36 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



Stafford, Mrs. Drewrey, and many more. Black Rod had a busy time fitting them 

 all in. She attended the same races next year, and a grand stand was built on the 

 course for her convenience. It should not be forgotten that she was as fine a horse- 

 woman as her great successor the late Empress-Queen Victoria. When Elizabeth 

 was 69 she rode 10 miles to the meet and hunted on the same day. 



About the same time Her Majesty also attended the races on Salisbury Plain, at 

 which it is related in the records of the corporation that " the golden bell valued at 

 .50 and better" was won by George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland. The 

 career of this extraordinary man reads very much like the fascinating extravagances 

 of the late eighteenth century. Enormous estates in the vicinity of Rotherham and 

 Malton were insufficient to supply the reckless expenses of his shipping adventures 

 and his Turf career combined. His wife had left him, almost broken-hearted, two 

 years before he died, at the age of 47, in the Savoy. He had inherited from his 

 father a stud at Skipton Castle which contained at least one name that is 

 imperishable in the annals of the Turf Bay Middlcton. In the other stalls stood 

 Young Mark Antony, Grey Clifford, White Dacre, Sorrel Tempest, White Tempest, and 

 Bay Tempest. 



Among the men who stood by the Queen on Salisbury Plain and watched Lord 

 Cumberland's victory was Robert Devereux, the second Earl of Essex, then past 

 twenty years of age. Already making his preparations for the great national levy of 

 cavalry, so splendid a horseman was worthy to be the leader of England's mounted 

 soldiers against the possible invasion of her foes. Within three months of this race 

 the beacon-fires had flashed the news of Armada from the Lizard to Holy Isle. He 

 won many important offices and dignities after the camp at Tilbury had been 

 broken up, and he married the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, who had secured the 

 services of two Italian experts in riding, Prospero and Romano. The story of his 

 execution and of the unavailing sorrow of the Queen need not be recalled in this 

 place to dim the pleasant merriment of that meeting on the sward outside the old 

 Cathedral City. He was as gallant a soldier as he was a zealous racing man ; and 

 the combination of good qualities did not die with him. 



Standing near Essex was that fine old country gentleman, Sir Walter Hunger- 

 ford, of Farley Castle. For four years he had owned a bay horse and a greyhound 

 which he was prepared to ride and course against any other man's in England for a 

 hundred pounds a-piece. He kept his money. In the two pictures of him which 

 I have reproduced, his horse, his greyhound, and his hawk may still be seen. 



