io8 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



displayed great delight, at the same time " ex- 

 pressing his approval in a very forcible way." 



The king himself apparently was not a finished 

 horseman ; yet he had a strong liking for horses, 

 possibly in the same way that " he loved the 

 great deer of the forests as though he had been 

 their father " (!) Most likely he was too heavily 

 built a man to make a graceful rider, though 

 it is said that upon the arrival of Lord Shrews- 

 bury's stallions he went on horseback to inspect 

 them, and, as we know, towards the end of the 

 sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century the poet Drayton praised very highly 

 the progeny of these same horses. 



Naturally this importation of valuable stallions 

 greatly improved the breed of horses in Britain, 

 and from the time of the Conquest onward the 

 improvement was distinctly noticeable. 



Though some historians tell us that the Anglo- 

 Saxons rode on horseback, others maintain that 

 they did not ride. There can be no doubt, how- 

 ever, that they did not fight on horseback. The 

 well-known scene on Bayeux tapestry that repre- 

 sents the battle of Hastings shows us Harold fight- 

 ing on foot when the arrow strikes him in the eye. 



A comparatively modern historian has tried to 

 disprove the popular story of the Normans shoot- 



