The disruption period: 300 years of Quarrels and Disputes between the Landowning families and Commoners

The medieval fabric of Hatfield Forest did not alter very much with the king relinquishing his forest rights in 1444, to the owner the Duke of Buckingham. Hatfield Broad Oak remained a small town surrounded by hamlets and the scattered farms of fiercely independent people. The gentry were part-owners of Hatfield, with all its different forest rights, and the tenant farmers, with their commoner’s rights created a web of fierce disputes. Each party needed little excuse to further their own causes.

The Dukes of Buckingham continued to own Hatfield. The 3rd Duke in 1519 created a major dispute when he tried to enclose the common land to create a deer park. The commoners objected strongly and caused quite a stir to the proposed fencing. The In the end the Duke gave in and two years later he fell from favour with Henry VIII who had him beheaded. Henry confiscated all the Duke’s great estates, but took the unusual step in keeping the somewhat small Hatfield Estate for himself for the rest of his reign.

The next owner was the infamous Lord Rich, Henry VIII’s solicitor-general, who did all the King’s dirty work. He betrayed Bishop Fisher to a traitor’s death, swore away the life of Sir Thomas Moore and was involved in numerous torturing of controversial people in Henry’s way.

After Henry’s death, Edward VI promoted Rich to Lord Chancellor, giving him all the Estate of Hatfield including the forest and its rights. Hatfield was only a small part of the Rich family estates, and was managed by successive generations. Lord Rich founded Felsted School close to the forest.

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Meanwhile the Barringtons, the hereditary chiefs, keepers of the forest, and woodward were coming up in the world. Their own local estate had enlarged and now included the purchase of the dissolved Hatfield Priory about 4 miles south of the forest.

The Barringtons began to flex their muscles, using their great privileges and rights as woodward of the forest to push their advancement. The 3rd Lord Rich not only had to deal with the Barringtons, but also the claims and disputes of the active commoners.

In the end he had enough of the Barringtons’ interference calling in the Star Chamber to arbitrate. The Chamber came to a decision 1576, confirmed by a special act of Parliament. This split the forest and according rights between the two main lords, with the commoner tenant farms in the middle.

The Barringtons would relinquish the woodward in return for ownership of the trees in the north eastern third of the forest (but not the soil or pasture). They also had restrictions laid down on the amount of trees and coppicing. A maximum of 26 acres a year was allowed and the cut area had to be fenced to allow re-growth for 9 years. Coppicing would be undertaken each year to protect the rights of the ordinary commoners. The Barringtons would have commoners’ rights over the whole forest for a specified number of animals.

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Lord Rich, as owner of the forest, continued to keep the rest of the forest rights, all the soil of the forest, trees of the other two thirds, and also continue to pasture his deer throughout the whole forest. The family never seemed to be close to Hatfield, possibly the continuous disputes may have influenced them to sell their interest in the Forest in 1592.

They sold the forest to another local family, the Morleys. They had owned the ancient estate of Hallingbury since the 14th century. Hallingbury was situated next to the forest so they already owned Wall Wood and now acquired Monks Wood.

The Barringtons bought the rest of the Hatfield Estate including the lordship on the Manor, with all its rights to hold court and fine offenders against the bylaws. This they used against the Morleys later.

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Deep-rooted disputes
The scene was now set for 200 years of quarrels between the Barringtons with their forest rights and manorial jurisdiction, and the Morleys (and their successors) with their ancient forest rights. Also joining these disputes would have been the outspoken tenant farmers with commoners’ rights who played one lord off against the other at every opportunity.

In the early years disputes were aggravated between the two families, as the Morleys were strong royalists (Lord Morley’s son discovered the gun powder plot), whilst the Barringtons were of the opposite persuasion. Sir Thomas Barrington refused to give money to Charles I, and so was imprisoned in Manchalsea.

The Morleys paid dearly for their support of the King and their family influence, especially within the Hatfield area was greatly reduced. Morley was the 5th owner of Hatfield to have committed treason, he kept his head, but his estate was confiscated by an Act of Parliament in 1649. Fortunately the estate was not solely his, and so after his death Parliament returned the estate to his son Thomas.

