THE HOUSEHOLD BRANCH INSTITUTED. 35 



man only. He excelled in all manly sports and pastimes. 

 As a huntsman he had few equals and no superior. He seems 

 to have introduced the use of led horses in a run to hounds 

 when hunting " at force " — a practice generally supposed to 

 be a comparatively modern innovation. He tired out several 

 led horses in the course of a single day's hunting. As to the 

 extent and the cost of his hunting establishment very little 

 is known. Later on in his reign there are, however, some- 

 what fuller details ; but the information is not sufficiently 

 ample to warrant any general conclusion. 



So far as the facts can be gathered from the fragmentary 

 historical data available for consultation relating to the hunting 

 establishments of Henry VIII., it appears that during the 

 period now under consideration — i.e., 1528-1536 — the officers 

 of what we may style the Household branch (in contradistinc- 

 tion to the Hereditary portion) of the Royal Buckhounds con- 

 sisted of the Master and four subordinate servants. The then 

 Master, George Boleyne, afterwards styled Viscount Rochester, 

 is mentioned as being in receipt of certain fees for "feeding 

 the hounds," or for " finding meat " for them, as recorded from 

 time to time in our biographical memoir of that unfortunate 

 nobleman. The State papers and cognate historical docu- 

 ments of the period throw no light on the number of hounds 

 belonging to this branch of the pack, nor can we find 

 any ordinance by which all the departments of the Royal 

 household were usually established and regulated. As to 

 the subordinate officials of the household branch of the pack, 

 we find, in the year 1528, that the three sergeants — viz., 

 Humphrey Raynsford, Richard Pery, and George Node — 

 were each entitled to receive for wages and hoard wages 

 15d. a day. Of this stipend they appear to have only 

 received about 3 jcZ. per diem out of the king's privy purse ; 

 from what fund the balance was obtainable we are unable to 

 ascertain. They occasionally obtained supplementary gifts in 

 money and grants from the king by way of " reward." * It 



* E.(j., on March 29, 1542, George Nodes obtained from the king a grant 

 of Shephall for himself, his heirs, and assigns for ever, of the site of the chief 



