BEGINNINGS OF REAL RACING AND GENEALOGIES OF BLOOD STOCK 95 



of London, situated on a hill [Warren Hill is suggested], which swells from the plain 

 with so gradual and gentle a rise that at a distance it cannot be distinguished from a 

 plain ; there is always a numerous concourse of carriages there to see the Races, upon 

 which considerable bets are made. Meanwhile his highness (of Tuscany] with his 

 attendants and others of his Court, stopping on horseback at a little distance from 

 the goal, rode along the meadows waiting the arrival of the horses and of His Majesty, 

 who came up close after them with a numerous train of gentlemen and ladies, who 

 stood so thick on horseback, and galloped so freely, that they were no way interior to 

 those who had been for years accustomed to the manege. As the King passed, his 

 highness bowed and immediately turned and followed His Majesty to the goal, where 

 trumpets and drums, which were in readiness for that purpose, sounded in applause 

 of the conqueror." 



The Secretary is more exact than Evelyn, for he adds that Elliot's horse won. 



From the original etching of 1687, by Francis Barlow, in the Print Room of the 

 British Museum, which I have reproduced in this volume, it is possible to recon- 

 struct with even greater clearness a scene very similar to what has just been 

 described. The artist is careful to say that he drew " from the place," but in 

 representing the race "by Dorsett Ferry, near Windsor Castle" on August 24, 1684, 

 as "the last Horse Race run before Charles the Second of Blessed Memory," I think 

 he must mean " run in that place *'; for though the King died on the 6th of February 

 1685, m tne 2 6th year of his reign and 54th of his age, there is a paragraph in 

 No. 1970 of the " London Gazette," which says that His Majesty left Whitehall for 

 Newmarket, on October 4th (1684), and he seems to have stayed there nearly three 

 weeks for the October Meeting, for the " Clarendon Correspondence " quotes a letter 

 from him from that place to the Duke of Ormond on the igth, and the Races which 

 took place during his last visit to Newmarket are described in a letter written thence 

 by the Duke of York to his niece the Countess of Litchfield. " There has been 

 Horse Races," writes the Duke on the 8th, " now three days together; on Monday 

 Griffin's horses beat Barnes ; yesterday Lord Godolphin's horse lost all three heats to 

 Mr. Wharton's gray gelding, and after they were over Staplty beat Roe the long 

 course. This day Dragon was beaten by Whynot, and Stapley won another match : 

 it was of the Duke of Albemarle .... it has rained every day, so that the 

 King would not hawk neither this day nor yesterday." From all of which it would 

 appear that the Merry Monarch kept it up even longer than the excellent Barlow 

 supposed. 



