THE TURF TO THE RESTORATION. 



Tory owners a good beating, which he generally did, for his horses were magnificent. 

 The unceasing efforts of the Tories to set up Winchester as a rival to Neu market, 

 throughout the reign of Charles II., is a particularly curious instance of political 

 sportsmanship ; and a few have even connected the fire at Newmarket with the over- 

 heated zeal of a few of these racing partisans. This handsome and ill-fated Duke of 

 Monmouth took the same line with a far deeper purpose, and a much more sinister 

 result. It was as a friend of the Whigs, as much as in the character of a racing man, 

 that he appeared at Wallasey Races near Chester, in 1682, and that he even ran a 



foot-race (stripped) against Mr. Cutts of 

 Cambridgeshire, and beat him. He rode 

 his own horse first past the post for the 

 Plate, and all the Tory windows in Chester 

 were broken that night to celebrate the 

 occasion. When his disloyalty became 

 somewhat too open to be tolerated next 

 year, he went over to France, and it was 

 with racing again that he made a bid for 

 popularity at the Court of Louis XIV., 

 for he rode Lord Wharton's horse to 

 victory for the King's Plate, at Echere, 

 near St. Germains, and both he and 

 Bernard Howard had an excellent welcome 

 in consequence at the French Court. 

 Unluckily he was not content with his 

 well-known superiority in the saddle, and 

 his invasion of England was a fatal error. 

 His horse Tankard was left behind at The Hague and became the property 

 of Lord Yarmouth. 



Every possible circumstance of time and place combined to make Charles II.'s 

 connection with the Turf a brilliant episode in its history. Everyorfe was frankly 

 glad to see a king upon the throne again, and was ready to hope everything of a 

 monarchy which had received, and survived, such sanguinary lessons. People were 

 drawing a long breath after the straight-laced tyranny of the men who were always 

 prating about freedom ; so that after solemnly cutting off the whole heritage of the 

 Stuarts for ever, they positively shouted with joy on their return. The King himself 



Thomas Killigrew. 

 By Van Dyck. 



