126 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book IX. 



Richard James in his " Inter Lancastrense," written in 

 1636. ^^l^^ refers to Wallasey race-course : 



Charles I. ..." Austins voice is true, 



Wal esay Empire condignly was to Romans due. 

 (now Birken- ^ lurj-.j- i-i 



, ,. Uur wayes are gulphs of dirt and mire, which none 



bcarce ever passe in summer withoute moane ; 



Whilst theirs through all y^ world were no lesse free 



Of passadge then y" race of Wallisee, 



Ore broken moores, deepe mosses, lake and fenne, 



Now worcks of Giants deemd, not arte of men." 



The author's comparison of the Roman roads to Wallasey 

 race-course was for the purpose of showing that the former 

 were as clean and unencumbered as such race-courses were 

 when he wrote. 



Sir Richard Gargrave, of Nostal and Kinsley, York- 

 shire, who died in obscurity circa 1635, was identified with 

 all of the evil associations of the Turf His infatuation for 

 gambling was extreme ; so much so, that he soon dissipated 

 the immense estates to which he succeeded in 1605, over 

 which he could ride from Wakefield to Doncaster without 

 deviating an inch off his own land ! His father, Sir Cotton 

 Gargrave, had three sons — John, who died an infant ; Robert, 

 who was slain in Gray's Inn Fields, London, in the lifetime 

 of his father ; and Thomas, his unfortunate successor. By 

 his second wife, Agnes, daughter of Thomas Waterton, Esq., 

 of Walton, Sir Cotton Gargrave had Sir Richard, the subject 

 of this memoir, the destroyer of his family, and other children. 

 When his half-brother. Sir Thomas Gargrave, was executed 

 at York, for poisoning and then baking a boy of his kitchen, 

 in an oven, Sir Thomas claimed and eventually acquired the 

 family estates. In the following year he served the office 

 of sheriff, when his extravagance was of the most lavish 

 description; and it is related of him, that as he rode through the 

 streets of Wakefield, he " bestowed great largesses upon the 

 common people, in congratulation for so wise, peaceful, and 

 religious a king as England then enjoyed." This was a part 

 of that course of extravagance and wanton expense by which 

 he and the family came in a few years to want. He was fond 



