1670.] THE RACES. zox 



The minister to whom these events were com- 

 municated appears to have arrived at Newmarket 

 soon after. Sir Wilham Chetwynd,'^" in a complimen- 

 tary letter to Williamson, regretted not being in 

 London "to welcome your return from Newmarket, 

 where I hear your health was so good, and your Com- 

 plexion so refin'd y* you came back not soe yellow as 

 you went ot by Twenty Ginnys." * 



Sir Charles Lyttleton, writing from Newmarket, 

 October lo, to Lord Hatton, says he can give him no 

 public news, as they talk of nothing there but horses 

 and dogs, upon which topics he is unfortunately uncom- 

 municative, f 



A novel pedestrian affair, against time, is mentioned 

 in the following letter : — 



"Your neighbour [Lord] Digby^^^ did upon a wager of 

 £^o undertake to walk (not run or step) 5 miles on New- 

 market Common in an hour, but he lost it by half a minute, 

 but he had the honour of Good company, the King and all 

 his nobles to attend to see him do it stark naked & barefoot." % 



^^^ Henry Bennet, second son of Sir John Bennet, of 

 Dawley, and Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Crofts, of 

 Saxham, county Suffolk, acted as private secretary to 

 Charles II. during his exile, by whom he was familiarly 

 styled *' Whereas." He was created Baron Arlington by 

 letters patent, dated Westminster, March 14, 1663, Viscount 

 Thetford in the county Norfolk, and Earl OF ARLINGTON, 

 April 20, 1672 ; he was likewise a Knight of the Garter, and 

 Lord Chamberlain to Charles II. He married Isabella, 

 daughter of Louis of Nassau, Lord of Baverwaert, and 

 Count of Nassau, by whom he had an only daughter and 



* State Papers, Dom., bundle 294, No. 62. 

 t " Hatton Correspondence,"' vol. i., p. 57. 

 X Historical MSS. Coss. vii., Rep., p. \Z%b* 



