ii4 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



valued good horses so greatly that in some in- 

 stances he insisted that the fines he was so fond 

 of extorting should be paid in horses instead of in 

 money. 



Then, following in the footsteps of William the 

 Conqueror, he imported a number of stallions, 

 among them many of the Eastern breed, and on 

 the pastures in Kent where the town of Eltham 

 and the village of Mottingham now stand he 

 established the famous stud from which so many 

 of the horses owned in after years by Queen 

 Elizabeth were directly descended. 



Worthy of mention here is the coincidence that 

 the early days of some of the most celebrated 

 thoroughbreds of recent times were spent in the 

 very paddocks where King John's foals and im- 

 ported horses were disporting themselves some 

 seven centuries earlier. 



On the subject of the great horses of the Middle 

 Ages it is interesting to read that while British 

 rulers were striving to breed animals which would 

 be both bigger and stronger than their pre- 

 decessors, the Persians in their country were 

 endeavouring to breed and rear horses on lines 

 precisely similar, and with the same objects in 

 view. 



How successful the attempts of the latter 

 proved may be gathered from the fact that, in the 

 centuries that followed, the Persian horses became 

 renowned the world over for their immense 



