2 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book I. 



Turf in the Dark Ages — Richard II. — Superiority of English horses 

 in the Middle Ages — Celebrated in song and elegy — Their fame at 

 home and abroad — English Turfites on the Continent — Racing at 

 Milan, Florence, Pisa — Disastrous effect of the Civil Wars on the 

 Turf in England in the fifteenth century — The sport abandoned — 

 Dispersion of racing studs — Foreign buyers — Purchases by the Dukes 

 of Ferrara and Mantua^Presents of English horses to the Duke of 

 Ferrara from the Royal Stud at Eltham — The Middle Park in the 

 Middle Ages — Legislation relating to horse breeding, etc. — New- 

 market in the Middle Ages — Famous for displays of equestrian 

 skill — Examples — The Earl of Pembroke — The Earl of Gloucester 

 and Hertford — The Earl of Surrey — Newmarket and the vicinity 

 in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries — The town nearly destroyed 

 by a deluge in 1393 — Royal visit in 1453 — Manorial history of New- 

 market — First mention of the town in 1227 — The Plague at Exning 

 — Alleged removal of the market at Exning to Newmarket — Grant of 

 Henry III. to Richard de Argentine to have an annual fair at New- 

 market — The Lords of the Manor — The Argentines — -The Alingtons 

 — The Butlers — Local events — Bishop Merkes. 



Although the earliest mention of Newmarket* in the 

 counties of Cambridge and Suffolk does not occur 

 until the year a.d. 1227, there is evidence that the 

 vicinity of the Town and Heath was inhabited by the 

 ancient Britons in almost pre-historic times. 



Two British tumuli on the borders of Newmarket 

 Heath were opened in May, 1845, and in the following 

 year an account of the examination of them appeared 

 in the " Archseological Journal" (vol. iii., p. 255), The 

 first one described is in the parish of Bottisham. It is 

 placed on an elevated range of hills, forming an escarp- 

 ment of the chalk, which makes it conspicuous for 

 miles over the flat country around. This position, and 

 the fact that an immense quantity of charcoal was 

 found throughout the composition of this tumulus, 



* Newmarket in Yorkshire occurs in mediaeval documents, but its 

 precise position is unknown. There is a town of the same name in 

 Flintshire, North Wales ; two in Ireland, in Co. Cork and Co. Clare 

 and another in the United States of America. 



