THE TL'RF UNDER JAMES I." THE MARKHAM ARABIAN." 55 



poor of the parish. These enactments came with particular appropriateness from a 

 capital where the Lord Mayor, Lee, was known to have made his fortune out of 

 wine, women, and dice ; and from a Court where, as Dudley Carleton reports, one 

 Twelfth Night in 1608, no gamester was allowed admittance who had less than 

 three hundred pounds in ready money; with the result that the King \\o\\ 150, the 

 Queen lost 400, the Prince, ^300, Lord Salisbury, 300, Lord Buckhurst, ^500 ; 

 while the only other winner recorded was Sir Francis Wolley, of Pinford, in Surrey, 

 who took over ,650. On the same festive occasion, ten years afterwards, the Marquis 

 of Hamilton and the Karl of Dorset came off winners of some^oo a-piece. Consider- 

 ing the relative value of money these sums do not compare so very badly with 

 Crockford's at its best in the next century, and when such high wagers as the 

 ,2,000, lost in a night by Lord Pembroke, are taken into account, it will be recog- 

 nised that betting was a serious matter. Nor was the fantastic element in wagering, so 

 common later on. absent in these earlier days. Ben Jonson laughs over a courtier who 

 offers odds on the performance of a journey to Constantinople, by himself, his dog. and 

 his cat. Games of all sorts, of course, gave their special opportunity. A noted young 

 gambler named Foster won ,1,500 with a coach and horses in 1619 from Lord 

 Scrope over a game of bowls, and Lord Waldcn dropped ,1,500 in one clay at the 

 same game, and ^900 the day before, in May 1623. 



Under these circumstances, Mr. Gervase Markham must have been fairly sure of 

 a large circulation for his book, which was the first valuable treatise on the Horse 

 since Denham and John Astley, and the only considered presentation of a real 

 theory of training in those times. His recipe for " horsebread " is worth repeating 

 as a curiosity, for he recommends its use till within two weeks of the race. " Take 

 a strike of beans, two pecks of wheat, and one peck of rye ; grind these together, 

 sift them, and knead them with water and bran, and so bake them thoroughly in 

 great loaves, as a peck in a loaf ; and after they are a day old at the least your horse 

 may feed on them." Much more complicated and precise become his directions as 

 the fateful date draws near. " As touching the day in which your Horse must runne 

 for your wager, thus shall you use him. First the night before you shall give him 

 but a verie little supper, so that hee may be passing empty in the morning, on which 

 morrowe have him, and ayre him an houre or two before day, taking care that hee 

 empty himselfe thorowly while hee is abroade, then bring him in, and after you 

 have well rubd all his foure legges, and annoynted them thoroulie either with 

 neattsfoote oyle, treanc oyle, sheepesfoote oyle, or linceede oyle, all which be the 



