148 THE MASTIFF IN THE IQTH CENTURY. 



that they discontinued using the path, and in course of time 

 Mr. Robinson, was able to close it. From this Bold and 

 Commissioner Thompson's Rose was born Lion, (either in 1815 

 or 1 6, ) a dark brindle dog, he was given to Mr. Holdsworth, of 

 Ashdale Hall, near Elland, Yorkshire, who was Mr. Thompson's 

 relative by marriage. Mr. Holdsworth's Lion was consider- 

 ed by the Thompsons, one of the finest specimens they ever 

 bred, and the late John Crabtree, told me he was a rare speci- 

 men, having an enormous head, and was very muscular and 

 fine in the coat, and weighed izj-o-lbs. Mr. Thompson, left it 

 on record, that a full sister to Mr. Holdsworths, Lion, was 

 kept by a Tanner, in the neighbourhood of Halifax, by 

 the name of Freeman, and that she weighed i5o-lbs, and in 

 a single combat beat a bear, that this was no exaggeration but 

 a facl, and that he could (in 1874) produce living witnesses 

 who could corroborate this statmement. 



Beyond these particulars little record exists of Commissioner 

 Thompson's Mastiff, and the traced descendants passed out of 

 the family until 1827-1830 when the late J. W. Thompson 

 obtained the strain back in " Dorah," born in 1826 from the 

 late John Crabtree, keeper at Kirklees Hall, Yorkshire, the 

 seat of the Armitage family. 



John Crabtree made Kirklees classic ground to the mastiff 

 fancier considerably over six feet in height, handsome in face 

 and figure, with the courage of a lion, and true courtesy of 

 the gentleman, " Old John Crab" as his friends loved to call 

 him, was one of nature's noblemen. 



In the ancient Park is the site of the building in which Robin 

 Hood, the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon, was bled to death 

 by the order or ignorance of his near relation Elizabeth de 

 Stanton, then Prioress at Kirklees In the Illustrated Sporting 



