FOTl PEACE AND WAll. '27 



" For, in the rich pastures of the Po a race of ponderous 

 Bestriros had been found." It may have been from a 

 " cross " derived from the descendants of this Lombardian 

 blood and the "one hundred chosen stalUons " subsequently 

 imported by King John from Flanders, that our truly noble 

 breed of active dray horses have sprung. 



It is, rather, to the introduction of such animals as the 

 two Arabs named A.D. 1121 ; the one, as having been 

 imported by King Henry I. ; the other, as having been a 

 gift from Alexander I. of Scotland to the Church of St. 

 Andrew's, at a period when sacerdotal sway was dominant 

 in the land, and entered so largely and didactically into all 

 secular affairs, that we are indebted for a valuable " cross " 

 with the then intermixed breed that successive conquests 

 and a native feral species had produced in England. 



The minds of the representatives of chivalry, embracing 

 all Nobles and Knights that ruled the land and held 

 despotic sway with the iron sceptre of feudalism, were so 

 enamoured of "great horses," that is, large and powerful 

 ones, capable of bearing the cumbrous panoply of war or 

 tournay, that marked the chivalric era of England, that, 

 notwithstanding there are records of the repeated introduc- 

 tion of Turkish and Barbary horses for the purjjose of union 

 with the then existing breed of English mares, it does not 

 appear that there was any acknowledged advantage from 

 the " cross " prior to the reign of James I., who patronised 

 horse racing, and systematized the pursuit. Not content 

 with the efforts made through Turk and Barb stallions to 

 infuse more Eastern blood into the horses of his country, 

 he carried his views further and dealt with a merchant 

 named Markham for an Arab horse at the then enormous 

 price of five hundred pounds. In our day we see twelve 

 thousand five hundred guineas given for a sire (Blair 

 Athol). But, even still, the nobility and gentry had a 



