in with the Normans. According to the old Norman law, no subject
could form a park without a grant from the Crown, or immemorial
prescription, which was held presumptive evidence of such a grant.

On the Continent there would appear to have been much more strictness
in this respect than in England. "In April, 1656," says Reresby in his
travels, "I returned to Saumur, where I stayed two months: then I went
to Thouars in Brittany, where the duke of Trémouille hath his best
house. Thouars is looked upon as one of the best manors in all
France, not so much for profit (a great extent of land there sometimes
affording not much rent), but for greatness of tenure; five hundred
gentlemen, it is said, holding their lands from it. Going to wait on
the duke, I found him very kind when I told him my country, the late
earl of Derby having married his sister. [1] He commanded me to dine
with him, and the next time mounted me upon one of his horses to wait
on him a-hunting in his park, which, not being two miles about, I
thought of little compass to belong to so great a person, till I found
that few are allowed to have any there save the princes of the blood.
So true is it that there are more parks in England than in all Europe
besides."

A large park would appear to have been among the many luxuries of the
princely Medici, for Reresby says: "Ten miles from Florence the duke
hath another country-house, nothing so considerable in itself as in
its situation, standing betwixt several hills on one side, covered
with vines and olive trees, and a valley divided into many walks by
rows of trees leading different ways: one leads to a park where the
great duke hath made a paddock course by the direction of Signior
Bernard Gascoigne, an Italian, who, having served our late king in
his wars, carried the pattern from England. Near to this house,