HENRY'S LOVE OF HUNTING 161 



another in sending gifts of valuable horses to 

 their friends. 



The last present of the sort received by Henry 

 VIII. consisted of twenty-five Spanish horses 

 sent to him by the emperor, Charles V., in 



I539- 



Hunting is known to have been one of Henry's 

 favourite amusements, and in a despatch dated 

 loth September 1519, written by Giustinian 

 when Venetian Ambassador to England, we are 

 informed that when Henry hunted he invariably 

 rode several horses, or, in the words of the des- 

 patch, "never took that diversion without tiring 

 eight or ten horses, which he caused to be 

 stationed beforehand along the line of country 

 he meant to take." 



From this and similar statements it has been 

 inferred that the hounds Henry hunted with ran 

 some artificial line, that otherwise the horses 

 could not have been stationed " beforehand along 

 the line of country he meant to take." The prob- 

 ability, however, is that the king's horses were 

 stationed at different points all over the country 

 to be hunted, for it seems impossible that the 

 king, heavy man though he undoubtedly was, 

 could alone have ridden eight or ten horses to a 

 standstill in a single day's hunting ! 



Indeed in Henry III.'s reign the men who 

 hunted regularly most likely rode more than 

 one horse a day, just as most hunting men do 



