154 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book III. 



compared with London, but they are market-towns 

 and great thorowfares ; where the court was so 

 frequently, both for business and recreations, that 

 many of the followers could not find a lodging in 

 that town, nor scarce in the vil]ao;^es round about it. 

 I held acquaintance with some that attended the 

 principal secretaries there, who protest they were 

 held to it closer, and sat up later in those retire- 

 ments to make dispatches than at London. The 

 king went not out with his hounds above three days 

 in the week, and hunting was soon over. Much, of 

 the time his Majesty spent in State contrivances, 

 and at his book. I have stood by his table often, 

 when I was about the age of two and twenty years 

 and from henceforward, and have heard learned pieces 

 read before him at his dinners which I thought strange ; 

 but a chaplain of James Montague, Bishop of Winton, 

 told me that the bishop had read over unto him the 

 four tomes of Cardinal Bellarmine's Controversies at 

 those respites, when his Majesty took fresh air, and 

 weighed the objections and answers of that subtle 

 author, and sent often to the libraries of Cambridge 

 for books to examine his quotations." 



This incident appears to have occurred about the 



much thronged with Buyers, Sellers, and their Horses, from London and 

 all Parts upon the Account of the Barley and Malt Trade. The Market 

 is kept on Wednesday, and the Fairs on June 28, a.r\djnly 25, yearly. It 

 is 33 Miles from London, and lies East of that City. The Cambridge 

 Scholars, at their first coming, take much Notice of a sort of Crows 

 called Royston Crows, having some White about their Breast and Wings, 

 which is not usual in other Countries ; and the Oxonians of a Proverb, 

 viz. A Royston Horse, atid a Cambridge Master of Arts, are two 



Creatures that will turn Head for no man.'''' — Magna Britannia, ed. 



Savoy, 1720, vol. i., p. 238. 



