430 CROSS-SADDLE RIDING FOR LADIES. 



before the side-saddle with a leaping head rendered it 

 possible for women to ride across country. According 

 to Audry, English ladies discarded cross-saddle riding, 

 and began to ride with the right leg over the crutch, 

 about the middle of the seventeenth century, which 

 style the Countess of Newcastle is said to have been 

 the first to adopt. In the Encyclopedia Londinensis 

 we read that Queen Elizabeth "seems to have been 

 the first who set the ladies the more modest fashion of 

 riding sideways," but I think the honour of its intro- 

 duction is due to Ann of Bohemia, the consort of 

 Richard the Second. Garsault tells us that during the 

 fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, ladies of 

 the French Court usually rode astride on donkeys. 

 Whatever may be said in favour of cross-saddle riding, 

 we must bear in mind that it was not until the introduc 

 tion in 1830 of the leaping head that women were able 

 to ride over fences, and it would be a most reactionary 

 measure to try to dispense with this valuable improve 

 ment on the ancient and incompetent order of things. 



