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In the early years of the nineteenth century there was, unfortunately for England, a mania for enclosing commons, and felling ancient forests. Needwood, which extended for many miles, contained great numbers of magnificent old oaks, limes, and hollies, and no less than twenty thousand head of deer.
The yeoman stood the angry glance of the Prince with the same unvaried steadiness which had marked his former deportment, saying, with a smile, "I have no intention to leave Ashby until the day after to-morrow I must see how Staffordshire and Leicestershire can draw their bows the forests of Needwood and Charnwood must rear good archers."
The efficient cause which renders the hollies prickly in Needwood Forest only as high as the animals can reach them, may arise from the lower branches being constantly cropped by them, and thus shoot forth more luxuriant foliage: it is probable the shears in garden-hollies may produce the same effect, which is equally curious, as prickles are not thus produced on other plants.
The wild bull with his white mane was still to be found wandering in a few of the southern forests. The badger made his dark and tortuous hole on the side of every hill where the copsewood grew thick. The wild cats were frequently heard by night wailing round the lodges of the rangers of whittlebury and Needwood.
To the best archer a prize was to be awarded, being a bugle-horn, mounted with silver, and a silken baldric richly ornamented with a medallion of St Hubert, the patron of silvan sport. More than thirty yeomen at first presented themselves as competitors, several of whom were rangers and under-keepers in the royal forests of Needwood and Charnwood.
At the time of Mary's birth her parents were passing through a period of pecuniary distress, owing to a disastrous speculation; but with the opening of the new century a piece of great good fortune befell Samuel Botham. He was one of the two surveyors chosen to enclose and divide the Chase of Needwood in the county of Stafford.
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