1670] THE OCTOBER MEETING. 299 



Evelyn and his party then paid a visit to the 

 " stables and line horses, of which," he tells us, " many 

 were here kept at a vast expense, with all the art and 

 tenderness imag-inable ; " and thence proceeding to the 

 Heath, " the way being mostly a sweet turf and down, 

 like Salisbury Plain, the jockeys breathing their fine 

 barbs and racers, and giving them their heats." * 



"When King Charles the lid. came to see the hunting 

 palace which Sir Christopher Wren had built him at New- 

 market, he told him ' he thought the rooms too low.' Sir 

 Christopher, who was a little man, walked round them, and 

 looking up, and about him, said, ' I think, and it please your 

 Majesty, they are high enough.' The King squatted down 

 to his height, and creeping down in this whimsical posture, 

 cried, ' Aye, Sir Christopher, I think they are high enough.' " f 



The autumn m eetingat Newmarket this year took 

 place in the months of September and October. It 

 was attended by the king, queen, the royal September, 

 family, the ministers of state, and all court October, 

 officials. Charles invited the Prince of Orange over, but 

 he did not arrive in time for the races. However, his 

 royal highness was here in the following November, 

 when he spent some time " in hunting and the other 

 recreations of those parts." During his sojourn, all his 

 expenses were defrayed by the king, \ the cost of the 

 Newmarket visit amounting to ^1846 \os. '^\d. 



* The Countess of Castlemaine was created Duchess of Cleveland 

 while at Newmarket during the king's sojourn there. 



t " Richardsoniana : or, Occasional Reflections on the Moral Nature 

 of Man," by Jonathan Richardson, jun., Esq., Lond., 1776, p. 103. 



X Expenses of the journey of the king from Whitehall to Newmarket 

 and back, in September, 1670, ^{^306 1 5^-. 8?.'/., and for October, ^T^o 3.?. A,\d. 



Expenses of the journey of the queen from Whitehall to Audley End 



