1 66 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



ance upon this point by one of his nobles he 

 laughed heartily and admitted the impeachment. 



The order, already referred to, that horses 

 should not be sent across the border, or sold to 

 Scotsmen, almost completely crippled the horse- 

 breeding industry north of the Tweed. True, 

 some of the more powerful of the Scottish clans 

 still owned valuable breeding stock, yet so strictly 

 were Henry's laws enforced that the chiefs even 

 of those clans were, with but few exceptions, 

 unable to buy English stallions or to obtain their 

 services at any time during Henry's reign. 



As a well-known Scottish historian has aptly 

 put it, " Henry VIII. practically ruined Scotland so 

 far as that country's prosperity had to do with the 

 rearing of horses for the field, an unfair form of 

 oppression that many Highlanders, and also Low- 

 landers, have not yet quite forgotten." 



Perhaps it is worth mentioning here that so far 

 as we are able to judge from the records of the 

 early historians the men of Scotland have not, as 

 a body, ever proved themselves to be such finished 

 horsemen as the English, and more especially the 

 Irish. 



This statement is not made in the least in a 

 captious spirit. Why should it be ? Probably the 

 reason the Scotch are, as a nation, less finished 

 horsemen, is that they are men of large bone, 

 considerable weight and great physical strength. 



Historical records serve to show that no race 



