//KM Ike Ellamtic Chaucer. 



THE HORSE IN ENGI.AX1) TO REU1XNING OF SEVI-:\TKE\>TII CEXTl'Ri: 19 



shows a very sportsmanlike parson, 

 followed by his hounds. It was the 

 abbeys which were invariably ran- 

 sacked for cavalry remounts when 

 diseases and campaigns had depleted 

 the military stables of the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth centuries, a fact which is 

 corroborated by the extract from the 

 Exchecjuer just quoted, and which may 

 very possibly be explained by such 

 typical presents as that of the Arab to a church which I noticed in 1121. A " horse 

 of price" was evidently the current phrase for the thoroughbred of good Kastern 

 stock, and the words are often used in metrical chivalrous romances of the time, 

 both in French and English. With the scarcity of animals produced by Royal 

 impressment, the horsecoper of course began to flourish, and legislation was 

 commenced against him by a statute of Richard II., a monarch whose love 

 of the Turf was no doubt directed and encouraged by his good friend Thomas 

 Markes, fifteenth Bishop of Carlisle, and a native of Newmarket, who stood by the 

 unlucky King, at grave risks, to the very end, and boldly opposed his deposition. 

 It is somewhat dispiriting work to trace the evidences of thoroughbred stock 

 in Royal stables or in the studs of the great abbots of the thirteenth century (who 

 are recorded to have used " horsebread " for their racers) only to find an almost 

 absolute blank created so soon afterwards by the internecine troubles of the Wars of 

 the Roses. The stouter horses were ruthlessly used up in the squadrons of 

 the opposing hosts, and there was no time to think of the more delicate and 

 speedy variety which had gradually and with so much difficulty been bred up 

 for real racing. In many cases studs of Eastern stock crossed with our own 

 mares are known to have been sold out of the country during this unsettled 

 period. Foreign dealers not only saw their chance but took it eagerly. One 

 of the Eastern stock however, is known to have remained behind. For Black 

 Saladin, who deserved a better fate, was killed by his master at the battle of 

 Barnet in April, 1471, to encourage his followers to fight better on foot, and 

 his gravestone may still be seen in the grounds of the Warwick Hotel, on the 

 East Barnet road. It is an episode as sad as the slaying of VtiUantif by dying 

 Roland in the defiles of Roncesvalles. 



