CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE MASTIFF IN HENRY VTH'S REIGN. 



This island of England breeds very valiant creatures ; 

 Their mastiffs are of uninatchable courage. 



Shalt e*pca.Tc. Henry r., act ///., bCi'iic 7. 



THE battle of Agincourt, as Drayton sung in his Polyolbion, 



1622. 



Upon St. Crispins day, 

 Fought was the noble fray, 

 Which' fame did not delay 

 To England to carry. 



Agincourt, glorious Agincourt, that for the second time on 

 Gallic soil raised the bulldog courage of the Englishman to 

 the admiration of Christendom, and to become a National 

 proverb. 



Agincourt, as well as a landmark in English history, 

 furnishes also an important piece of history connected with 

 the English mastiff, for the legend runs, that on Ocl. 25th, 

 1415, on Agincourt's bloody field a favourite mastiff bitch of 

 Sir Peers Leigh (knight of Lyme Hall, nr. Stockport, Cheshire) 

 protected her master from molestation as he lay wounded on 

 the field during the night after the battle, until some English 

 soldiers found him, and he was removed to Paris, where he 

 died, and the mastift, who was in whelp at the time, had a 

 litter of puppies. 



Sir Peers' body was brought back to Lyme for burial, and 

 the bitch and whelps along with it. Sir Peers was buried at 



