It is also, I
find, a fact that much of the New Forest had been a royal hunting-
ground in the Saxon times, and that the afforestation of William is not
so much as mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle. The whole story of the
devastation of this great country would seem to rest upon the writings
of William of Jumieges or Ordericus Vitalis, neither of whom was alive
at the time of the afforestation. This must have been known surely to
our modern historians; but so is the history of England written. Our
real grievance against William was not his afforestation, but his cruel
Forest Law, which demanded the limb of a man for the life of a beast, a
thing I think unknown in England before his advent. It was this harsh
law, so bitterly resented, which at last, as we may think, cost William
Rufus his life. But the old tale remains, and therefore I was greatly
astonished in Boldre Church.
Doubtless the original Norman church consisted of a nave, chancel and
north and south aisles. The south aisle remains, as does the arcade
which separates it from the nave. In the Early English time the north
aisle was rebuilt or added, perhaps, for the first time, and the
chancel rebuilt.
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