1632.] HARLESTON. \rj 



of midnight revel, and devoted to play. His excesses in 

 these, were, until recently, the subject of narration in the 

 neighbourhood, at the expiration of two centuries. His 

 attachment to gaming is commemorated in an old painting 

 which was long preserved in the neighbouring mansion of 

 Badsworth, in which he is represented playing at the old 

 game of put, the right hand against the left, for the sake of 

 a cup of ale. By degrees he parted with his many manors. 

 Dodsworth, writing in 1634, says of him that "he now lyveth 

 in the Temple (Alsatia) for sanctuary, having consumed his 

 whole estate, and hath not a penny to maintain himself, but 

 what the purchasers of some part of his lands in reversion 

 after his mother's death allow him, in the hope he will survive 

 his mother, who hath not consented to the sale." In the days 

 of his prosperity he " had horses innumerable at his com- 

 mand," but at last he was reduced to travel with the pack- 

 horses to London, where he was found dead in an old hostelry, 

 with his head upon a pack-saddle. In a contemporary refer- 

 ence to his death he is mentioned as " a great horse-courser." 

 Such was the career of Sir Richard Gargrave, who, like the 

 Earl of Cumberland, in the preceding reign, was a victim of 

 the bad influences of the Turf, without, apparently, having 

 enjoyed any of the pleasurable incidents with which the 

 national sport is surrounded. 



" On the heath, to the south of the town, races were 

 formerly ran. The corporation of Northampton, by deed 

 bearing date 16 Jan., 1632, in consideration of 

 the sum of two hundred pounds paid by William charles I 

 Lord Spencer}^"^ and other gentlemen of the Harieston, 



county, obliged themselves to provide yearly a Northampton- 



shire, 

 gilt Silver cup and cover, of the value of 



^16 13^-. \d., to be ridden for on Thursday in Easter 



Week yearly : with covenant that upon notice given on 



the Friday in the race-week that they will return the said 



money within the year following, then they shall not be tied, so 



are the words of the deed, to provide the said cup any longer." * 



— Bridge's " History of Northamptonshire," vol. i., p. 511. 



* These races maintained a degree of local celebrity for upwards of a 



