Till: HORSE IN KXGI.AND TO JiEC.IXMNG Of SKVEXTHEX TH CEXTURl. 15 



/><! .'////<," in //;, I'i'iirtfcittli ( V//////T 

 J'l.ini I!,,- I.outitll Ptallct. 



which horse would prove 



the fastest. This con- 

 soles me a little for 

 Netherby, and is better 

 testimony than any un- 

 supported poetic enthu- 

 siasm (with its well- 

 known carelessness for 

 beggarly details) could 

 ever supply. Edward 1 1. 

 secured thirty war horses 



and twelve great horses from Lombardy for breeding purposes, and Edward III., 

 being anxious to get cavalry for his wars, made expensive importations from the 

 Low Countries for his stud farms. His Wardrobe accounts also shew that lie 

 possessed several " genets " or Spanish barbs. 



Among the many instincts which combined to further the interests of the Turf, 

 the love of gambling was essentially important. Not only were the chances of a 

 wager to be secured in those old forms of sport which persisted in this country from 

 the earliest times to the Victorian Era, but actual dicing was perfectly well-known 

 and common in quite early centuries, and the passions of a gambler of the lowei 

 orders for this form of amusement are very clearly depicted in an early fourteenth- 

 century drawing. Rear-baiting was also practised in i.ljo, as is shown by the illus- 

 trations to the Loutrell Psalter, and a spirited representation of cocking at the same 

 period is to be found in a manuscript in the Bodleian Library. There was evidently 

 plenty of reason for the legislation of Richard II. against gambling among farm 

 labourers, who could ill afford to squander their small wages. But its appearance, 

 so far down the social scale already, is a proof that various forms of sport and betting 

 had been common in England for some time before the development of the Turl 



gave to both their most 

 exciting and compli- 

 cated expression. 



Roadside Gambling in the Fourteenth Century. 



/',*, . MS in ike B,,iuk Mu 



metrical description of 

 a match between horses 



