A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



Hare Warren on the east, the Upper Park on 

 the west, and the Middle Park between 

 them and the Home Park into The Course, 

 adjoining the Kingston Road, and the Home 

 Park proper, which was bounded on the west 

 and south by the Thames. 40 These inclosures, 

 however, though well adapted for coursing or 

 shooting, did not afford the king sufficient 

 scope for his favourite sport of stag-hunting, 

 and he therefore acquired by purchase or 

 exchange the manors of Hanworth, Kempton, 

 Feltham, and Teddington in Middlesex, to- 

 gether with those of East and West Moleseyand 

 some ten others on the Surrey side of the 

 Thames, 41 and by an Act of Parliament passed 

 in ijog 43 erected them into an honour or 

 seignory of several manors under a single lord 

 paramount. Of this honour it was provided 

 that ' the manor of Hampton Court shall 

 henceforth be the chief capital place or part.' 43 

 Its creation by statute gave it an importance 

 and dignity superior to that attaching to an 

 ordinary feudal manor, 44 and with the exception 

 of a brief interval during the Interregnum it 

 continued to be a favourite hunting seat of 

 the Crown until the end of the eighteenth 

 century. 



Queen Elizabeth, who inherited her father's 

 love of stag-hunting, frequently hunted at 

 Hampton Court and shot the deer with her 

 own bow. 45 James I, who was an equally 

 ardent but more timorous sportsman, was a 

 still more constant visitor, and shared the sport 

 with his consort Anne of Denmark, who by 

 a random shot on one occasion killed one of 

 the king's favourite hounds an accident 

 which greatly excited his anger till he learnt 

 who had caused it, when he is said to have 

 immediately pardoned the royal offender. 48 

 He so improved the parks and stocked them 

 so well with deer that a visit to Hampton 

 Court came to be recognized as one of the 

 duties of all travellers, and especially amongst 

 foreigners of distinction. 47 Its reputation in 

 this respect must, however, for a time have 

 been somewhat impaired by the results of the 

 Civil War, since in a Parliamentary Survey 

 of 1653 that was made just before its sale, in 



40 Law, Hut. of Hampton Court, i, 135, 212, and 

 App. F. vii, 7. 



11 These included Walton, Weybridge, Esher, 

 Oatlands, and Sandown ; Hist, of Hampton Court, i, 

 212, 213. 



41 31 Hen. VIII, cap. 5 (Stat. of the Realm, iii). 

 " Law, Hist, of Hampton Court, \, 212, 213. 



44 Ibid. 



44 Evelyn Shirley, Some Account of English Deer 

 Parks, 40. 



" Law, Hist, of Hampton Court, ii, 73, 74. 

 47 Ibid. 62. 



which the total area of the property irrespec- 

 tive of the ground occupied by the palace and 

 gardens is stated as 1,607 acre s> the number 

 of deer is returned as 228, which were valued 

 at ji per head. 48 That it was not entirely 

 denuded of game is, however, evident from 

 an entry of 4 January 1657-8 in the 

 Middlesex County Records with respect to a 

 charge against John Hare, husbandman, Hugh 

 Clerke, fisherman, and John Durdin, victualler 

 of ' Tuddington,' of 



taking and destroying seventy hares, with cordes 

 and other instruments ; nigh unto the hare 

 warren of the Lord Protector within the Honour 

 of Hampton Court in the said County. 49 



It was probably restocked after the Restora- 

 tion, though neither Charles II nor his brother 

 James seems to have been much addicted to 

 the chase, and the absence of any references 

 to the higher forms of sport in the diaries 

 both of Pepys and Evelyn seems to justify the 

 supposition that these were somewhat out of 

 fashion during their reigns. After the 

 Restoration, however, we find William III 

 frequently pursuing his favourite pastime of 

 coursing, then still called 'hunting,' at Hampton 

 Court up to within a short period of his death ; 

 and on one occasion he writes to Portland 

 that he had two days before ' taken a stag to 

 forest with the Prince of Denmark's pack,' 

 and ' had a pretty good run as far as this 

 villainous country will permit.' * Queen 

 Anne, who seems to have been as fond of 

 hunting as she was of racing, 61 also constantly 

 hunted there, following the chase, according 

 to a description in Swift's journal to Stella, in 

 a chaise with one horse ' which she drives 

 herself and drives furiously like Jehu.' On 

 another occasion she is said by the dean to 

 have hunted the stag till four o'clock in the 

 afternoon, and to have covered no less than 

 forty miles in her chaise." Both of her 

 immediate successors fully maintained the 

 traditions of the honour of Hampton Court, 

 and George II was so fond of stag-hunting 

 and coursing that he did not relinquish them 

 even in summer, and it was only when the 



48 Aug. Off. Parl. Surv. 32. 



49 Midd. County Rec. iii, 65. 



60 Law, Hist, of Hampton Court, iii, 103, 159, 

 160, 163. 



" Cf. J. P. Hore, Hist, of the Royal Buckhounds 

 (1893), 226, 249. 



"Law, Hist, of Hampton Court, iii, 188. It 

 must be added that the queen was obliged to adopt 

 this mode of hunting by attacks of gout, and in 

 her younger days followed the hounds on horse- 

 back ; Hore, op. cit. 228. 



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