Ill] 



AND HISTORIC TIMES 



361 



Cambridge, Buckingham, etc.," and it was further enacted 

 " that if in any of the said drifts, there shall be found any 

 mare, filly, foal, or gelding that then shall be thought not 

 to be able nor like to grow to be able to bear foals of reason- 

 able stature, or not able nor like to grow to be able to do 

 profitable labours, by the discretions of the drivers aforesaid 

 or of the more number of them, then the same driver or 

 drivers shall cause the same unprofitable beast, and every of 

 them to be killed, and the bodies of them to be buried in 



' : lB ' t <~ 



FIG. 101. The English Horse. 



the ground or otherwise bestowed, as no annoyance thereby 

 shall come or grow to the people, there near inhabiting or 

 thither resorting." Topsail 1 writing in the sixteenth century 

 is then perfectly correct in stating that " Brittaine breedeth 

 little horses and amblers." 



By the middle of the fifteenth century the British horses 

 were held in repute on the Continent (though it must be 

 remembered that the Irish Hobbies were known in France as 

 ' English ' Hobbies 2 ). Nor was their fame confined to Upper 

 Europe, for according to Sir John Hawkewood 3 , English horses 

 1 History of Animals, p. 285. 2 See pp. 388 sq. 3 Gilbey, op. cit. p. 20. 



