A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



of flannell, is. id. ; for empynge 1 ould 

 Haggard, 2J. ; my expenses when Jerkin was 

 lost, is. $d. ; my horse shoeing, is. $d. ; two 

 mallards, is. id. ; two sheeps heartes, id. ; 

 crossing the river, 2d. ; charges for horse and 

 self when Haggard was lost, is. ; paid unto 

 one for taking up Haggard, \\d. ; meate for 

 Spanyells, 12s. ; bells, jesses, buetts, hoods, 

 etc., 6s. Sd. 



When on a country house visit in those 

 days it was customary for the falconer with 

 his hawks to accompany his master. William 

 Clayton's expenses when accompanying the 

 first Earl of Salisbury on a visit of four 

 days to Windsor amounted to 29*. 8d., and 

 the items appear among the Hatfield records. 

 Constant references are also made in these 

 old records to the giving and receiving of 

 choice hawks as presents, to the wonderful 

 exploits they performed (one having killed 

 three partridges at one flight) and as to 

 the best places for procuring them. Sir 

 Nicholas Welshe of Dublin gave an eyrie of 

 falcons to the Cecil family, and other cele- 

 brated hawks were purchased in Denmark. 

 Sir Robert Cecil's son kept up the sport of 

 hawking with great zest, and regularly took 

 his hawks to Newmarket, apparently to fly 

 matches against other falconers. 



A large number of spaniels were kept at 

 Theobalds and Hatfield for the purpose of 

 finding the game for the falconers. The 

 Hatfield hawks appear to have been held in 

 high esteem, for we find that the Earl of 

 Rutland, writing to Lord Salisbury, begs him 

 to send some of his hawks, saying, ' I beseech 

 you for your hawks, I hear you over fly all 

 England, I will promise you game in great 

 quantity ' ; and in another letter he asks him 

 again to bring his hawks, ' for I have no 

 falconer, though a very great falconer myself ; 



but you shall hear me, au plus fort de la nutlet 

 in my profession, in your bed without more 

 trouble, but the hearing the jubets of hunts- 

 men, the horns and the cry of the hounds, 

 and my little girl's crying " Whoo, whoop." 

 Then in the afternoon I shall wait on you 

 in another shape or dress ; the horn a has, the 

 lute comes on and in lieu of the loup one, the 

 soyez, soyez, resondes.' 



In 1826 Sir John Sebright of Beechwood 

 (whose son Thomas was master of the Hert- 

 fordshire hounds) wrote a treatise on the 

 mode of treating and managing of the several 

 kinds of hawks used in falconry.' He 

 writes of the science of hawking as being at 

 that time nearly extinct, and alludes sadly to 

 the fact that he knows of but one surviving 

 falconer able to practise the ancient art 

 according to the old school of falconry. 

 When using a falcon for partridge hawking, 

 it is necessary, he says, to select open country 

 for the sport, but should enclosed country 

 be unavoidable, he advises that one of the 

 smaller hawks, for instance a goshawk, should 

 be used ; but he is strongly opposed to the 

 use of the goshawk for partridges, knowing 

 that probably only the young and immature 

 birds would be killed by the hawk, and that 

 the full grown ones would be able to fly fast 

 enough to escape their pursuer. He describes 

 partridge hawking as follows : ' When the 

 partridge is marked down or pointed, the 

 hawk is unhooded and cast off. He will fly 

 round the falconer and if a good one mount 

 a considerable height, the higher the better. 

 He hovers and makes his point. The falconer 

 then approaches alone and with great care 

 and by whistling, as at feeding time, he grasps 

 the falcon while his prey is in his talons, he is 

 given the head of the partridge to eat and is 

 then hooded again.' 



STEEPLECHASING 



One of the most conspicuous sporting 

 figures in Hertfordshire was the celebrated 

 trainer, Tommy Coleman. He first came 

 into the county in 1816 and trained race- 

 horses at Brocket Hall Park until about 1820, 

 when he moved to St. Albans and re-built 

 and re-named the Chequers Inn in Chequers 

 Street. As the ' Turf Hotel ' this inn for 

 the next twenty-five years became the head- 

 quarters of all kinds of sport on the northern 

 side of London. 



Here Mr. Osbaldeston played billiards for a 



1 Mending broken pinion. 



whole week with a noted billiard sharper and 

 lost 3,000. Here Lord George Bentinck, 

 Prince Esterhazy, Mr. Gully, Mr. Tattersall, 

 Colonel Charritie, Mr. Heathcote and others 

 kept their racehorses. From here Coleman 

 collected 30 (each magistrate of the St. 

 Albans bench contributing i) to get the 

 notorious fight between Deaf Burke and the 

 Irish champion, Simon Byrne, held on No 

 Man's Land on June 2, 1833, and after which 

 Byrne died. 



Here were also the headquarters of the 

 eccentric Lord Huntingtower, and of Captain 

 Becher of steeplechase notoriety, after whom 



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