30 A HISTORY Of THE ENGLISH TURF. 



secure the prize himself, that he borrowed a Barbary horse for the occasion from Sir 

 Thomas Middle ton, but refused, on the flimsiest pretext, to allow Sir Philip Egerton 

 and Mr. Massey to run their horses at all. Pride in their antiquity had no 

 doubt unduly puffed up the Chester worthies, but they are certainly to be congratu- 

 lated on their foresight in the clays of Henry VIII. 



There is no doubt that this monarch is responsible for a very definite and 

 thorough, though perhaps only temporary, reform in English breeding. Not only, 

 as we have seen, did he do much in the way ot importation, and of racing, but 

 his statute-book shows an almost equal care that his subjects should preserve the 

 stock he had taken so much pains himself to improve. In 1530 he enacted that no 

 horses should be exported without express permission on pain of a fine of forty 

 shillings, which is significant as showing the great increase in the value of stock since 

 we last noticed it in this connection. With a view to more direct control he then 

 gave orders that " no person shall put in any forest, chase, moor, heath, common, or 

 waste (where mares and fillies are used to be kept), any stoned horses above the age 

 of two years, not being 15 hands high, within the shores or territories of Norfolk," 

 and nearly thirty more counties which are named, " nor under 14 hands in any 

 other county, on pain of forfeiting the same," the proper mode of seizure being 

 carefully stated. The King was not really doing much service to the breed that was 

 to produce the future racehorse, a breed far smaller in the eighteenth century than it 

 is to-day, because he was endeavouring to secure more particularly the " great 

 horse" which was requisite to carry in battle the load of twenty-five or thirty stone, 

 which a heavy armoured knight (even before the days when we were chasing 

 De Wet) very frequently rode. He and his knights were indeed weighty warriors, 

 and the animals they rode may be seen in the group I have reproduced from a con- 

 temporary picture of their arrival on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. He had not 

 yet experienced that want of small-boned hardy horses for general service, which has 

 been pressing hard upon the War Office of this country, during the South African 

 campaign ; and His Majesty evidently went too far for the best interests of at least 

 one county, as Carew explains. The opposition had so much reason in it that 

 James I. subsequently excepted Cornwall from the edict, and in the marshes of the 

 fen-countries a similar indulgence had to be granted by Elizabeth, allowing thirteen 

 hands to be the limit in those districts. 



I doubt whether even so long a tenure as this was possible for another edict 

 which must have been inspired rather by the enthusiasm than the prudence of King 



