366 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



for our owne use and profitt, that our husbandmen may justly 

 compare in this respect with any other country whatsoever, 

 albeit they often complain that many vain sports and idle 

 occasions did never in any age consume more good horses than 

 this age doth, which otherwise might prove of great use to them 

 and the common wealth." 



To this passage we shall return when we deal with the 

 Suffolk Punch, for the elucidation of whose history it has 

 a special value. 



But protests were of no avail, for racing had got too strong 

 a hold on the wealthier classes, and they paid less and less 

 attention to the breeding of war-horses. Sir Edward Harwood^ 

 presented to Charles I a memorial setting forth the great 

 scarcity of good and stout horses for the defence of the kingdom, 

 insomuch that it was a question whether it could have furnished 

 two thousand that would have been equal to two thousand 

 French, and he ascribed this state of things to the popularity 

 of racing and hunting, which called for lighter and swifter 

 horses. But the times were troublous, and nothing was done, 

 though Charles himself was fond of great horses, on one 

 of which he is represented on the Great Seal'. Oliver 

 Cromwell^ in Vandyck's portrait is seated on a great horse 

 of a light colour, which is noteworthy in view of the fact that 

 from this time onwards the terms great horse and black horse 

 seem synonymous. But when Oliver Cromwell formed his 

 Ironsides — the most powerful military weapon that the world 

 had yet seen — he dealt a fatal blow to the use of great horses 

 in war. Since his Ironsides wore buff coats instead of armour, 

 lighter and more active horses sufficed to mount them, and 

 to their greater mobility their success was largely due. In 

 vain the Duke of Newcastle in 1658 held a brief for the heavy 

 horses of the North against the light breeds of Mediterranean 

 lands. With the final disappearance of armour the heavy 

 black horse was relegated to the coach, the waggon, and the 

 plough. The roads were very bad, and accordingly horses of 

 great strength were required to drag through the sloughs the 

 carriages of the nobility and the stage-coaches which had 

 1 Gilbey, op. cit. p. 39. '- Ih. p. 40. ^ lb. p. 42. 



