George III. Stag Hunting. 411 



king gave a hundred-guinea plate to be run for by horses belonging to his yeomen prickers 

 who rode after him with the stag-hounds, and he gave another hundred-guinea plate at 

 Ascot for horses that had been in at the taking of ten stags. I have had many a hard 

 ride and long day to get a ticket, as the runs were usually severe, and you must have 

 been at the take to claim a ticket, which the huntsman gave you; and it was absolutely 

 necessary to have the number to qualify, and they were particular as to your going right 

 to the end of the day. The king's yeoman prickers carried large French horns slung over 

 their shoulders, which could be heard at a great distance off, and wore scarlet coats trimmed 

 with broad gold lace down their backs. There were ten of them in number. Lord Cornwallis 

 was Master of the Buck-hounds, and lived at Swinlcy Park,* and the deer were kept in the 

 paddocks there, great red deer as big as donkeys ; they'd frequently go fifteen or twenty 

 miles, and they thought nothing of crossing the River Thames." 



George III.'s hunting seems to have been a compromise between the old and new style; 

 the stags were known by name, and not killed if it could be helped. But they were not 

 as carefully prepared as at the present day. The hounds, forty couple, were of the 

 breed depicted in Bewick's " Quadrupeds," twenty-four to twenty-six inches high, with 

 brg head, immense ears, and voices deep as the tolling bell of St. Paul's Cathedral. Unlike 

 the fox-hounds now used, they flagged after the first burst, and did not run into a sinking 

 deer ; indeed, like blood-hounds, they scarcely lifted their noses from the ground until the 

 stag was driven to bay. 



George III. rode nearly nineteen stone, his horses were under-bred, the hounds were 

 constantly stopped to allow his majesty to get up, and altogether it was a dreary affair, 

 often prolonged into late in the evening, as may be gathered from the doleful lamentation 

 of the king's attendants, recorded in the diary of Madame d'Arblay then Miss Fanny Burney. 



During the long illness of the king the stag-hound pack was sold to go abroad. In 

 1813 the Prince Regent accepted the already mentioned pack of fox-hounds for stag-hunting 

 from the Duke of Richmond, and from that time to the present the Royal Buck-hounds have 

 been pure fox-hounds. Early in the present century another pack of true stag-hounds which hunted 

 the wild deer in Devon and Somerset was sold to go to Germany; and when wild stag- 

 hunting was re-established in the West, another pack was formed of the tallest hounds that could 

 be obtained by drafts from fox-hound breeding kennels. Since that period all stag-hunting 

 in England has been carried on by fox-hounds, except two packs of blood-hounds of very 

 recent date, one of which was dispersed on the death of Mr. Thomas Nevile of Chilland. 



The Royal Buck-hounds attained their highest reputation under the late Mr. Charles 

 Davis, whose father had been Hare-huntsman of the royal kennels. He joined the Royal 

 Buck-hounds as first yeoman pricker, when stag-hunting recommenced with the Goodwood 

 Fox-hounds; and was appointed huntsman of them in 1822, a post he held for more than 

 forty years, to the satisfaction and admiration of all who met him in the field. 



Mr. Davis was tall, and walked very little over ten stone ; in his gold-embroidered hunting 

 coat he forms the subject of one of the coloured illustrations of this work, engraved from an 

 oil sketch by Sir Francis Grant, P.R.A., kindly lent by Mr. Charles Phillips, of The Cedars, 

 Mortlake. 



The royal deer selected to be hunted are kept at Swinley paddocks, where once stood 

 the official residence of the Master of the Buck-hounds. They are bred in the parks of 



* The residence since pulled down, and an allowance made to Master of the Buck-honnds instead. 



