THE SHIRES. 233 



cellent sportsman and pleasant writer, the late Charles Clarke, 

 has traced the name yet farther into ' the dark backward ot 

 time.' ' He has traced it back to one William of Pightesley, 

 who, in Henry the Third's reign, succeeded to the Pstah of 

 one Alwyne the Hunter by a tenure binding him to chase 

 'wolves, foxes, and other vermin.' The 'Pytchley Hunt' of 

 those days seems to have been somewhat oddly composed. 

 There were ' sixteen dogs ' for hunting fallow deer, and the 

 staff consisted of a royal huntsman, ' two horses and three men.' 

 Their appearance could not well have been splendid, at least 

 from a sumptuary point of view. The prince and great nobles 

 of that day went, by all accounts, very gorgeously clad, but 

 their retainers apparently something less so. The leader of 

 Henry the Third's greyhounds, for instance, v»'as allowed only 

 fourpence for his boots and shoes ; ' the winter shoes of the 

 whole establishment of Edward de Blatherwycke (a better name 

 for a member of Parliament than for a sportsman), foxhunter 

 to Edward the First, cost only seven shillings.' Shillings and 

 pennies meant then a great deal more than they do now ; still, 

 even on the most liberal computation, the expenditure could 

 hardly have been reckless. As the Cottesmore is associated 

 with the Lowther family, so the family of Spencer has long been 

 connected with the fortunes of the Pytchley. Lord Althorp 

 hunted the country for many years before his death in 1746, 

 though when his hounds became foxhounds purely is not 

 known. From that year till 1794, the Spencers ruled over the 

 Pytchley, hunting alternately what were then known as the 

 Althorp and Pytchley countries. Nearly all the gentlemen of 

 Northamptonshire hunted then, and when the hounds were at 

 Althorp, all the squires in the neighbourhood kept open house : 

 when the time for Pytchley came, they shut up their houses 

 and with their families followed the hounds to the latter place. 

 The Pytchley Club was as famous then as the Old Club at 

 Melton becanie afterwards, and among its best known members 

 was Assheton Smith's father. Dick Knight was the huntsman, 



1 See Crumbs f7'om a Sportsman's Table, \o\. ii. ch. xiii. 



