THE BADMINTON HOUNDS 



the third Duke, was separated from his wife, the 

 daughter and heiress of Sir John Scudamore, of 

 Holme Lacy. Into these domestic troubles we need 

 not strive to penetrate, but to judge from old records 

 it seems clear that the Duke sought consolation for 

 them in sport. There were at that time at Badmin- 

 ton two packs of hounds of equal strength, but it 

 was not long before the Duke gave up his harriers 

 and took to foxhounds. 



Unfortunately at this point the kennel record 

 suddenly ceases. In 1745 the Duke was succeeded 

 by his brother Noel, fourth Duke, who married 

 Elizabeth, sister of Norborne, Lord Bottetourt, to 

 whose barony she succeeded. Allusions to this lady 

 in Walpole's Letters suggest that she was perhaps 

 fonder of London than the country, and it seems 

 not unlikely that the fourth Duke did not devote so 

 much time to hunting as his predecessor had done or 

 his own son was to do later. Henry, the fifth Duke, 

 had a long minority, but I imagine that his guardians 

 kept up the staghounds, for we find him hunting with 

 his own hounds in 1 762. It was about this time that 

 the well-known story is told, how on returning one day 

 after an unsatisfactory hunt after stag he threw his 

 hounds into Silk Wood, and having a great run after 

 a fox, he steadied his hounds from deer and helped 

 to found one of the greatest of our national sports. No 

 doubt this story has arisen from that desire to give 

 an exact date for everything that beset our forefathers. 

 As a matter of fact most packs at that period hunted 



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