8o THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book II. 



horses, numbering- in all eighty-six, were at the royal 

 stud at Eltham.* An interesting account of the 

 number and description of the horses, officers of the 

 stable, etc., necessary for a royal progress is given in 

 the Loseley MS., edited by E. J. Kempe, F.S.A. 

 Lond. 1836, pp. 98, 100. 



The career of Henry VIII. is too well known to require 

 any memoir at our hands ; suffice it to mention that he never 

 spared man in his wrath or woman in his lust. 



About the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, 

 Henry VIII. is said to have staked the great bells of St. Paul's 

 against ij'ioo with Sir Miles Partridge upon a cast of dice. 

 The latter won, " and then causing the bells to be broken as 

 they hung, the rest (in the belfry) was pulled down and broken 

 also." t This peal was " the greatest in England," % and 

 deserved a better fate. Partridge was executed on Tower 

 Hill, "for some criminal offences," in the year 1551. 



As we have already seen, Bluff King Hal patronized the 

 Turf, kept a racing establishment, was an importer of Arab 

 blood and of other approved strains of the equine race. He 

 was second son of Henry VII. and Elizabeth, eldest daughter 

 and heir of Edward IV.; succeeded to the throne on the death 

 of his father, April 22, 1509; married and murdered (or 

 divorced) his six wives ; died January 28, 1546-7. 



The Emperor Charles V. sent Edward VI. a pre- 

 sent of '' two most beautiful Spanish horses," which 

 were received in London on March 26, 1550, as 

 mentioned by Bishop Hooper in a letter to Henry 

 Bullinger.§ 



* Archae., vol. iii., pp. I57, I59- 



t Stow's " Survey of the Cities of Lond. and Westminster," by Strype. 

 Lond. 1720, vol. i., book iii., 148 b. 

 X Harl. Miscellany, vol. ii., p. no. 

 § Zurich Letters, iii., 81. 



