Charles I., to recover that part of the county which Richard I. had formerly reserved, by the name of the Bailiwick of Surrey, and to reduce it again within the limits of Windsor Forest; but these attempts, like so many other impolitic efforts of the first Charles, were entirely frustrated, and served only to render the just claims of the people more notorious, and the privileges they enjoyed under their charters more substantial and complete. And from this period, that part of the county, from the time of Richard I. known by the name of the Bailiwick of Surrey, has been reckoned purlieu of the forest only; in which the king still enjoys a right and property over his deer escaping into it, against every man but the owners of the woods or lands in which they are found, but which is exempted from the laws of the forest, and the ordinary jurisdiction of its officers; and so far free and open to all owners of lands within the same, as that, under certain limitations, they may chase and kill any of the deer actually found therein.

For the better preservation of the deer so escaping into the purlieu, the king has in every such place a ranger, who is appointed by letters patent, and whose office it is "to re-chase and drive back again the wild beasts of the forest, as often as they shall range out of the same into his purlieu*."

Nothing in the later history of this county occurs worthy of notice, if we except the decided part it took in the contest between Charles I. and his parliament, when it proved an active enemy to the former; and, previously to the open rupture which ended in the temporary subversion of the monarchy, presented a spirited petition, signed by 2000 persons, to the two houses of parliament, for a redress of grievances, and congratulating them on some popular measures they had adopted; a petition which speedily produced, amongst others, the bills against bishops' votes, the pressing of soldiers, &c. * Manwood, in voc. purlieu.

In regard to the honorial history of Surrey, it is known that so early as the time of the Saxons, the county conferred the title of Earl; but the first who enjoyed this dignity under the Norman princes was William de Warren, Earl of Warren, in Normandy, who married the daughter of the Conqueror, and accompanied him to England. After various extinctions and forfeitures, and its change for one life into a dukedom, in 1397, the title at length passed into the noble family of the Howards; Thomas, son of John Howard (who by Richard III. had been created Duke of Norfolk) being at the same time created Earl of Surrey. Thomas, his great grandson, who for many years possessed the ear and favour of Queen Elizabeth, being at length suspected of too great a partiality for Mary, Queen of Scots, and even of a design to marry her, was executed by her imperious rival, in 1572; and the earldom becoming thus once more forfeited, lay dormant till the 1st of James I., when that monarch revived it in the person of Thomas, grandson of the late duke; since which time it has been enjoyed, without interruption, by the illustrious house of Norfolk.

Surrey has been ecclesiastically attached to the see of Winchester, since the year 705; but nine of its churches, formerly constituting the deanery of Croydon, are now peculiars to that of Canterbury; the abovementioned deanery becoming extinct about the period of the Reformation. The three existing deaneries, those of Ewell, Southwark, and Stoke, are subject to the archdeacon of the county, whose jurisdiction includes the whole of it, the nine peculiars as before excepted. The archdeaconry was founded in or before 1120: the ecclesiastical subdivisions of the county are into 140 parishes, 75 rectories, 35 vicarages, and 30 chapels of ease and perpetual curacies.

The civil division of Surrey is into fourteen hundreds, which (as well as the subdivisions of tythings)

owe their institution, there is good reason to believe, to the prudence and policy of Alfred; who, in all probability, borrowed them from the Germanic constitution in Italy, and other places on the continent. Each of these districts consisted originally of ten tythings, as every tything did of ten families; and at the head of these was a superior, called the lord of the hundred, who held his court for hearing and determining, on the oaths of twelve good and sufficient men, all causes, criminal as well as civil, within his jurisdiction, that were of too great importance to be judged in the tything, or too trivial to be brought before the county. It may be interesting to give the names of the hundreds, as they stand in Domesday Book, and as they occur in modern orthography:

Anciently, the government of the county was lodged in the earl or count, to whom it was committed by the king at will, sometimes for life, and afterwards in fee: but when it could, no longer be commodiously executed

by a person of such superior rank and quality, it was judged necessary to constitute a person duly qualified to officiate in his stead, who is therefore called, in Latin, vice-comes, and, in our ancient tongue, shire-reeve (the modern sheriff), i. e. governor of the shire or county. His office is to execute the king's writs, return juries, and keep the peace: incident to his jurisdiction, are the two courts for civil and criminal offences, the former of which is called the county court, the latter the sheriff's tourn *.

It was not till the year 1615 that a sheriff came to be regularly appointed for this and each of the other counties of England: under previous sovereigns, from the time of John, it had occasionally possessed a distinct and separate jurisdiction; but during the reign of that monarch, its shrievalty was annexed to that of Sussex, though, until his accession, it had its own high sheriff as at the present day. The county lies in the Home circuit; the Lent assizes being held at Kingston, and the Summer at Guildford and Croydon alternately.

The members returned by Surrey to parliament are fourteen in number, two of whom are for the county, and two for each of the boroughs of Blechingly, Gatton, Guildford, Haslemere, Reigate, and Southwark.

The proportion of the land-tax paid by this county is eighteen parts; the number of men it furnishes for the national militia, eight hundred. The lord-lieutenant is Earl Onslow, the office having been now nearly one hundred years in that nobleman's family.

The great increase in the population of Surrey during little more than the period of time just mentioned, will be apparent from the facts, that in the year 1700 it was estimated but at 154,900; in 1750, it had augmented to 207,000; in 1801, it was upwards of 269,000; and by the return under the act of 1811, it appeared to have

* Manning's History of Surrey, Vol. I. Introduction.

then swelled to the number of 323,851 souls, of whom 151,811 were males, 172,040 females. There is little doubt that this rapid increase must be in a great measure attributed to the vicinity of the northern boundary of the county to the metropolis; to the general extension of trade and manufactures in the immediate neighbourhood of the latter; and to the circumstance that so many opulent gentry, and retired tradesmen, have, of late years, from the salubrity of the air, and other natural advantages of Surrey, selected it as their place of residence.

The general aspect of this county is extremely variable, and presents, as has been truly observed, “ as large a portion of beauty and deformity as any in the kingdom. Here vast naked heaths impart an air of wildness, which is strongly contrasted with the numberless beauties scattered by the hand of art over its surface; there its hills, aspiring to the bold character, and exhibiting the picturesque situations of mountains, gradually decline into richly wooded dales, or plains covered with abundant harvests; whilst, on its downs, its

"spacious airy downs,

With grass and thyme o'erspread, and clover wild,
Where smiling Phoebus tempers every breeze,

The fairest flocks rejoice

Such are the downs of Bansted, edg'd with woods,
And tow'ry villas."

Dyer's Fleece, book I.

Both as to soil and climate a great variety also prevails. In regard to the latter, it is probable that both the north and southern borders, the one from its lowness in the vicinage of the Thames, the other from the flat unventilated surface of the Weald, from time immemorial entirely covered with trees, must, to a certain degree at least, be damp and unwholesome. But, on the contrary,