164 THE MEYNELL HOUNDS. 



have turned round to admire it, after passing from the 

 back through the stable yard, to the front of the house. 



The Bagots may claim the honour of having founded 

 the oldest known hunt in Staffordshire, for they established 

 one styled the Blue Coat. So far as the writer is aware 

 there are no records of its sport in the field, but it showed 

 its keenness for the Pretender, in 1745, by assembling 

 and drinking deeply to his health in Uttoxeter and other 

 places, and its members were once very nearly caught, 

 flagrante delicto, with all their treasonable papers on the 

 table. Luckily, however, they were warned in time, and 

 the papers were consigned to the flames just before the 

 arrival of the king's messenger to arrest them. 



The fact of the late Lord Bagot having been chairman 

 of the committee of the Meynell hunt from 1873 to his 

 death in 1887, showed the interest he took in it. In 188.5 

 his son, then the Hon. W. Bagot, succeeded Lord Water- 

 park on the committee, becoming vice-chairman in 1891, 

 and chairman in 1897, which office he still holds. 



There is still a smack of feudalism about Blithfield, as 

 the Copes, Abberleys, and Hollingsworths of Dunsfields, 

 came there with the Bagots, and are there still, as it 

 were ascripti glebce. 



But what has all this to do with the Meynell hounds ? 

 the impatient reader may reasonably exclaim ; but let him 

 have patience and remember that this humble work 

 purports to be a history of the Meynell country as well 

 as its hounds, and to those who love that country and all 

 that is in it, these details may be of some interest, if they 

 know them not already, while if they do know them, or do 

 not care about them, nothing is easier than to skip them 

 and turn to subjects more purely venatical. 



Take the coverts for instance, which, at least, must 

 each contain a memory of some cheery gallop. First and 

 foremost are there not the woods, beloved of the few, 

 detested of the many. Charles used to say that, in old 

 Hoar Cross days, when there were hounds and horses with 

 a bye day in them, it was always, " Let us go and have a 



