WARREN is a franchise or place privileged by prescription or grant from the king, for the keeping of beasts and fowls of the warren, which are hares and conies, partitrees, pheasants, and some add quails, woodcocks, and water-fowl, &c. These being fera natura, every one had a natural right to kill as he could; but upon the introduction of the forest-laws at the Norman conquest, these animals being looked upon as royal game, and the sole property of our rude monarchs, this franchise of free-warren was invented to protect them, by giving the grantee a sole and exclusive power of killing such game, as far as his warren extended, on condition of his preventing other persons. A man therefore that has the franchise of warren, is in reality no more than a royal gamekeeper; but no man, not even a lord of a manor, could by common law justify shooting on another's soil, or even on his own, unless he had the liberty of free-warren. This franchise is almost fallen into disrepute since the new statutes for preserving the game, the name being now chiefly preserved in grounds that are set apart for breeding hares and rabbits.