`1558 English law against tree-felling for charcoal`

Direct quote from *Out of the Fiery Furnace*. Used to illustrate the British wood crisis and the politicians-exempting-what-they-protect dynamic.

I told you about how Saugus Ironworks came into being. In 1558 a law was passed — this is before Saugus Ironworks, before the 1600s — forbidding the felling of trees to make coals for the burning of iron, but the Weald of Kent and Sussex was exempted. What's the Weald of Kent and Sussex? That's where the big forests were, with the big trees. So the politicians haven't changed over four or five hundred years — they pass a law and then they exempt what they're really trying to protect. And still the price would continue to climb. In 1559 a writer complained that the price had risen from a penny to two shillings, by reason of the iron mills. The shortage of wood was so serious that a further act was passed forbidding the felling of trees within 22 miles of the Thames River, within four miles of the great forest of the Weald, and within three miles of the coastline anywhere. Because those big trees — they didn't have big tractor-trailers and big interstate highways to bring them down the roads. They had to carry those by horse and mule and oxen.