224 Ifcfnas of tbe 1Rofc, IRffle, an& Gun 



in the expression of his opinions, and tyrannical to his 

 labourers. It was said that he compelled every labourer 

 on his estates to attend the parish church on Sunday 

 mornings, and then made them work for the rest of the 

 day to keep them from the ale-house. Radicals, too, 

 declared that his administration of the Game Laws was 

 harsh and arbitrary. So far as I can gather there was 

 very slight ground for these allegations. But Thomas 

 William Coke did not care much what his enemies said. 

 Honest, fearless, and hot-tempered, he despised them. 

 On one occasion, when at a political meeting he had 

 made a fierce attack upon a neighbouring baronet, a 

 friend said to him, " You have made that man an enemy 

 for life." " And what was he before ? " retorted Coke. 

 " I tell you what, my father called me to him when I 

 was a boy, and said, ' Tom, stick to your friends and 

 disregard your enemies.' I have done so, and I will do 

 so to the end of my life." 



What his neighbours and fellow-shiresmen thought of 

 him may be gathered from the stately monument reared 

 to his memory at Holkham. They would hardly have 

 subscribed ^5,000 to erect such a memorial if they had 

 not been animated by a deep and sincere regard for the 

 public services and the private worth of the man whom 

 they thus signally honoured. 



The present Earl of Leicester, now in his seventy-ninth 

 year, is as energetic a landlord and as keen a sportsman 

 as his father. Some of his shooting feats have been 

 phenomenal. Fifty years ago, long before partridge- 

 driving as we know it had come into fashion, he killed 

 137 brace of birds to his own gun in a single day's 



