Book I.] RICHARD II. 27 



King Richard. Rode he on Barbary ? Tell me, gentle friend, 

 How went he under him ? 



Groom. So proudly as if he had disdain'd the ground. 



King Richard. So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back ! 

 That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand ; 

 This hand hath made him proud with clapping him. 

 Would he not stumble 'i Would he not fall down, 

 (Since pride must have a fall,) and break the neck 

 Of that proud man that did usurp his back ? 

 Forgiveness, horse ! why do I rail on thee, 

 Since thou, created to be awed by man, 

 Wast born to bear .' I was not made a horse ; 

 And yet I bear a burden like an ass, 

 Spur-gall'd, and tired, by jauncing Bolingbroke. 



The groom takes his leave, and soon after Exton arrives 

 and assassinates Richard, who, after a futile effort to defend 

 himself, falls — 



As full of valour, as of royal blood. 



"In the Middle Ages," says Strutt, "there were certain 

 seasons of the year when the nobility indulged themselves in 

 running horses, and especially in the Easter and Whitsuntide 

 holidays. In the old metrical romance of ' Sir Bevis of 

 Southampton,' it is said — 



In former at Whitsontyde, 

 Whan knightes most on horsebacke ride ; 

 A cours, let they make on a daye, 

 Steedes, and Palfraye, for to assaye ; 

 Whiche horse, that best may ren, 

 Three myles the cours was then, 

 Who that might ryde him shoulde 

 Have forty pounds of redy golde. 



" A writer of the seventeenth century tells us that horse- 

 racing, which had formerly been practised at Eastertide, ' was 

 then put down as being contrary to the holiness of the season ; ' 

 but for this prohibition I have no further authority." * 



Strutt mentions that "in the reign of Edward III., run- 

 ning horses purchased for the king's service were generally 

 estimated at twenty marks, or ;^I3 6s. 8d. each; but some 

 few of them were prized as high as twenty-five marks. I 



* " Sports and Pastimes," book i., chap, iii., p. 32. 



