142 INTRODUCTION. 



than the " great horses," which it was believed re- 

 quired bone ; their price was about twenty marks, 

 or three pounds six and eight-pence. That prince 

 was fond of field sports, and felt that war-horses 

 would give him no superiority in continental battles, 

 where during several reigns all our kings won their 

 great victories fighting on foot. 



Italian great horses, there is reason to believe, 

 were imported, if not for breeding, at least for 

 mounting the nobility and richest knights ; for al- 

 though we do not know whether they were sent to 

 England or only presented, Paul Jovius relates that 

 Galeazzo II., duke of Milan, gave seventy war- 

 horses to Lionel, duke of Clarence, all furnished 

 with saddles of velvet, embroidered with silver. 



From this time English horses improved steadily, 

 and the amount demanded and given, and the mal- 

 practices of dealers, caused Richard II. to issue an 

 edict in 1386 to regulate their prices. In this do- 

 cument, ordered to be promulgated in the counties 

 of Lincoln and Cambridge, and the east and north 

 ridings of Yorkshire, we perceive the principal 

 breeding localities were then the same as now; but 

 the civil wars began at this time to arm one part of 

 the nation against another, and the breed of horses 

 diminished and deteriorated greatly during the san- 

 guinary struggles of three-fourths of a century. 

 Philippe de Comines, who saw an English army 

 which Edward IY. disembarked in France, speaks 

 with little admiration of its equipment or armour ; 

 and it is probable these deficiencies were not re- 