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Hatfield Fair riot of 1613
The disputes in the early years concentrated mainly on issues regarding fencing and boundaries of coppicing, wood removed from the forest, hedges, damage by woodcutters removing underwood and of course grazing rights. A famous case was the riot at Hatfield Fair in 1613.

Lord Morley thought that when he had bought the forest, he also got the valuable rights to run the large fair. This he discovered was not true; it belonged to a lessee of Lord Rich. Morley though ran the fair himself for the next 20 years, causing friction and violence between the two men.

When the Barringtons bought the manor rights from Lord Rich, they tried to stop Morley from running the fair and in 1613 it turned in to a riot. The Barringtons won later cases, and transferred the fair to Hatfield Town, then to Hatfield Heath where it stayed until the 1860s when it faded away.

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Disafforestation
Another high profile case concerned Lord Henry Morley in 1639. He set up a royal commission to reduce the legal status of Hatfield Forest to that of ordinary land (disafforestation). The idea came from Charles I when he was trying to raise funds. The commission recommended that the forest should become Morley’s and the commoners would be given approximately 100 acres between them in exchange for their rights. The Crown would get a considerable £6- 6s- 8d a year as a form of bribe to forfeit their non-existent right to graze deer.

Fortunately the Vicar of Hatfield heard of the injustices (the church was very influential in those days) and appealed to the Inner Star Chamber. With the civil war looming, Morley’s timing could have been better. The Star Chamber suppressed the commission recommendation, saving Hatfield from the plough.

Petty crime
Many cases brought before the court were of petty violation. Not only by the feuding lords, but commoners trying to further their own causes. For example, digging soil in the forest bought against Lord Morley, as his rabbit keeper had dug more warrens for his rabbits. Rabbits of course graze grass (keeping rabbits was among the few rights the commoners had) then Morley attempted to enclose parcels of land around the warrens. He was repeatedly fined.

©National Trust / Oliver Rackham

After the civil war these disputes gradually lost their ferocity. Disagreements continued well into the late eighteenth century, mainly over grazing rights, but in a more a gentlemanly fashion, sparring over ancient complexities of their respective rights in the courts.

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The Turnor family
The Morley’s fortunes continued to decline and by 1665 they were heavily in debt, with many parts of their land and rights having been sub-let. In 1666 they sold Hatfield forest to Sir Edward Turnor, Speaker of the House of Commons. The Turnors had a relatively quiet ownership of the forest for the next 60 years. Sir Edwards’s son also died in debt and the forest was sold for the last time into private but important hands in 1729. (See the Houblons & 18th century).

Stable Landscape
It is important to discuss the landscape of the forest during this period. The forest changed remarkably little from the 1250’s. It could be described as very similar as it is today with coppiced woods, and plains with their distinctive majestic pollarded trees.

The forest seems to have been coppiced in cycle between 17-18 years, though this became difficult with two different owners of the woods. In practice felling was irregular, and some coppices were neglected especially in Turnor’s time. Coppices were an important part of the forest system creating revenue to the owner and important sources of wood for the estate and the locals.

Pollarded trees were and are a prominent part of the plains. Pollarded trees surrounded by grassland (woodpasture) is one of the oldest landscapes in England. Hatfield is almost the only living example to survive, with some of the trees standing today having been planted at the end of 1500s. The main trees planted were ash, maple, hornbeam, beech, and of course the mighty oak.

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Most of the plains have existed for at least 900 years with the only changes being when coppices were lost or reduced or others enlarged. Their irregular shapes are a reminder of the forest workers’ roads and tracks which ran across the forest. The grassland had only been grazed or cut for hay for centuries resulting in a neutral soil, with 200 species of grass, orchids and wild flowers. In the summer flowers like Ladies’ Bedstraw, Stemless Thistle and Birds Foot Trefoil bloom abundantly.

Scrub (unmanaged grassland which would return to young woodland within 20 years) could easily spring up on the plains. Paradoxically though it provides protection for young trees and cover for deer and a great many other animals. Scrub intrusion on the plains was not too much of a problem in those days, as the forest was over grazed.

Acknowledgement
Hatfield Forest is most grateful to Oliver Rackham, whose book 'The Last Forest' has been an invaluable source of information.

Written by David E Kidner, National Trust volunteer, Nov 2002.