42 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book VII. 



Council and Sir Jacob Astley to proceed to New- 

 market and explain to him there, " on Sunday next," 

 why they failed to seize the effects of certain persons 

 who had not paid this unconstitutional impost. To 

 Newmarket the Council went in hot haste, where they 

 waited on the king, and having explained that the 

 procuring of the sinews of war did not form a portion 

 of their duties, they were graciously dismissed and 

 ordered to return to London, with the royal commands 

 to see, on their arrival at Whitehall, that high pressure 

 was used by the ship-money collectors, to obtain the 

 amount necessary to put the Scilly fortification upon 

 an efficient war footing. 



Tradescant says that at this time the bustard " as 

 big as a Turkey " was usually taken by greyhounds 

 on Newmarket Heath.* The Rev. C. A. Smith, in 

 an interesting paper on the Great Bustard, observes — 

 " In 1667 Merrett notices that the bustard was 'taken 

 on Newmarket Heath and about Salisbury'" ("Wilts 

 Mag.," vol. iii., p. 132). 



^^° Sir John Coke, of Hallcourt, county Hereford, Master 

 of Requests, was knighted at Whitehall, by James I., 

 September 9, 1624. As above mentioned, he subsequently 

 became one of the Secretaries of State to Charles I. 



* John Tradescant, a Dutchman, formed a collection of natural rarities 

 and curiosities at South Lambeth, in London, in the seventeenth century. 

 These were catalogued by his son, a distinguished botanist, and pub- 

 lished under the title of '' Museeum Tradescantianum," Lond., 1656, 8vo. 

 By a deed of gift in 1659 the collection passed to his friend Elias 

 Ashmole, Esq., by whom they were presented to the University of Oxford, 

 where they are still preserved in the Ashmolean Museum. John Trades- 

 cant the elder (his son dying before him) died September 11, 1662. 

 Some of the sporting accessories of Henry VIII. are among the collection ; 

 also a specimen of the bustard and the great auk. 



