CHAPTER XXXIX 

 THE MASTIFF 



WHEN the valiant Sir Peers Legh, of Lyme Hall, 

 Cheshire, fell wounded at the Battle of Agincourt, 

 the story runs that his body was guarded through the 

 long night watches by a mastiff bitch which had fol- 

 lowed him to the war. Lord Newton still has a strain 

 at Lyme Hall, which, it is claimed, has come down 

 in unbroken descent from the fifteenth century. This 

 is perfectly credible, for the mastiff is undoubtedly 

 one of the bluest-blooded dogs indigenous to these 

 islands. The Romans found him established here 

 when they arrived. It may be that the Phoenicians 

 brought him from Asia, for we read in early records 

 of the presence of enormous dogs in several Oriental 

 countries, which were unquestionably of this type. 

 The bas-reliefs in the Assyrian room at the British 

 Museum give graphic depictments of dogs so like 

 the mastiff of to-day that we may trace his begin- 

 nings to them without any demand upon the imagina- 

 tion. We can well believe that in troublous times, 

 when property and person were alike insecure, 

 a powerful animal of this description would be a 

 valuable asset to any man. In the days of the 

 Normans and Plantagenets the strict laws preserving 



Book of the Dog. 177 



