202 THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



might be expected to cross Exmoor by Pray Way, 

 the road from Simonsbath to Brendon, to avoid the 

 wet ground. Pray way means " drift " way, and was 

 the " pass " by which they drove the cattle and sheep 

 when the forest was driven for estrays and cattle 

 wrongfully agisted, and where they were taken by 

 the free suitors of Withypool, and carried off to the 

 pound there. 



Of this Sir Hugh Pollard in relation to stag- 

 hunting we know nothing, nor how long he remained 

 in oflfice, or by whom he was succeeded. 



Hunting — at all events, hunting "at force," as is 

 shown by Mr. Baillie Grohman in his introduction 

 to the " Master of Game " — was at a low ebb 

 throughout England generally, and Henry VI H. and 

 Elizabeth seem, to have had more taste for shooting 

 the deer with cross-bows, or hunting it in an enclosed 

 park, with a pack of hounds bred for their cry rather 

 than for other hunting qualities. The fashion set by 

 Royalty was no doubt followed by the nobility and 

 gentry, who were also at this time not only worn out 

 in purse and estate by the long civil contest 

 the country had only recently emerged from, but 

 were kept poor by the continued exactions and 

 increased taxation of the Crown. 



This taste for park hunting is abundantly shown 

 by numberless references in Shakespeare and con- 

 temporary writers. 



We find Henry, third Marquis of Dorset, the father 

 of Lady Jane Grey, Lord of the Manor of Porlock, 



