BEGINNINGS OF REAL RACING AND GENEALOGIKS OF BLOOD STOCK. 99 



names that are worth pausing over for a moment. The reaction against Puritanism 

 had evidently begun with a vengeance ; as the old song had it : 



" A hound and hawk no longer 

 Shall be tokens of disaffection, 



A cockfight shall cease 



To be a breach of the peace, 

 And a horserace an insurrection." 



The Earl of Suffolk, who owned Whitefoot, remained a consistent supporter of 

 the Turf till his death in 1688. He was as accomplished and faithful a courtier as he 

 was a successful breeder, owner, and rider of his horses. He married thrice, and 

 every time into a sporting family, for his first wife was Lord Holland's daughter; his 

 second was Barbara Villiers, Lady Wentworth ; and his third, the daughter of Lord 

 Montague. The same interests were worthily transmitted to his descendant, the 

 Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, Steward of the Jockey Club. James Howard's 

 hospitality was proverbial, both at the famous Audley End, and in his Newmarket 

 house, which was the favourite resort of the ecclesiastics and University dignitaries, 

 when other places became too hot to hold them during a racing meeting. As Lord- 

 Lieutenant of Suffolk he performed a very notable act of patriotism and courage. 

 On July 2, 1667 (only sixteen months after Herring\\a.<\ beaten Whitcfoot\\h%. victorious 

 fleet of De Ruyter, which had just burnt all the shipping up the Thames as far as 

 Gravesend, effected a landing near Fort Landguard, with three or four thousand 

 men, carrying scaling ladders and culverins. But they reckoned without that noble 

 sportsman who was Governor. With a force mainly composed of his own retainers, 

 Lord Suffolk drove out the invaders, saved the Eastern counties from devastation, and 

 so astonished the Dutch that peace was made not long afterwards. "All the news," 

 writes Pepys next day, after his visit to the Council Chamber, " is of the enemy's 

 landing three thousand men near Landguard Fort, and being beat off thence with our 

 great guns, killing some of their men, and they leaving their ladders behind them ; 

 but we had no horse in the way on Suffolk's side, otherwise we might have galled 

 their foot. The Duke of York is gone down thither this day, while the Generall sat 

 sleeping this afternoon at the Council table." Many other people seem to have 

 "sat sleeping" about that time, and it is significant of the little that was let out 

 about this Suffolk raid, that Evelyn and many other writers say not a word about 

 it. But it is none the less most fortunate that the humiliations of that unlucky year 

 were not increased by the horrors of an invasion. That this was not so is due to the 

 pluck and swift resource of a racing man. 



