\66 THE HISTORY AND ART 



younger fort have their pikes not headed with iron, 

 and make reprefentation of battle, and exercife a fkir- 

 mifh. To this performance many courtiers refort when 

 the court is near, and young ilriplings, yet uninitiated 

 in arms, from the families of barons and great per- 

 fons, to train and pradlife. They begin by dividing into 

 troops, fome labour to outftrip their leaders, without 

 being able to reach them ; others unhorfe their anta- 

 gonift, without being able to get beyond them. At 

 other times two or thre-e boys are fet on horfeback to 

 ride a race ; the fignal being given, they fet off, and 

 pufli their horfes to their utmoll fpeed, fparing neither 

 whip nor fpur, urging them, at the fame time, with 

 loud fhouts and clamours, to animate their endeavours, 

 and call forth all their powers *. 



The next period in which any particular mention is 

 made of horfes, is in the reign of Edward II. It ap- 

 pears from the annals of this prince, written by John 

 de Trokelow, in the year 1307, that Edward was very 

 fond of horfes, and fent for them to Chaiiipagne in 

 France. He alfo gave a commiffion, in the fecond 

 year of his reign, to Bynde Bonaventure, and his brother, 

 pro viglnti dextrariis et duodecim jumentis emendis in partibus 



•*«• See the account of London by Stephanides, at the end of the 

 8th vol. of Leiand's Itinerary. The fame paffage, inferted in Stow's 

 Survey of London, is full of moft fhameful inaccuracies, which have 

 been complained of already by Burton, in his commentary on Anto- 

 ninus's Itinerary, 



Lorn- 



