Forestry under the Commonwealth

685. During the civil war, in the time of Charles I., and all the time of the interregnum, the royal forests, as well as the woods of the nobility and gentry, suffered so much from neglect, that many extensive forests had, in a few years, hardly any memorial left of their existence but their names. This loss would not have operated so severely, had the principal nobility and gentry been as solicitous to plant with judgment, as to cut down their woods.