Stewards, Lords and People
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I wish the tenants do not conceal other trees blown down in their grounds and so make use of the wood themselves. You should send some young body to ride into every ground about Etton and Woodcraft to inspect, and for Milton and Marholm you may ride into them yourself.
I am under great concern and differences with several gentlemen who send their servants into Sir George's manors who destroy both his game and fish notoriously. His honour's charge was great to me on that account so that I must think myself more obliged to observe it than connive at the best of them, in so much we are all at ears in prosecutions.
As constable the steward appears largely in a defensive role as the guardian of the manor, however aggressive he may have seemed at times toward those who appeared to threaten it. The same could be said of his role as guardian of his lord's woods and forests and the deer and other game which might inhabit them. As we have seen, a steward could be specifically allocated the duties of a wood-reeve, but in fact whether their letters of attorney or statements of duties actually mentioned them, all stewards in their constable role were guardians of their masters' woods and forests. Few of their duties were more exhausting, demanding and indeed ceaseless than their struggles to protect their lords' estates from the depredations of woodthieves.
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