FOREST-LAWS, are peculiar laws, different from the common law of England. Before the making of the Charta de Foresta, offences committed therein were punished at the pleasure of the king in the severest manner. By this charter many forests were disforested and stripped of their oppressive privileges, and regulations were made for the government of those which remained; in particular, killing the king's deer was declared to be no longer a capital offence, but only punishable by fine, imprisonment, or abjuration of the realm. Yet even in this charter there were
some grievous articles, which the clemency of later princes has since thought fit to alter per assisas foresta. And to this day, in trespasses relating to the forest, voluntas reputabitur pro facto; so that if a man be taken hunting a deer, he may be arrested as if he had taken a deer.