158 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



the sixteenth century are said to have been de- 

 scendants of the stock bred so carefully and with 

 so much discrimination by Gonzaga or by King 

 Henry, from which we may conclude that the 

 assertion made often that until the reign of 

 Queen Anne there were no race horses in this 

 country worth speaking of is erroneous. 



It is said, apparently with truth, that Gonzaga 

 became extremely angry when, in the year 1515 

 only a few months after he had presented 

 Henry with the valuable horses already referred 

 to Ferdinand of Arragon sent Henry " a gift 

 of two most excellent horses," with the message 

 that he, Ferdinand, believed they would be found 

 to outclass even the fine horses already in the 

 royal stables at Hampton Court. 



An apparently trivial incident such as this 

 helps to show how thoroughly in earnest the 

 men of fortune must have been who early in 

 the sixteenth century devoted much time and at- 

 tention to the breeding and rearing of valuable 

 horses. It has been alleged that the Marquis 

 of Mantua made his initial present of horses to 

 King Henry solely in order to ingratiate himself 

 in royal favour ; but the anxiety he clearly dis- 

 played upon several occasions when gifts of 

 horses were sent to Henry by men of rank and 

 fortune leads to the belief either that Gonzaga 

 must have been of a jealous nature, or else that 

 he was inordinately proud of his own stud and 



