Rotten Row. 237 



was his brother the Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover, attended by his double 

 and equerry General Ouentin — handsome, stern, forbidding countenances, with heavy moustaches, 

 then uncommon — perfect specimens of the stiff Hanoverian style of military horsemanship. 



William IV. never rode after he came to the throne, although he did constantly when 

 living at Bushey Park ; but Charles Greville relates the sensation he made a few days after 

 succeeding to the throne, by appearing in a full general's uniform with spurs 1 



Her Majesty Queen Victoria succeeded in 1837, and according to Raikes' Diary sent for 

 the Earl of Albemarle, her Master of the Horse, and said, " My Lord, I wish you to 

 immediately provide me with six chargers to review my troops." The young queen had 

 evidently in her mind Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury Fort. 



R. B. Davis, brother of the celebrated huntsman of the Royal Buckhounds, and son of 

 the huntsman of George HI.'s Harriers, became an artist of horse subjects under the special 

 patronage of that sovereign. He painted a picture of the girl Queen Victoria, riding in the 

 Windsor Park attended by her Prime Minister, her Foreign Secretary of State, and others of 

 less note in England's history. The engraving of this picture had considerable temporary 

 popularity, and from it the caricaturist of the day, " H. B." (the father of Richard Doyle, who 

 delights the present generation in a very different style), produced " Susannah and the Elders " 

 — Her Majesty riding between Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston. It was very funny, 

 but did not hit off the essential difference in character between the horses of the Premier and 

 Lord Palmerston. 



Lord Palmerston rode tall blood-horses ; if they were up to weight, with the best possible 

 road action, could trot ten miles an hour, and gallop, he did not ask for manners, airs, or 

 graces. Lord Melbourne rode a style of horse seen in another picture, painted by the late 

 Sir Francis Grant, in 1840. The Queen is mounted on a dappled dun or grey horse with black 

 mane, tail, and legs, of Hanoverian breed, accompanied by Lord Melbourne riding an old- 

 fashioned bay hunter, with a white blaze down his face, a portrait evidently, while the Marquis 

 of Conynghame, a model courtier on a model brown hack, with his hat in his hand, balances 

 the picture and makes a striking contrast to the calm repose of the Premier and his horse. 



Lord Melbourne rode often in the Row with his brother Ministers, always on powerful, 

 useful easy-paced horses, such as might have been expected from his character— luxurious, 

 and indifferent to appearances. He also rode constantly in the streets, but the streets were not 

 so crowded as they now are ; omnibuses were scarcely established and hansoms were not in 

 existence. 



On my first arrival from the country about the year 1835, and visit tc the Park — then a very 

 rough, ill-kept, swampy place, fed over by deer and the Ranger's cows — I saw at the end of 

 the Row, facing Apsley House, a ponderous man about fifty years of age, with a round, red, good- 

 humoured face, and black hair under his broad-brimmed hat, beginning to get grey, dressed 

 in white cord breeches and top-boots, with silk stockings seen between them. I took him for 

 some rich grazier from Lincolnshire, and was not far wrong. This was Lord Althorpe, 

 celebrated as a breeder of Shorthorns and Master of the Pytchley, one of the best packs of 

 hounds in the kingdom ; the " Honest Jack " of his friends — he had no enemies ; the Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons in Earl Grey's Administration, in 

 which duty, although one of the worst speakers that ever held a seat in that fastidious 

 assembly, he exercised as great or greater influence than any of the brilliant orators who 

 preceded and succeeded him. The Shorthorns were his hobby, and the Smithfield Club 

 Show his delight. When a phrenologist had given him a serious political character, he said 



