PART I. 



THE DUAL PACKS. 



CHAPTER I. 



''HEREDITARY BRANCH"— EDWARD III. TO HENRY VIII. 



General Introduction.— Hunting "at Force."— England under Edward III. — 

 His Prowess as a Huntsman. — Minimum Establishment of the Buckhounds. 

 — The Ordinary Hunt Servants. — Feudal Services. — The Manor of Little 

 Weldon held by Tenure of keeping the Hounds. — Sir Bernard Brocas, First 

 Master. — Annual Tax imposed on Surrej^ and Sussex towards supporting 

 the Pack. — The First and Subsequent Payments by the Sheriff of Sussex 

 to the Masters of the Buckhounds. — Sir Bernard Brocas, Second Master. — 

 Sir Rustin Villenove, Intervenient Master. — William Brocas, Third Master. 

 — William Brocas, Fourth Master. — John Brocas, Fifth Master. — William 

 Brocas, Sixth Master. — John Brocas, Seventh Master. — George Warham 

 jure Anne Brocas, Eighth Master. — Ralph Pexsall jure Edith Brocas, 

 Ninth Master. 



The hunting establishments of the kings, queens, and princes 

 of Great Britain from the earliest to the present times form 

 a subject so abstruse that no one has ever attempted their in- 

 vestigation in connection with the history of the chase. The 

 ramifications of those establishments are so varied and compli- 

 cated, that if a sporting writer were to attempt to follow up 

 the " scent " in this historical hunt — extending, as it would do, 

 to over a hundred centuries — he would doubtless come to sfrief 

 in the progress of the " run," leaving only his ghost to be in at 

 the death to tell the tale. In our prosaic days ghosts and dead 



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