Wolves were once present in Great Britain. Early writing from Roman and later Saxon chronicles indicate that wolves appear to have been extraordinarily numerous on the island. Unlike other British animals, wolves were unaffected by island dwarfism, with certain skeletal remains indicating that they may have grown as large as Arctic wolves. The species was progressively exterminated from Britain through a combination of deforestation and active hunting through bounty systems. The last wolf is thought to have been hunted in 1680.
Past presence in England and Wales
The earliest known remains of wolves in Britain are from Bontnewydd Cave in Wales, dating to around 225,000 years ago, during the late Middle Pleistocene (Marine Isotope Stage 7). Wolves continuously occupied Britain since this time, despite dramatic climatic fluctuations. The Roman colonisation of Britain saw sporadic wolf-hunting. Exploitation of wild fauna was limited in the latter half of the first millennium. King Edgar the Peaceful of England is traditionally recorded to have demanded, in 957, three hundred wolf pelts from the kingdoms of north and south Wales. This is first recorded in William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum Anglorum. There is, however, no evidence of wolf hunts in early medieval Wales, or even Scotland. Wolves at that time were especially numerous in the districts bordering Wales, which were heavily-forested. Wolves had been driven from the south of England by the time of the Norman Conquest. This imposition was maintained until the Norman conquest of England. At the time, several criminals, rather than being put to death, would be ordered to provide a certain number of wolf tongues annually. The monk Galfrid, whilst writing about the miracles of St Cuthbert seven centuries earlier, observed that wolves were so numerous in Northumbria that it was virtually impossible for even the richest flock-masters to protect their sheep, despite employing many men for the job. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states that the month of January was known as "Wolf monath", as this was the first full month of wolf-hunting by the nobility. Officially, this hunting season would end on 25 March; thus it encompassed the cubbing season when wolves were at their most vulnerable, and their fur was of greater quality. The Norman kings (reigning 1066-1154) employed servants as wolf hunters and many held lands granted on condition that they fulfilled this duty. William the Conqueror granted the lordship of Riddesdale in Northumberland to Robert de Umfraville on condition that he defend that land from enemies and wolves. There were no restrictions on or penalties for the hunting of wolves, except in royal game reserves, under the reasoning that the temptation for a commoner to shoot a deer there would be too great. English wolves were more often trapped than hunted. Indeed, the Wolfhunt family, who resided in Peak forest in the 13th century, would march into the forest in March and December, and place pitch in the areas that wolves frequented. At that time of year, wolves would have had greater difficulty in smelling the pitch than at others. During the dry summers, they would enter the forest to kill cubs. Gerald of Wales wrote of how wolves in Holywell ate the corpses resulting from Henry II’s punitive expedition to Wales in 1165. King John gave a premium of 5 shillings for the capture of two wolves. King Edward I, who reigned from 1272 to 1307, ordered the total extermination of all wolves in his kingdom and personally employed one Peter Corbet, with instructions to destroy wolves in the counties of Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire and Staffordshire - areas near to and including some of the Welsh Marches, where wolves were more common than in the southern areas of England. In the 43rd year of Edward III's rule, a Thomas Engaine held lands in Pytchley in the county of Northampton, on the condition that he find special hunting dogs to kill wolves in the counties of Northampton, Rutland, Oxford, Essex and Buckingham. In the 11th year of Henry VI's reign (1433), a Sir Robert Plumpton held a bovate of land called "Wolf hunt land" in Nottingham, by service of winding a horn and chasing or frightening the wolves in Sherwood Forest. The wolf is generally thought to have become extinct in England during the reign of Henry VII (1485–1509), or at least very rare. By this time, wolves had become limited to the Lancashire forests of Blackburnshire and Bowland, the wilder parts of the Derbyshire Peak District, and the Yorkshire Wolds. Indeed, wolf bounties were still maintained in the East Riding until the early 19th century.
Scotland
Wolves in Scotland during the reign of James VI (1567-1603) were considered such a threat to travellers that special houses called spittals were erected on the highways for protection. In Sutherland, wolves dug up graves so frequently that the inhabitants of Eddrachillis resorted to burying their dead on the island of Handa.
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