THE WOLF. 149 



in the time of Henry VI. When the Duke of Suffolk 

 lands at night upon the shore near Dover, he hears 



" Loud howling wolves arouse the jades 

 That drag the tragic melancholy night." 



Second Part of Henry VI., act iv. sc. i. 



This may or may not be a poetic license. At all 

 events, no evidence on the subject is now forth- 

 coming, and we must turn, therefore, to some more 

 reliable source of information. 



1422-1461. In the eleventh year of Henry VI. 

 (1433), Sir Robert Plumpton, Knight, was seized of 

 one bovate of land in Mansfield Woodhouse, in the 

 county of Nottingham, called Wolf-hunt land, held 

 by the service of winding a horn and chasing or 

 frightening the Wolves in the forest of Shirewood.* 

 This tenure is particularly referred to by the Rev. 

 Samuel Pegge in his Paper " On the Horn as a 

 Charter or Instrument of Conveyance, "t A coloured 

 plate of an ancient horn of the kind referred to, in 

 the possession of the late Lord Ribblesdale, will be 

 found in Whitaker's " History and Antiquities of the 

 Deanery of Craven" (1805), p. 34. 



In the seventeenth year of the reign of Henry VI., 

 namely, in 1439, Robert Umfraville, a descendant, no 

 doubt, of the Robert de Umfraville mentioned in 

 1076, held the castle of Herbotell and manor of 

 Otterburn, of the king, in capite, by the service 

 of keeping the valley and liberty of Riddesdale, 



* Escaet. 11 Hen. VI. n. 5. Blount, p. 312. 



f " Archscologia," vol. iii. p. 3. See also Thoroton, " Autiq. 

 Nottingham," p, 273 ; and Strutt, " Sporta and Pastimes," p. 19. 



L 2 



