5^ The History of the Spur 



with this — there was no longer any prominence of the ankle- 

 bone for the sides to curve under. The marked angular bend 

 in the neck now disappeared also, and though we see a 

 suggestion of it in the spur shown on Plate 34, it is in a 

 very modified form. The necks were now made much shorter, 

 and, when not curved slightly downwards, were straight, much 

 as they are now. The rowels, too, were much smaller, and usually 

 of many points, and seldom more than three quarters of an 

 inch in diameter. Indeed, the days of rowels of over an inch 

 seem now to have gone by for ever. The advent of the enormously 

 wide " bucket " boot of this period necessitated a very wide spread 

 of spur, and it is no doubt for this reason that we often 

 see spurs of this period with a hinge in the middle of the 

 side. This is shown on Plate 34, Fig. i. I know also 

 of a spur exactly like it, and placed upon a " bucket " boot, 

 on an equestrian figure in the Stibbert Collection at Florence. 

 The other spur of this period, figured on Plate 34, Fig. 2, 

 retains the old curved sides and has a six-pointed rowel, and 

 altogether must have been considered quite an old-fashioned 

 spur at the time. It has an enormous spread of over four and 

 a half inches, in order to go round the big boot of the time. 

 I saw some of a precisely similar pattern in Turin, which had 

 a spread of quite six inches. Both these drawings of Queen 

 Anne spurs were taken from specimens in the collection of 

 Mr. Redfern, of Cambridge. 



After the reign of Queen Anne no very great changes 

 were made in the fashions of spurs. Rowels by degrees were 

 made smaller, and ornament and elaboration became less and 



