so great, thick and full, that it was scarcely possible to go by the paths of that forest, on account of the quantity of dead wood and of boughs blown down by the wind, and then by the will and consent of the Lord Earl and of his Council, it was allowed to those who wished to look for dead wood, to have six cartloads for 1d. and a horse-load a week for 1d., and a man's load a week for 14d., and these moneys were collected first at the exit of the wood, afterwards outside the town of Leicester nearer to the wood, and then these moneys were collected at the bridges of the town of Leicester, where at first there was a certain keeper called Penkrich, to whom the Lord Earl at his request afterwards granted a certain space near the bridge on which to build, that there he might collect the custom more conveniently. And this Penkrich for some time after collected the said moneys both for green wood and felled wood which used to be paid for dead wood only, and so afterwards it passed into a custom. And that the truth of this inquest may appear the more clearly and be the more obvious, it can well be perceived by the fact that strangers from whatever part they may have come, carrying wood or timber, whether it be from the forest of Arden or from Cannock Chase or from Needwood forest, or whoever they might be, pay no pontage, nor ever used to pay it, those only excepted who came from Leicester forest."
Now these inquiries were not instituted, as Mr. J. H. Round has already pointed out, in order to ascertain the historical truth about these matters. They were really pieces of special pleading, which aimed at obtaining a remission of these two taxes on the best terms possible. The burgesses tried to show (1) that the taxes had been granted or imposed in comparatively recent times by, and on, the predecessors of the respective parties concerned, in circumstances which pleaded in favour of their remission, and (2) that they had already been actually revoked or, at least, that their collection was attended with injustice and fraud. The findings of the Jury cannot therefore be accepted at their face value. The tale of the two kinsmen's battle sounds like a genuine tradition, which had been in the mouths of Leicester people for many a year; but the application of it made
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