HISTORY AND LITERATURE 3 



astic in their devotion to it as they were to the more serious 

 objects of their ambition. It would be wearisome to recount the 

 long list of royal falconers ; and it will suffice to merely mention 

 a few of the most notable examples. Thus Edward III. was 

 accompanied on his warlike expedition with a whole train of 

 falconers. His father had been indulged in his imprisonment 

 with liberty to go hawking. Shakespeare has familiarised his 

 readers with the hawking parties of Henry vi. and his Queen 

 (2 Hen. VI. ii. i) ; and few people have failed to read the story 

 of the broken leaping-pole which precipitated Henry VIII. into 

 a ditch as he was following a hawk. Louis xi. and a host of 

 French kings, including Francis i., were ardent falconers, as 

 were many of the kings of Castile and Arragon, Sardinia, and 

 Hungary. Henry of Navarre was excelled by few men in his 

 passion for this sport. James IV. of Scotland gave a jewelled 

 hood to one of the Flemings, because the latter had won a 

 match in which his hawk flew against the King's. And James I. 

 of England enjoyed nothing more keenly than a day's hawking, 

 declaring that if a man had only patience and good-temper 

 enough to contend with the disappointments inseparable from 

 it, the sport would be preferable to hunting. Catherine II. of 

 Russia was as great at falconry as at most other things, and 

 specially delighted in the flight with merlins. Ecclesiastics, 

 both great and small, were not a whit behind the laity in their 

 devotion to the sport of the air. It was thought no scorn for a 

 holy-water clerk to carry a " musket " or male sparrow-hawk, 

 Not only did Cardinal Beaufort fly his falcons with those of the 

 great Duke of Gloucester, but no less a potentate than Pope 

 Leo X. was constantly in the field at Ravenna, and even incurs 

 the blame of the great D'Arcussia for being in the habit of 

 too soundly rating his comrades during a flight. The hawking 

 establishments of all the earlier Bourbons were kept up in more 

 than royal style, and were supplied annually with rare falcons 

 from many parts of the world. 



It was the invention of shot-guns that struck the first and 

 most deadly blow at the popularity of hawking. It was soon 

 discovered that wild-fowl, rabbits, and most kinds of game 

 could be captured much more easily and cheaply by the aid of 

 '* vile saltpetre " than by the laborious and costly processes 

 involved in the reclaiming and moulting and conditioning of 

 hawks. Economy, as well as novelty, pleaded in favour of the 

 new sport of shooting. At the same time, the common use of 

 fowling-pieces added a fresh and formidable danger for the 

 owners of hawks, already exposed to a thousand unfair risks of 



