24 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



King's running-horses 5 at Newmarket by style and 

 title, and her brother, the ' polite ' Tommy Panton 

 (himself a member of the Jockey Club), appears to 

 have been an equerry to the King, and the lady herself 

 became Mistress of the Eobes to the virtuous Queen 

 Charlotte. But Horace Walpole was very hard upon 

 all the Ancasters, declaring that ' the last three 

 Duchesses were never sober.' However that may have 

 been, the third Duke worked as manfully as any mem- 

 ber of the Jockey Club for the improvement of the 

 English thoroughbred (whether in single-heartedness 

 for that express purpose, or rather, perhaps, for his 

 own amusement and profit by means of bets, is not 

 the main question here), and his name has remained 

 honourably prominent in the ' Calendars ' and in the 

 * Stud Book ' in connection with 'Ancaster Starling,' &c. 

 He was also the owner of ' the Ancaster Egyptian ' 

 and ' the Ancaster Bay Arabian ' (which ran in the 

 'Arab race' at Newmarket in 1771), though these 

 two horses had little or no effect upon the pedigrees. 



As the Ancasters, so far as their ducal title is con- 

 cerned, belong to the ' extinct animals,' and as the 

 title has an unfamiliar and uncanny look at the pre- 

 sent day, the following little sketch may be acceptable. 

 On the very day on which Queen Anne died, in 1714, 

 Her Majesty's Gold Cup was run for at York, and 

 three days before that, at the same place, Her 

 Majesty's horse Star had beaten Her Majesty's Lord 

 Chamberlain's horse Merlin for a paltry Plate (credite, 



