258 THE HORSE IN HISTORY 



powerful European nations should war break out, 

 as in King Charles's reign it might well have 

 done at almost any time. 



Indeed had Charles's court been indifferently 

 horsed, and the king shown signs of reducing his 

 personal expenditure — in other words, had the 

 trumpets metaphorically been blown less blat- 

 antly — other European powers would probably 

 have looked up to England with less respect. 



Full well Charles must have known this, for 

 in his way he was thoroughly versed in the art of 

 what is sometimes called " international finessing." 

 His Government knew it better still, with the 

 result that the Government "played up to the 

 king " on the lines adopted by the king in playing 

 up to the Government — both knew that extrava- 

 gance and display formed the note of the age, 

 and both struck the note firmly with a foot on 

 the loud pedal. 



And thus in the reign of the Merry Monarch 

 did the practice that we now sometimes speak 

 of as "blurring" develop into a sort of art and 

 come to be cultivated carefully. 



In the autumn of the seventeenth century 

 Newmarket must truly have been one of the 

 gayest places in England, at anyrate when race 

 meetings were being held there, for it was not 

 unusual for the entire court and cabinet to travel 

 down from London on such occasions, when 

 "jewellers and milliners, players and fiddlers, 



