6o The Life of William, Duke of Newcastle 



The city of Antwerp, in which we lived, being a place of 

 great resort for strangers and travellers, his Majesty (our now 

 gracious King, Charles the Second) passed through it, when 

 he went his journey towards Germany ; and after my Lord 

 had done his humble duty, and waited on his Majesty, he was 

 pleased to honour him with his presence at his house. The 

 same did almost all strangers that were persons of quality ; 

 if they made any stay in the town, they would come and visit 

 my Lord, and see the manage of his horses : and, amongst the 

 rest, the Duke of Oldenburg, and the Prince of East Friesland, 

 did my Lord the honour, and presented him with horses of 

 their own breed. 



One time it happened, that his Highness Dom John d' Aus- 

 tria (who was then governor of those provinces) came to 

 Antwerp, and stayed there some few days ; and then almost 

 all his court waited on my Lord, so that one day I reckoned 

 about seventeen coaches, in which were all persons of quality, 

 who came in the morning of purpose to see my Lord's manage. 

 My Lord receiving so great an honour thought it fit to show 

 his respect and civility to them, and to ride some of his horses 

 himself, which otherwise he never did but for his own exercise 

 and delight *. Amongst the rest of those great and noble 

 persons, there were two of our nation, viz. the then Marquis, 

 now Duke of Ormond, and the Earl of Bristol ; but Dom John 

 was not there in person, excusing himself afterwards to my 

 Lord (when my Lord waited on him) that the multiplicity oi 

 his weighty affairs had hindered his coming thither, which my 

 Lord accounted as a very high honour and favour from so 

 great a Prince ; and conceiving it his duty to wait on his 

 Highness, but being unknown to him, the Earl of Bristol, who 



1 In the introduction to the Duke's second book on horsemanship (A New Method 

 and Extraordinary Invention to Dress Horses), the Duke tells the following story : ' When 

 I had the honour to wait on Don John of Austria, at Antwerp, brought to him by my 

 Lord of Bristol, his Highness was pleased to use me extreme civilly ; and to ask both 

 then, and at several other times, for my book of horsemanship, before it was printed ; 

 and to receive it with great satisfaction, when I presented his Highness with one. But 

 he did not see my horses, which, in above twenty coaches, all the Spaniards of his court 

 went to my manage to see ; with many noblemen of Flanders, as the Duke of Ascot, 

 and others, before whom I rid myself three horses, and my esquire, five. Being re- 

 turned to Don John, he asked them, whether my horses were as rare, as their reputation 

 was great ; to which they answered, that my horses were such that they wanted no- 

 thing of reasonable creatures but speaking. And the Marquess of Seralvo, Master 

 of the Horse to his Highness, and Governor of the Castle of Antwerp, told his Highness, 

 that he had asked me, what horses I liked best ? and that I had answered, there were 

 good and bad of all nations ; but that the Barbs were the gentlemen of horse-kind, 

 and Spanish horses the princes. Which answer did infinitely please the Spaniards ; 

 and it is very true, that horses are so as I said.' 



