140 NIMROD'S HUNTING TOUR 



the reign of Henry the Third, whose family were entrusted with 

 high and important offices ; and still further back to Walter, son of 

 Thurstane De Charlecote, to whom the village of Charlecote was 

 granted by Henry De Montford, and the grant confirmed by the 

 First Henry. A gentleman by the name of Knightley w'as of our 

 party at Mr. Lucy's on that day, whose family have been also long 

 seated in this fine county. The name of the mansion-house is Ofi'- 

 church, so called from having been the residence of King Offa ; but 

 the Knightleys have possessed the estate since the time of Harry 

 the Eighth. Mr. Knightley has not long left the University of 

 Oxford, where he acquired a taste for fox-hunting, which, it is to be 

 hoped, will only leave him with his last breath. 



When speaking of pedigrees — not of horses, but of men, which is 

 something unusual for me — we should not overlook the late master 

 of the Warwickshire, Mr. Shirley of Eatington, whose family 

 possessed that lordship before the Norman Conquest. When 

 speaking of Eatington, Dugdale '■' observes, that it is " the only place 

 in this county that glories in an uninterrupted succession of its 

 owners for so long a tract of time." High breeding, however, 

 generally tells, whether in a master of fox-hounds or over the 

 Beacon, and Mr. Shirley does credit to his ancestry. He has given 

 the most universal satisfaction during the time he has kept the 

 hounds, which has been acknowledged in a manner most gratifj'ing 

 to his feelings ; and his motive for relinquishing them — which I had 

 from his own lips — is creditable to his feelings as a man. "We 

 cannot do everything," said he: "I am building a house on my 

 property in Ireland, where I mean to reside part of the year, and 

 the hounds would be much in my way." 



As is frequently the case, there was no little difficulty in procuring 

 a substitute for Mr. Shirley in the management of the Warwickshire 

 hounds. Mr. Payne, of Selby in Northamptonshire, first offered 

 himself ; and his terms were very handsome. He asked for no 

 subscription, and moreover agreed to bring twenty-five couples of 

 hounds with him to the kennel, and to leave them behind him if he 

 quitted the country. This offer, however, was refused ; and, as far 



* Dugdale's "Warwickshire." 



