APPENDIX 213 



week's sport was made public. It ran thus : " On Monday, 

 stag-hunting, followed by coursing ; Tuesday, wolf, stag and 

 fox-hunting and beagling ; Wednesday, stag-hunting and 

 coursing ; Thursday, wolf, stag and fox-hunting, beagling 

 and coursing ; to meet every day at Falconer's Hall where 

 there will be a sportsman's breakfast provided for all the 

 company." This particular entertainment may have been 

 organised to celebrate the Colonel's return from France, 

 whither he had gone on a sporting tour equipped on his 

 customary lavish scale. 



In 1805, Thorn ville Royal was sold to Lord Stourton, 

 and three years later Colonel Thornton left Yorkshire for 

 Spye Park, Wiltshire, which he had taken on lease ; the 

 increase of cultivation on the wolds which formed an obstacle 

 to hawking is the reason assigned for his leaving. The order 

 of his going was regal in its magnificence ; to give full details 

 here of the procession which wound its way from Yorkshire 

 southward, would be impossible. The king of sport was 

 followed by a retinue of huntsmen, falconers, grooms, keepers, 

 kennelmen, and other servants ; by his horses and hounds, 

 and by a train of waggons containing a menagerie of beasts 

 of chase. Among great variety of animals there were red- 

 deer, roebuck, fallow-deer and Eastern species ; Russian wild 

 boar and French, received from the First Napoleon in 

 exchange for seventy couples of foxhounds, having the blood 

 of the famous Old Conqueror to prove their breeding ; and 

 cormorants, wearing silver rings about their necks, for fishing 

 after the Chinese fashion. Dog-carts conveyed milk-white 

 terriers and greyhounds whose sheets were embroidered with 

 records of the various matches they had won. A feature of 

 the cavalcade was a boat waggon which had once done 

 yeoman service in conveying voters to the poll, filled for 

 the occasion with the materiel of sport — guns, rifles, fishing 

 rods and nets, otter spears and the like ; the conveyance 

 being decorated with deer skins, and drawn by Arab mares 

 from the King's stud. Waggon loads of wine brought up the 

 rear. The cellars at Thornviile Royal v.ere famous, and the 



