SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



land not to plough their land in narrow 

 ridges, nor to suffer swine to go abroad 

 unringed and root holes, to the endangering 

 of his Majesty and the Prince in hawking 

 and hunting; they are also to take down 

 the high bounds between lands, which hinder 

 his Majesty's ready passage.' How many 

 masters of hounds would welcome those royal 

 rights in these days and avail themselves of 

 the power to order the removal of that curse 

 of modern hunting wire. 



An interesting description of a hunt at 

 Theobalds is translated from the French in 

 England as Seen by Foreigners. In 1613 the 

 Duke of Saxe Weimar visited James I. at 

 Theobalds, and the following account was 

 published in 1620 : 'The King and the 

 Prince then went down and out through the 

 pleasure grounds where horses and carriages 

 were waiting. When they came to the 

 hunting ground they all mounted horses. 

 The hunt generally comes off in this way : 

 the huntsmen remain on the ground where 

 the game is to be found with twenty or thirty 

 dogs ; if the King fancies any in particular 

 among the herd, he causes his pleasure to be 

 signified to the huntsmen, who proceed to 

 mark the place where the animal stood ; they 

 then lead the dogs thither, which are taught 

 to follow this one animal only, accordingly 

 away they run straight upon his track ; and 

 even if there should be forty or fifty deer 

 together they do nothing to them but only 

 chase the one and never give up until they 

 have overtaken it and brought it down. 

 Meanwhile the King hurries incessantly after 

 the dogs until they have caught the game. 

 His Majesty now and then uses long bows 

 and arrows and when he is disposed shoots a 

 deer.' The duke does not appear to have 

 been imbued with the spirit of the sport, for 

 he adds, ' It was not a very interesting form 

 of amusement,' which reminds one of the 

 question of Lord Chesterfield and Don Juan, 

 ' Does any one go out hunting a second 

 time ? ' King James wrote for his son in a 

 book called The King's Christian Dutie, 'I 

 cannot omit here hunting, namely with run- 

 ning hounds which is the most honorable and 

 noblest thereof: for it is a thievish form of 

 hunting to shoot with guns or bows, and 

 greyhound hunting is not so martial a game.' 



The palace of Theobalds was a very fine 

 house. It contained a gallery in which were 

 'divers large stags' heads which were an 

 excellent ornament to the same.' King 

 James I. had enclosed the park of 2,500 

 acres with a brick wall ten miles in extent, 

 the deer in which were valued at 1,000, 

 rabbits at 15, and timber at 5,239, irre- 



spective of 15,000 trees which were marked 

 for the navy. Lord Falkland of Aldenham 

 lost his life here by falling from a ' stand ' 

 while hunting with the king. 



Besides staghounds and harriers we find 

 other hounds in requisition when James I. 

 was king. On November 10, 1604, a com- 

 mission was issued by John Parry, master of 

 the Herts otter hounds, to take dogs up the 

 rivers for the king's diversion ; and millers 

 were commanded to stop their watercourses 

 during the hunting. In 1607 a grant was 

 made by the king to Henry Mynours, master 

 of the otter hounds at Theobalds to take 

 hounds, beagles, spaniels and mongrels for his 

 Majesty's disport. 



An old distich says 



So many men so many minds, 

 So many hounds so many kinds. 



At that early period the colour of a hound 

 was considered indicative of his qualities. A 

 white hound was looked upon as being good 

 for a stag and excellent at ' stratagems,' but 

 not much to be depended upon when hunting 

 other kinds of game. A black hound gener- 

 ally had a good memory and was not afraid of 

 water. A gray hound was coveted on account 

 of his cunning, but a yellow hound was not 

 much use should his quarry be inclined to 

 turn and twist in the chase. The southern 

 hound was recommended for woodland 

 countries, and was used by those sportsmen 

 who running on foot hunted the hare some- 

 times for five or six hours on end. The 

 northern or fleet hound on the contrary could 

 compete with horses in pace, and could run 

 a hare down in an hour. Between these two 

 latter in quality and pace we read of the 

 hound ' that was capable of running through 

 thick and thin and not requiring the Hunts- 

 man's aid to help him over the ditches ' 

 (Daniel's Sports). 



The old mode of hunting was conducted 

 on quite different lines to those of the present 

 day. Lyemers (or hounds held in a lyem or 

 slip) hunting by scent, were used to rouse the 

 deer, the deer thus moved were either driven 

 into pits or nets, or if they came into the 

 open park greyhounds were let go and so the 

 deer were run down. This style of hunting 

 was changed in James I.'s time into hunting 

 with a pack of hounds by scent, and the old 

 English lyemers were merged into buck 

 hounds, and as deer hunting declined and fox 

 hunting became popular, crosses between the 

 harrier-beagle and bloodhounds produced the 

 present type of foxhound. 



The spaniels which were brought to Theo- 

 balds for the king's disport were no doubt 



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