LADIES m THE HUNTING FIELD. 79 



where she had frequently patronised the meets of the Royal 

 Buckhounds during the last year of her glorious reign. 

 Windsor, Eichmond, and Eltham were the favourite localities 

 where she hunted in that year. But beyond the formal entries 

 of payments made to the apparellers for her accommodation 

 during those royal venatic excursions, there is little known 

 about the sport. Doubtless the sport was worthy of the 

 splendour by which it was surrounded. The grand old Queen 

 delighted to mingle with her subjects ; they reciprocated that 

 feeling on all occasions, and in no place did she more amply 

 experience their loving homage and sterling loyalty than in 

 the hunting-field or on the racecourse. The public at large 

 were the Queen's body-guards, and to them she trusted her 

 royal person with implicit faith. It is a well-known historical 

 fact that when Vitelli was employed to assassinate her in the 

 hunting-field, where, as he was truly instructed, she was to be 

 always found without the yeomen of the guard or police of 

 any denomination, that, on observing the silent homage and 

 unmistakable loyalty of what we would now technically call the 

 field, he relinquished his intention in despair, and so forfeited 

 all hope of earning the pension and title of nobility which were 

 guaranteed to him by his vile employers, as well as the im- 

 mortality which he was told awaited him in the world to come. 

 Elizabeth survived her death in the affection of her people ; 

 they continued to keep up her birthday as if she still occupied 

 that throne which many held to have been usurped by " an 

 alien race," In course of time her successor became a most 

 popular monarch with his sporting subjects, though, unlike 

 Elizabeth, he objected to a crowded meet or a large field riding 

 to his hounds. His predilection for the chase, and for field 

 sports of all sorts, is well known to all who are acquainted 

 with the rural annals of his reign. We have already had an 

 example of the high esteem he had for the hounds and horses 

 of the Elizabethan sporting establishment, and we may well 

 conclude that he anxiously looked forward to the day when he 

 would become the proud possessor of the royal studs, kennels, 

 and mews, of '' the Land of Promise." 



