 1. A 11 Rep. 87 b. grant from the King. 2. Inclosures by pale, wall, Cro. Car. 60. or hedge. S. Beasts of park, such as buck, doe, &c. And where all the deer are destroyed, it shall no more be accounted a park. For a park consists of vert, venison, and inclosure; and if it is determined in any of these, it is a total disparking. 20. Manwood says, there are parks in many forests, which are claimed either by grant from the King, or by prescription. That if a subject is owner of a forest, he may give licence to another to inclose a park within the meers of his forest; to hold the same so inclosed, with all such venison as the grantee shall put in, to him and his heirs. But if such park is so slightly inclosed, that the wild beasts of the forest get into it, the lord of the forest may, in that case, enter and hunt at his pleasure. 21. Parks, as well as chaces, are subject to the 4 Inst. 314. common law, and not governed by the forest laws: but by the statute of Westm. 1. 3 Edw. I. c. 20., 2 Inst. 198, trespassers in parks are made liable to very severe punishments. Warren. 22. A free warren is a franchise to have and keep A Free beasts and fowls of warren within the demesnes of a manor, or other known place; from which the owner of the warren has a right to exclude all other persons from hunting or taking them. This franchise, like that of chace or park, must be derived from a royal grant, or from prescription, which supposes such a grant.; it being laid down in the case of monopolies, 44 Eliz., that "none can make a park, chase, or 11 Rep. 87 b. ante, § 18. c. 4. § 3. warren, without the King's licence. For that is, quodammodo to appropriate those creatures which are feræ naturæ, et nullius in bonis, to himself; and to restrain them of their natural liberty." And it appears from the ordinatio de libertatibus perquirendis, that those who would purchase a free warren should make fine for it, in the same manner as for a park. 23. Manwood says, the words constituting a free warren usually were-Quod ipse et hæredes sui habeant liberam warrenam in omnibus dominicis terris suis in N. in comitatu B. dum tamen feræ illæ non sint infra metas forestæ nostræ ; ita quod nullus intret terras illas, ad fugandum in eis, vel aliquod capiendum quod ad warrenam pertinet. And it appears from Dugdale's Baronage, that during the reigns of the three first Edwards, an infinite number of grants of this kind were made to the principal nobility, from which 2 Comm.417. Sir W. Blackstone concludes that the sole right of taking and destroying game belonged exclusively to the King; for otherwise he could not grant it to his subjects. 24. The beasts of warren are hares and rabbits, and the fowls of warren are pheasants and partridges; Fitz. N. B. and the effect of a grant of free warren is, to vest in 86. L. n. the grantee the property of these beasts and fowls that are on the lands comprised in the grant; which property continues after they are hunted out of the warren. And although it is said that a person may have a property in wild animals, ratione soli, yet it is admitted that this property is subservient to that of a person having the franchise of warren, which is ra tione privilegii, and suspends it; for in that case the property of the wild animals is in the person having the warren, and not in the proprietor of the soil. Sutton v. 25. The grantee of a free warren acquired also a right to appoint a person to watch over and preserve the game, called a warrener; who is justifiable in kill- Cro. Ja. 45. ing any dogs, polecats, or other vermin which he finds disturbing or destroying the game. 26. The Crown could not grant free warren over the lands of another; but still a person might have free warren over another's land by prescription. Year Book, 34 Hen. 6. pa. 28. Thus in a case upon a quo warranto in 9 Cha. I. Rexv.Talbot, the defendant claimed free warren in R., and pleaded Cro. Car. 311. that he was seised in fee of the manor of R. whereof the locus in quo, &c. was parcel; and so prescribed to have free warren within all the said manor, and the demesnes thereof, so that none should chase any game in the said manor, and the demesnes thereof without his leave. Issue was taken that he and all those whose estate, &c,, had no free warren within the said manor and demesnes; and found for the defendant. It was objected that this prescription was not good, viz. to have free warren in the manor, and in the demesnes of the manor; for though he might prescribe to have it in his own demesnes, yet he could not prescribe to have it in the lands of others his freeholders. But to this it was answered by Roll (counsel for the defendant), that a prescription to have free warren in his manor is good, as well in the lands of freeholders, as in the demesnes. For being by prescription, it shall be intended that this liberty was before there were any freeholders; whose estates were afterwards extracted out of the demesnes of the manor. No judgement was given, but Roll's doctrine is admitted in several cases stated by Brooke, and in case reported by Bulstrode. Fowler v. a Bulst. 254. Seagrave, |