1835 THE PRINCE OF WALES AND THE DUKES 189 



who was as distinguished upon the Turf as it was 

 prophesied that he would be (and as he very pro- 

 bably would have been had he not died at the early 

 age of thirty- seven) in the field of politics and states- 

 manship. He succeeded his grandfather in 1771, his 

 father having been killed, when Marquess of Tavistock, 

 by a fall from his horse. Duke Francis is said to 

 have owed his early death to an accident which 

 occurred at cricket when he was a boy at Westminster, 

 and which caused some mischief necessitating, after 

 many years, a very painful and heroically borne but 

 fatal operation. He was a great gentleman-rider, 

 and in November 1792 at Newmarket he won a match 

 (' owners up ') with his horse Dragon against Dr. 

 Johnson's young friend, Sir John Lade, with his 

 horse Clifden (5 years, fifteen stone each, B.C.), a 

 match which nowadays, with such a weight and over 

 such a distance (4 miles, or a little more), would be 

 voted both preposterous and cruel, though in 1879 

 Sir J. D. Astley and Mr. Caledon Alexander (both, 

 like the Duke of Bedford and Sir J. Lade, members 

 of the Jockey Club) rode a similar match (also at 

 Newmarket), carrying at least sixteen stone each, the 

 distance, however, being only about a mile and a half 

 (Suffolk Stakes Course) ; and in the same year Sir J. D. 

 Astley(carryingsi;rteen stone and ten pounds) broke down 

 his horse, poor Drumhead, in another similar match, 

 distance two miles. The Duke of Bedford, young as 

 he was at his death, had won the Derby three times 



