LADIES IN THE HUNTING FIELD. 77 



hunting fields of the Fife of Falkland, there to practically test 

 the Elizabethan present " in hunting of the buck." 



In all probability there were many similar requisitions made 

 on the Royal kennels from time to time, as draughts of those 

 hounds were frequently presented to foreign potentates and 

 other distinguished personages at home and abroad. And in 

 order to keep the Royal kennels " well replenished " in such 

 essential accessories of the chase, the Sergeant of the Buck- 

 hounds had a warrant authorising him to seize any hounds he 

 chose "for Her Majesty's disport," as well as " horses, mares, 

 and draughts for the carriage of the said hounds from place to 

 place." It is therefore evident that this branch of the Royal 

 Buckhounds was kept up to its normal efficiency, sans the 

 Master; and there is no reason to suppose there was any 

 diminution in the number of meets, or any falling off in the 

 sport the pack gave to its followers during the last years of 

 the reign of good Queen Bess. Unfortunately the records of 

 such meets and runs are few and far between ; little or no 

 notice was taken of such common-place events by the chroniclers 

 of those times. Nevertheless we ascertain that the Queen con- 

 tinued to patronise the hunt with her presence. Marshal de 

 Bassompierre, happening to be at Calais in 1601, his friend, 

 the Duke de Biron, " debauched " him into an excursion to 

 England. Bassompierre got no further than London. Queen 

 Elizabeth being then at the Vine in Hampshire, Biron followed 

 her thither, and had the pleasure of seeing Her Majesty " hunt, 

 attended by more than fifty ladies, all mounted on hackneys." * 



* Stowe gives a different account of the Duke de Biron's visit to Hampshire, 

 to the following effect : " The fourth day [September 9] after the Queen's? 

 coming to Basing, the Sheriff was commanded to attend the Duke of Biron at his 

 coming into that county. Whereupon, the next day being the 10th of September, 

 he went towards Blackwater, being the uttermost confines of that shire towards 

 London, and there he met the said Duke, accompanied with above twenty of 

 the nobilitie of France, and attended with about four hundred Frenchmen. 

 The said Duke was that night brought to the Vyne, a fair large house of the 

 Lord Sonds, which was furnished with hangings and plate from the Tower and 

 Hampton Court ; and with seven score beds and furniture, which the willing 

 and obedient people of the county of Southampton, upon two days' warning, 

 had brought thither, to lend the Queen. The Duke abode there four or five 

 days, all at the Queen's charges, and spent her more at the Vyne than her own 



