FARMERS' REGISTER— HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH HORSE. 



663 



it would be useless to inquire; but, from tlie cumb- 

 rous structure of the car, and the fury with wliich 

 it was driven, and ironi the badness or nonexis- 

 tence of tlie roads, they must liave been both ac- 

 tive and powerful in an extraordinary degree. 

 C:esar deemed them so valuable, that he carried 

 many of them to Rome; and t]\e British horses 

 were, for a considerable period afterwards, in great 

 request in various parts of tiic Roman empire. 



Hordes must at that time have been exceeding- 

 ly numerous in Britain, ibr wc arc told that when 

 the British king, Cassibellamis, dismissed the 

 main body of his army, lie retained lour thousand 

 of Ills war-chariots for the purpose of harrassiug 

 the Romans, when they attemi^j^i to forage. 



Tlie British liorse now received its first cross; 

 but -whether the breed was thereby improved can- 

 not be asL-ertained. The Romans having estab- 

 lished tliemselves in Britain, found it necessary to 

 send over a numerous body of cavalry to maintain 

 a cliain of posts and check the frequent insurrec- 

 tions of the natives. The Roman horses would 

 breed with those of tlie countr3^, and, to a greater 

 or less extent, cliange their character; and from 

 tliis time, the English horse would consist of a 

 compounii of the native and those li-om Gaul, 

 Italy, Spain, and every province from which the 

 Roman cavalry was supplied. Many centuries af- 

 terwards passed b}', and we have no record of the 

 character or value, improvement or deterioration, 

 of the animal. 



It would appear probable, however, that Athel- 

 stan, the natural son of Alfred the Great, and the 

 second in succession to him, paid some attention to 

 the improvement of the liorse; for having subdu- 

 ed all the rebellious portions of the Hcf)tarchy, he 

 was congratulated on his success by some of the 

 continental princes, and received fr-om Hugh Ca- 

 per of France, who solicited his sister in mar- 

 riage, various presents, doubtless of a nature that 

 would be thought most acceptable to him; and 

 among them several German running Aorses. 

 Hence our breed received another cross, and prob- 

 ably an improvement. 



Athelstan seems to have seriously devoted him- 

 self to this important object, for he soon afterwards 

 decreed (a. d. 930) that no horses should be sent 

 abroad for sale, or on any account, excej)t as royal 

 presents. This proves his anxiety to preserve 

 the breed, and likewise renders it probable that 

 the breed was beginning to be esteemed by our 

 neighbors. In a document bearing date a. d. 

 1000 we have an interesting account of the rela- 

 tive value of the horse. If ahorse was destroyed, 

 or negligently lost, the compensation to be* de- 

 manded v/as thirty shillings; a mare or colt, twenty 

 shillings; a mule or young ass, twelve shillings; an 

 ox, thirty pence; a cow, twenty-four pence; a pig, 

 eight pence; and, it strangely follows, a man, one 

 pound.* 



In the laws of Howell the Good, Prince of 

 Wales, and passed a little before this time, there 

 are some curious particulars respecting the value 

 and sale of horses. The value of a Ibal not four- 

 teen days old is fixed at four pence, at one year 

 and a day it is estimated at forty-eight pence; and 



*According to the Anglo-Saxon computation, forty- 

 eight shillings made a pound, equal in silver to about 

 three pounds of our present money, in value to fifteen 

 or sixteen pounds, and five pence made one shilling. 



at three years sixty pence. It was then to be 

 tamed with the bridle, and brought up either as a 

 palfrey or a serving horse; when its value became 

 one hundred and twenty pence; and that of a wild 

 or unbroken mare, sixty pence. 



Even in those eariy da\ s, the frauds of dealers 

 were too notorious, and the Ibllowing singular reg- 

 ulations were established. The buyer was allow- 

 ed time to ascertain whether the horse were free 

 fi-om three diseases. He had three nights to 

 ju'ove him for tlie staggers; three months to prove 

 the soundness of his lungs; and one year to ascer- 

 tain wheihcr he was infected with glanders. For 

 every blemish discovered after the purchase, one- 

 third of the money was returned, except it should 

 be a blemish of the ears or tail. 



The practice of letting horses for hire was then 

 known, and then, as now, the services of the poor 

 hack were too brutally exacted. The benevolent 

 Howell disdains not to legislate for the protection 

 of this abused and valuable servant. "Whoever 

 shall borrow a horse, and rub the hair so as to 

 gall the back, shall pay fourpence; if the skin is 

 forced into the flesh, eight pence; if the flesh be 

 forced to the bone, sixteen pence." 



One circumstance deserves to be remarked, that 

 in none of the earliest historical records of the An- 

 glo-SEixons or the Welsh, is there any allusion to 

 the use of the hoise for the plough. Untd a com- 

 paratively recent period, oxen alone were used in 

 England, as in other countries, for this purpose; 

 but about this lime (the latter part of the tenth 

 century) some innovation on this point was creep- 

 ing in, and, therefore, a Welsh law forbids the fiir- 

 mer to plough with horses, mates, or cows, but 

 with oxen alone. On one of the pieces of tapestry 

 woven at Bayonne in the time of Willicim the Con- 

 queror, (a. d. 1C66) there is the figure of a man 

 driving a horse attached to a harrow. This is the 

 earliest notice we have of tlie use of the horse ia 

 fiell labor. 



With William the Conqueror came a marked 

 improvement in the British horse. To his superi- 

 ority in cavalry this prince was chiefly indebted fJjr 

 the victory of Hastings. The favorite charger of 

 William was a Spaniard. His followers, both the 

 barons and the common soldiers, came jjrincipal- 

 ly from a country in which agriculture had made 

 more rapid progress than in England. A very 

 considerable portion of the kingdom was divided 

 among these men; and it cannot be doubted that, 

 however unjust was the usurpation of the Norman, 

 England benefited in its husbandry, and particu- 

 larly in its horses, by the change of masters. 

 Some of the barons, and particularly Roger de 

 Boulogne, earl of Shrewsbury, introduced the 

 Spanish liorse, on their ncAvly-acquired estates. 

 The historians of these times, however, principal- 

 ly monks, knowing nothing about horses, give us 

 very little information on the subject. 



In the reign of Henrj' I. (a. i>. 1121) the first 

 Arabian horse, or, at least, the first on record, was 

 introduced. Alexander I., king of Scotland, pre- 

 sented to the church of St. Andrew's an Arabian 

 horse, with costly furniture, Turkish armor, many 

 valuable trinkets, and a considerable estate. 



Forty years afterwards, in the reign of Henry 

 II., Smithfield was celebrated as a horse-market. 

 Fitz-Stepen, who lived at that time, gives the fol- 

 lowing animated account of the manner in which 

 • he hackney-j and charging-slccds were tried there, 



