72 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



the said race, and -there discharge his musket as the running horses passe by him : 

 one other of the said three men to do the same at the second myle's end from the 

 said starting place. 



No wonder that with the love of sport thus sanctified, as it were, among the most 

 sacred archives of their City, the good folk of Salisbury were not to be put off their 

 favourite sport by any regulations of a Puritan Parliament after Charles I. had been 

 beheaded. In 1650 they were racing just as hard as usual, and I doubt very much 

 whether the cup which had been established in 1634 at Winchester was dis- 

 continued either, for it is written in the municipal records of that ancient capital for 

 the year 1646, "that Ralph Rigges, Esq., Mayor of the said city, shall have security 

 under the city scale to save him harmelesse for being engaged for the Race Cupp, 

 as shall be advised by the Councill of the said Mr. Mayor." The winnings of the 

 Court at this little meeting was sometimes so extensive that in 1631, on an April 

 evening, my Lord Chamberlain, Philip Earl of Pembroke, feasted the King and 

 Queen "at his lodgings at the Cockpit (near Whitehall) after his extraordinary great 

 winnings at the horserace at Winchester." Both His Majesty and his loyal courtiers 

 betted fairly high on most things ; for the King lost ,3,000 one day at tennis to the 

 Chevalier de Jarre ; and Lord Campden's son and heir celebrated his marriage by 

 losing ^2,500 at the same game to Lord Carnarvon, Lord Rich, and other young 

 sportsmen, in 1633, being within ,500 of the portion his bride had brought him. 

 Nor were these the only sports that made the money fly. Stamford, in Lincolnshire, 

 was celebrated, not merely for its " silver and gilt cup with a cover to the value of 

 seaven or eight pounds," which was for the special delectation of "" a concourse of 

 Noblemen and Gentlemen meeting together in mirth, peace, and amity for the 

 exercise of their swift-running horses, every Thursday in March." The town also 

 enjoyed an ancient and disreputable notoriety for the bullbaiting, which had been 

 endowed so long ago as the reign of King John, by William, Earl of Warren. Six 

 days before Christmas, a bull, which had been previously shut up in the Alderman's 

 outhouse, was turned out into the streets, after special warning had been given to 

 close all the shops (china-shops especially, no doubt) and houses, and the 

 "strangers," had been given time to retreat to a special " yard," built for their safety. 

 "Which proclamation made," writes a contemporary historian, who was by no means 

 in sympathy with such ruffianly proceedings, "and all the gates shut up, the bull is 

 turned out of the Alderman's house, and then hivie skivie, tag and rag, men, women, 

 and children of all sorts and sizes, with all the dogs in the towne, promiscuously 



