THE TURF TO THE RESTORATION. 6f 



the genral course for the Gilden Cup. His Ma 1 ' 1 ' (God bee thancked) is in perfect 

 health and at this present is at tenis." It has been suggested that the I3a\> Tarn/ 

 mentioned in the verses at the head of this chapter may have been the winner. The 

 King and Queen and the Prince of Wales with all the Court and several Ministers 

 had gone down for the Spring Meeting, which was somewhat disturbed by the 

 burning of two butchers' cottages one night, while the Royal game of tennis must 

 have considerably suffered owing to the fall from his horse which had compelled 

 the King to wear one arm in a sling. Betting had ruled very high, and the Karl 

 of Southampton, unable to meet all his creditors, was obliged to secure hasty leave 

 of absence and escape to France till he could raise the money from his father-in- 

 law, the Baron de Ruvigny. The " boye ryders" in His Majesty's stables about 

 this time, were Anthony Knight, Richard Hester, Rich 6 Higges, and Samuell Walton, 

 whose wages were 6d. a day for board, and /"6 i/s. 6d. a year with " Livery." Sir 

 William Powell and Sir George Marshall were Supervisors of the Races. P. Poys, 

 Esq., was Avenor. There were sixteen Esquires, and two Clerks of the Avory. 

 Thomas Freeman, Thomas Green, and Gregory Julian were Yeomen of the Races. 

 It may be noted that " race " was about this time used for a racing-stable, and for 

 the private course attached to stables, as well as for such public courses as that at 

 Newmarket. 



The King had spent a good deal on the Palace there, and when the whole was 

 put up for sale by the Commonwealth, the stables and riding house are very particu- 

 larly mentioned, and I shall have to refer in greater detail to the list of his horses which 

 was made out on the same melancholy occasion. In spite of the dismal prognostica- 

 tions of Colonel Sir Edward Harewood, both the English Turf and the breed of horses 

 was slowly but surely improving. " The defects," writes the pessimistic Colonel in 1 642, 

 in a book which had the laudable object of encouraging soldiers to learn their trade at 

 home, " consist chiefly in want of fit horses and fit men to bee horsemen ... in 

 ancient times wee were not so. It may be one reason is that now our Nation is 

 more addicted to running and hunting horses than in those elder times ... if 

 the noblemen and gentlemen would take this to heart, as they have done running of 

 races for bels (which I could wish were converted to shooting at a marke with pistols 

 on horseback for the same bell), they would be sufficient for Cuirassiers." But that 

 the larger breed affected by this military reformer had not died out is amply proved 

 by the cavalry actions of the Civil War. The splendid study by Van Dyck j n the 

 Buckingham Palace Collection would alone show the fine stamp of horses in the 



